Ploafmaster General

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HDR = Horrible, Dopey, Ridiculous

There are trends everywhere in creative fields. Brown and light-blue clothes. Chipotle chilis or truffle oil in food. Reflections in web graphics.

There's also crappy creative output in these fields. Trashy romance novels. Kenny G. Soap Operas.

Tonight I'm a little heated about a collision of the trendy and crappy in the photographic landscape: High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. These images are actually composites of multiple exposures of the same scene which, when done well, can provide gorgeously detailed pictures.

Abused, however, we see work that gags me with thoughts of Thomas Kinkade. Blown-out and garish colors, strange exposures, and unpleasant artifacts around areas with large differences in brightness (such as where a building's roof meets the sky) detract from what are in some cases decent photographs.

I sure hope this fades away in short order.