Experimenting with Technique

On June 1st, I will be starting my own project 365. In following other photographer's 365 projects, the main observation I have made is: While each photographer significantly advances their skills during that time, they also run out of good ideas after about a month or two, thus resorting to the everyday images of flowers etc. It does seem a challenging task to take one good image every day for a full year, and I can see how there can be significant bouts of lack of motivation and creativity.

In order to counter that, I have decided that I will do my 365 with a bit of a different approach. I am currently gathering as many photography techniques as I can come across and think of - so far I have a list of 39! The aim is to come up with a total of 52 techniques, one for each week of project 365. I will then employ each technique every day for a full week, hopefully significantly improving within each technique. At the very least, this will familiarize myself with a vast array of techniques, which will form my photography toolbox. I firmly believe that the more tools I create for myself to draw from, the more varied and creative my photography will become. I usually "see" the final image before my inner eye before I even pick up the camera, and experimenting with these techniques will help me see in terms of techniques as well, not just composition and style.

I have been fascinated with HDR photography for a while now. It is a technique, however, that is not highly regarded by photographers who believe in staying true to the original image. This is since HDR takes (at minimum) 3 images composed at different exposure stops (correct exposure, 1 image stepped up, 1 image stepped down). These images are then merged in photoshop, and tone mapping applied in photomatix. HDR allows for perfect exposure throughout the entire tonal range of the image, which means that foregrounds, backgrounds, shadows, light areas of the image are all perfectly exposed. The amount of tone mapping you apply can result in images that look very true to nature or images that are obviously altered. However, some heavily tone mapped HDRs look like incredible works of art. I am usually a believer of staying true to the original image, but I do think that HDR opens up a very powerful tool for creativity. And that is how I see it, as a creative artform of its own.