Thrice Exposed

BEHOLD! Below are, what I think, some pretty gnarly first attempts at High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography. What IS HDR photography? Well I had no idea until a few days ago. Actually ever since I stumbled upon the photo/travel blog of this guy named Trey Ratcliff (http://www.stuckincustoms.com), I have been semi-obsessed with this image style. Ok, so again, what is HDR? Well as I understand it, it is essentially the merging of the same image taken at various different levels of exposure (typically 3-5 photos taken at 1-2 exposure values apart per picture). I hear some people don't like HDR photos but who cares. Some of these images turned out awesome, I think! I tried to adjust the images in Lightroom 4 and Photomatix Pro (two highly recommended software programs) in as subtle a way as possible, but still getting that HDR effect. This is my first attempt at HDR, so hopefully future iterations will be even gnarlierest.

Since I'm starting to become more accustomed to using this dSLR (Nikon d5100) hopefully this week I can start doing gear reviews. The photos below are more or less random things I either saw while walking around the Old Town, Alexandria waterfront, standing on my porch, or hanging out with my loyal steeds (Kodiak and Iron Horse).

*Metadata included in caption

Staring into the face of the Beast - KODIAK (ISO 500; 20mm; f/5.6; 1/160)

Scoot! - Bike I saw on way back from shooting sunrise timelapse (ISO 320; 20mm; f/3.8; 1/80)

"One if by land, two if by sea" - Lantern on my porch (ISO 320; 20mm; f/3.8; 1/80)

We'll call the dog Indiana - Iron Horse (ISO 500; 18mm; f/5.6; 1/160)

Who wants a handlebar ride?! (ISO 500; 18mm; f/3.5; 1/320)

The Steeds (ISO 500; 38mm; f/5; 1/80)