While I could sit here and grill you to figure out what sorts of abstract art without clear meaning (including absolute music) are really art, that’s not really the point of this gallery.

HDR photography is a TECHNIQUE which many of us are learning in the hope of creating more expressive images. The images posted here are intended to be studies in what HDR can do, and I don’t think that the person that collected this gallery meant it as anything more – these photos are “stunning”, not earth-changing.

Perhaps you wish to say that because HDR photography requires several exposures separated in time, it is limited in its range of artistic expression because it is not well suited to catch humans in motion, but every medium and technique has limitations. This is why both music and painting are art.

So my question really is, to you and to the other contributors to this thread, what can one do to better harness HDR to create great art? What does it do well, where does it really help? (Where does it fall short?) Is there a shot you wish you could have used it for at some time in the past? What would it have done for that shot?

The nature of digital photography means that there will always be many more photo enthusiasts than great photographic artists. Constructive criticism will help more photographers become better artists, but destructive criticism will do just the opposite, but at the end of the day you cannot stop the spread of a technology, because technology is just a form of knowledge.

–Stephen

Me:
This statement is very true… for you. But to state it so “matter of fact” without taking in account for all that may be viewing it would be a very brash remark.

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Linda:
These are all photographs of nothing, that say nothing to the viewer.

Me:
Again, very brash. Have you spoken with every viewer? And even more important, have you spoke with every viewer that will be arriving to look at them? I can’t see how one person can make a blanket statement that covers such a wide group of people, especially when dealing with the subject of art.

Art, in my opinion, has no boundaries. As long as the creator finds meaning, peace, solitude or anything else in a piece, then how can someone state that it isn’t art. If others find something in that piece also, then great. But no where that I’m aware of does it state that art must be popular or appeasing to all, or even the majority.

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Linda:
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.

Me:
Much better worded, at least it was done with “I-Statements” rather than generalized statements that seem to speak for everyone as a whole.

And personally, I don’t find meaning in everything that is labeled as art, but I guess that is where personal taste comes from and why we have so many different styles of art in the world.

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Linda:
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.

Me:
The purpose of art? Hmm, my opinion on the purpose of art; to evoke feeling. Now whether that feeling resides only in the creator or floods the entire population with earth-shattering emotion, to me, makes no difference.

I doubt anyone would accuse Ansel Adams of not being an artist in his own chosen media. But I challenge anyone to prove that everyone is touched by his work and that his photos have given everyone the feeling you described as “a glimpse of our own souls and the soul of the creator of the work” because I am pretty sure that I can find a few folks that would look at his art as blah, boring and just another photograph instead of art.

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Linda:
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.

Me:
Was a human needed? I say yes, as it was the human that composed and photographed the original images. A human had to see the shot, set up the shot, take the shot. And yes, a human had to guide the computer to process the shot, as I’m sure they made adjustments to the process until it became what they envisioned as a final piece.

There are many art pieces that are greatly aided by “non-human” interfaces. Take music for example. There are many musical artists out there that create their art through the use of computers, some of which are completely created by one person and computer programs where not a single physical musical instrument was ever present (besides when the computer program was originally created). Should we be so bold to state that music created that way is not art? I would imagine there are many out there that would disagree if we did. And I would also imagine that the music created in that fashion has touched at least one person in the world.

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Me:
I’m sorry if this post is entirely directed towards Linda, but it seems that she has the strongest opinion about what is and isn’t art. And the blanket statement of what is and isn’t art, doesn’t help to encourage creativity, in any form, but rather encourages conformity within a community that is built on creating what one individual sees and sharing with all who wishes to view it, whether it be just the artist or the entire world.

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Thanks.

As for the photos above, the bike looks awesome as does the ship on dry land. The others look very nice but too “unnatural” for my taste.

I’m a photographer but I only do “industrial” photography and nothing “artistic” at all. So, *if* I was a photo snob, I *could* say that NONE of those photos are worthwhile since they are all altered to some degree. In my line of work, if I alter one of my photographs even slightly, my “art” would become worthless.

The smoke (they’re not clouds) in that prairie fire is also beautiful.