Here’s an experiment from earlier this morning, a difficult shot in a darkish area with lots of shadows, and I took 3 hand held exposures (so the software had to align them.) HDR lets you see what the eye can see and a camera’s single exposure cannot.

Update. After reading Linda’s comment, I thought I’d post the best regular exposure that my camera could take of this image. With many shadows, some areas will be overexposed and some under. This is where HDR (the above image) shines.

One of my fears about all of this is that, although I love my father, I don’t want to turn into him. As a physician, I might understand genetics better than most. I know that many of our thoughts, feelings and behavior are driven by genetic scripts that are more powerful than we generally believe. Add to that the effect of their parental influence when we are young. We model their everything. That leaves less and less room for what we want to believe, that we are sovereign, independent, driven by our own free will. These points are driven home to me when I see not only the physical resemblances to my parents, but also to their mannerisms, emotional makeup, and such. Sure, there are differences. Some of my values clash with theirs. After all, there is the natural rebellion against our parents that is typical of the adolescent transition into our own adulthood, and often results in conflicting views of the world. And we are children of a different time and history. But still…

Well, all of this is much more serious than what I set out to write in the first place. I just don’t want to turn into my father, that’s all. I want to be me. Unique, individual me. So how do I explain my life-long fascination with photography? Let me go back in time a bit.

My father’s father was born at the end of the 1800′s. His having a camera was a remarkable thing. Picture the big boxes covered by a black cloth. Picture glass slides with photo emulsion to capture the effects of light. Picture little gizmos that metered light, something that had to be done before each and every shot, to determine the shutter speed and aperture settings in order to not waste the precious and time consuming products and process. Picture the developments in the camera, the best coming out of Germany. I can remember him hunched over his Rollei, framing his picture on the upside down/inverted image in the large but dim glass viewfinder at the top of the camera. And I can remember his darkroom, where he developed his own film.

Flash forward to my father. For some reason, he felt compelled to also have his own darkroom. He built one in every home he has ever owned, except for the retirement home they just moved into a few years ago. Mind you, my father was a workaholic and rarely, if ever, used any of these darkrooms. He also had a plethora of cameras, lenses, photography gadgets, books, boxes of slides (the oldest are made of a tin like metal), lighting systems, projectors, screens, etc, etc, etc.

So it is not surprising that I had my first camera when I was 8 or 9 years old. I can vividly remember my Kodak Brownie.

It was very simple to use, without the need to adjust settings. You just needed to know that the outdoor light was sufficient, but not too bright. Rolls were easy to install. It had a tiny little viewfinder on the top for portrait shots, and a separate one on the side for landscape shots. It also had a separate flash attachment, a big bulky thing with a huge tin bowl into which you inserted separate one-use-only bulbs. They went off with a cool pop, sometimes a little smoke with a unique odor I can still remember, and sometimes they were a total dud.

I, too, have had a long series of cameras over the years. I totally understand the relationship of light and film, shutter speed/aperture/depth of field, contrast, white balance, etc. I have developed black and white film in a darkroom, and now I use computers for post-processing digital images. I feel a warm, comfortable feeling about cameras. I drool over the latest and greatest. Why? Why do I do this?

My life’s work and life in general have kept me busy doing other things, but more recently my interest in photography has been reborn. It coincided with Gail’s interest in birding. Those two hobbies are a match made in heaven.

So, I think I’m turning into my father and grandfather, sharing their inherited or transmitted values. Maybe I’m not as unique as I think I am. But I’ll at least put my own stamp on it, using the technologies of my own time.

I’m grateful for what I have been given by my parents. I’m proud of them. They’re not perfect. Neither am I. I’m more like them than what I ever expected. And that’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing! A great thing!

I just downloaded a free HDR program for the Mac called HDRtist. So here is my first effort. This first effort is actually a “fake” HDR because I am only using one image for the tone mapping, instead of several. But at least it is an image taken in RAW format, which captures way Way WAY more digital information than a simple jpeg.

Here is a simple jpeg version of a shot I took this past fall. I actually like it:

And here is an HDR version:

I think I like it more. What do you think?

This awesome picture comes from my nephew, Ben, who is an accomplished and creative photographer. He has a wonderful eye! And that is coupled with a wanderlust that has taken him to many unique and out of the way corners of the world.

This shot was taken at his current place of employment, as a scuba instructor in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. If you want to learn how to scuba, this is the place to go!

Great job, Ben!

Lee, I hope this was alright, using someone else’s photo. But I thought it was exceptional, he IS my nephew, and I gave him all the deserved cred!

This is my offering for Sunday Scenery, a cool meme created by my friend, Lee, at Tarheel Ramblings. Check him out. Today he put up an absolutely awesome photo of the Blue Ridge in Boone, NC, in the northwest corner of the state. So I chose a pic I took at the other end of the state, at the Outer Banks around Kitty Hawk.

BTW, as an aside, I had gotten up very early on the morning I took this picture so I could watch the sunrise. I was on a college hunting trip with my son, Kevin, and a few of his friends, and we had stayed up very late the night before. The Best Part was the surprise of finding my son already outside, doing the same thing, waiting to enjoy the sunrise. The “nut” doesn’t fall too far from the tree!

It was wonderful catching up with Kelly in AZ these past few days. I enjoyed meeting her manfriend, Jamen. As a father, it gives me great joy seeing her make the decisions that shape her life. A colorful life. Like the unfolding of a beautiful flower.