A great way to drive traffic to your site and get your name out there, is making lists on other websites.  Noticing a jump in traffic on a particular image on my Flickr account, I found that one of the HDR images I created made it onto such a list.  At first I was excited, until I started reading some of the comments.

First, many thanks to the person behind listing me on DigitalPictureZone.com list of 25 Truly Stunning HDR Pictures.  Second, I couldn’t help but want to vomit after reading some of the inane comments from the “experts” who also read that site.

All it takes is reading through some of the comments to realize that there is a large group of people out there who continually wear underwear that is at least 4 times smaller than they should.  The restrictive effect on their lower region has obviously had a negative effect. What some of these people are overlooking would be the main reason that drives me to create and try new things: I simply enjoy doing it.

Did they ever stop to consider that every image uploaded to someone’s website or Flickr account was not meant to be a museum ready masterpiece but perhaps something that was tried out of fun or someone getting a handle on a technique that they have never really tried before?

Here is my personal favorite quote:

These are very pretty, but they hold no real interest other than that they are massively over-worked in Photoshop. In that respect, I commend the creators for their technical prowess, but these images are not really art.

These are all photographs of nothing, that say nothing to the viewer. I didn’t learn anything new about myself or humanity from them, and I was left emotionally unmoved by them. The only thing I felt was disappointment, that I was being asked to wade through a collection of overt cliches or snapshots. It took me less than a minute to scan these images. Many of them are so familiar now that I wonder if these haven’t been swiped from some other site.

I don’t mean to slam this, but the purpose of art is to take us somewhere beyond our everyday experience, such that we get a glimpse of our own souls and the soul of the creator of the work. Technical prowess may help, but it is no substitute for true creativity.

This is the acid test: was a human really required to produce these images, or could they have been produced by a computer program? Art is not art if the human behind the work cannot be detected, or could have been eliminated. Human art reveals the uniqueness of the artist and the way they perceive their subject. True art is a singular, unforgettable act of creation which no computer can possibly produce or emulate.

Show me that please.

I am not really sure where to start with the above quote, except to say that perhaps this person should not even be sitting in front of a computer browsing the web.  There are plenty of photographs and art that I take in on a daily basis and I admit that not a lot of them “take me somewhere beyond my everyday experience giving me a glimpse into my own soul”.  With that said, I also understand that there are a lot of people out there who simply enjoy being behind a camera or in front of the screen tinkering around.

“Many of them are so familiar now that I wonder if these haven’t been swiped from some other site.”

That comment stinks of ignorance and I won’t even touch it.

From my perspective, the final image of mine would not even be considered a true photograph due to the amount of post-process work done to it.  That is not something I am attempting to hide and have no troubles admitting that I put work into the photo.  Often times, the photograph is only part of the creative process for me.  The other portion is meant to be spent in Photoshop.  I enjoy both taking the picture and then working it.  That is what I enjoy.  So those that are stuck on “getting the shot correct in the camera”

Here are some other gems…

Stunning as they may be, only the one with the canoes is HDR done right, the rest just look like a set of filters slapped on, but the canoe one is excellent.
I would like to know which filters you can “slap on” to create such effects.  Before actually trying to take the right shots with my camera, I looked around for free plugins and actions that I could use which would create the HDR effect on one of my images.  Nothing really came close to what I wanted so I broke out a book I own about my D80 and read up on how to actually take that type of shot.  I then went out one weekend, took the shots, and then came back to work on them.  I did not just “slap on a set of filters” to create my image and to say so, shows the true lack of understanding of what goes into creating the images.

HDR is only an effective tool when you can’t tell that its HDR.
Chicken tastes great as long as you cannot tell it is chicken.  What kind of mental lapse goes into a comment like that?  People that “know everything about photography” really drain the enjoyment from the creative process sometimes.

The HDR thing is much too over done these days. It looks fake and plastic and shows no appreciation for getting the shot technically right in the camera.
Another pearl of wisdom.  If anyone has truly tried their hand at HDR they will tell you it is all about getting the shot technically right in the camera.  They will also tell you that is it damn near impossible to take a single shot in your camera and have it anywhere close to what HDR can do.  I will not argue the technique being overdone, except, I would ask what technique has not been used these days?  If someone wants to try it because they have never done so before, no need to nail them to a cross because you claim to be too good to look at the photos.

To be honest, this is NOT HDR it is a Photoshop filter from Topaz-labs that works with exposure…
To be honest, you have no clue what you are talking about.  I setup my camera on a tripod and took several exposures.  I then merged them into Photomatix and used their tone mapping options to get the image where I wanted.  Since HDR to me can take on more of a fantasy role, which is what I wanted with my image, I pushed it further by bringing it into Photoshop for additional processing, such as the gradient on the sky.  All was done with a cheap filter.

I see a lot of images on a daily basis and if I do not personally care for them, I simply keep moving right along.  I do not take the time to pause and bash the artists work because I do not care for it.  Perhaps that image meant something to them personally?  Perhaps that the creator learned something new during that creative process which would enhance their future work?  Who knows?  I do know that it borders on mental retardation to read some of the comments I read about HDR.

There was a quote, however, that seemed to sum it all up quite nicely:

If your expectations for every photo require you to have a meaningful transcendental experience while viewing, you must lead a awfully depressing life. None of these were touted as such, just appreciate them as pretty pictures.