What One See's vs Reality

I have recently taken up HDR photography! It has opened up a whole new world to me as far as how I approach taking a shot and how I go about framing the pic and even what and how I shoot it. HDR or High Dynamic Range is a post-processing of taking either one image or a series of images, combining them, and adjusting the contrast ratios to do things that are virtually impossible with a single aperture and shutter speed.
To help put it in laymen’s terms, you might consider that the way the human brain keeps track of imagery is not the same way your computer keeps track of picture files. There is not one aperture, shutter speed, etc. In fact, have you ever noticed that sometimes when you are in a beautiful place or with special people and you take photos —when you get back and show them to people you have to say, “Well, you really had to be there?” Even great photographers with amazing cameras can only very rarely grab the scene exactly as they saw it. Cameras, by their basic-machine-nature, are very good at capturing “images”, lines, shadows, shapes — but they are not good at capturing a scene the way the mind remembers and maps it. When you are actually there on the scene, your eye travels back and forth, letting in more light in some areas, less light in others and you create a “patchwork-quilt” of the scene. Well HDR gets us one step closer to seeing what the eye saw.

Essentially what one does is take batch photography, or in other words one takes multiple takes of the same shot but adjusting the aperture between each shot and then combines them all taking the best lighting for each portion of the pic and leaving the bad portions out. While this sounds very complicated it is actually not that hard with today’s DSLR cameras and Photo editing software. Most digital SLR cameras have what is called automatic bracketing options available. This is a setting that will allow you to set up your shot and then only have to push the button once and the camera will take either 3-5 shots depending on the camera and adjust the aperture between each shot automatically. Then there are various software programs that will combine the three and keep the best lighting for each portion of the shot.

Notice in the shot above the richness of the color and lighting in every portion of the shot. Now look at the shot immediately below at the same shot taken with the camera in automatic setting. You can immediately see that the detail in the clouds is washed out as is the detail in the stones the church is made of. The lighting on the people and the buildings all the way down the street are muted as well because the aperture was automatically set for the best option for dealing with the way the light hit each element in the shot and thus leaves us with a muted version of reality so as to grab all of the scene. The shot above however consist of multiple shots of the same scene with the camera adjusting aperture between each take so as to grab the detail and best lighting for each part of the scene. Then once combined it gives us a much richer and more accurate shot of what the human eye saw because the eye adjusted for each part of the scene on its own.

In many ways life can be similar. What one see’s and what really is can often be two totally different things. Understanding this truth is ever more important these days. The culture in which we find ourselves today is completely immersed and blinded by relativity. In other words in the U.S. and much of the western world TRUTH is not seen as an absolute anymore, rather most people you talk to would say that TRUTH is different in every given situation depending on the individual circumstances. Unfortunately this philosophy has even crept into the mindset of the church these days.

This week I read an article by Alice Park written for Time magazine, you can read it in it’s entirety at: http//news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100412/hl_time/08599198101900

In this article there are claims made about a study conducted by Tulane University that suggest that spanking leads to more aggressive behavior and of course the American Academy of Pediatrics jumped all over it to say that they do not endorse spanking for any reason and were so excited to have evidence to support their views. Some of the results of the study were that children who were spanked were more likely to be aggressive. The reason that the author of the study gave was that "spanking instills fear rather than understanding. Even if a child were to stop his screaming tantrum when spanked, that doesn't mean he understands why he shouldn't be acting out in the first place."

So at first glace I guess we should quit spanking our children and turn to timeouts unless we want to continue being a abusive society that instills fear in our kids!

Or wait! Is fear always a bad thing? Is Aggression always bad? Maybe rather than painting the truth about the topic with such a broad brush after reading one study would be like taking a pic in automatic. Perhaps there is so much more going on that if we are not careful we will miss unless we take into consideration everything and look at the whole scene in the best light available.

In fact in Deuteronomy chapter 6 it tells us not once, not twice but three times to "Fear The Lord." In fact in verse two after telling us to observe the decrees of the Lord, it tells us "so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live ... so you may enjoy long life." God is not just a loving, compassionate God. He is the Lord our God and we should fear Him with respect as such and pass that fear down to the younger generations. No where in the Bible does it say that we need to understand God in order to have to obey Him. That His desires are only applicable to us when we come to an understanding of them and then chose to do them. When we disobey God sometimes there is no time out or second chances. A healthy respect and fear of the Lord is His desire and it is His desire that we pass that respect and fear down to our children. Proverbs 13:24 states that "he who spares the rod hates his child, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him." Other scriptures that allude to the rod could be II Sam. 7:14, Job 9:34, Psalm 89:32 all of which allude to God using the rod on the disobedient. The only way they could understand this metaphor is if they had been spanked as children. Finally Psalm 23:4 we see David consider the rod not just as an instrument of instruction but he finds comfort in the rod of God. the lesson to be gleaned here is that often during the punishment we do not like or understand it but after when we look back on it we see care, love, concern and it brings comfort. I see many a teenager that wasn't disciplined as a child and they act out because ultimately they feel unloved. Their parents didn't care enough to be involved in raising them right and when they look back that is what the teen sees.

Before we throw the baby out with the bath water we need to take a closer look at everything.

what i might have considered a mediocre photo in the past might have great potential when worked right.

For more on HDR photography go to:

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/hdr-tutorial/