New Orleans Street Car - HDR

[Momo]

Wow, I have been away for so long that the forums have exploded beyond the point where I can catch up. I just returned from a week-long trip to New Orleans. (NO) While it was mostly a business trip, I did manage to find lots of time to get out and make some digital imagery. By my last count, I shot over 1300 photographs and a handful of fun videos. I dumped them onto my laptop every night. The city is incredible! If you have never been to NO, then you must put this city on your bucket list! It is a must-see-experience! And, if you venture into the French Quarter as I did, you would be well advised to keep your camera gear safe and close to your body. I carried my bag into the FQ only once and figured that was enough for me. The tripod was out of the question. My friend, who was also attending the business conference, had his cell phone boosted from his front shorts pocket. Now, that takes some skill!

Anyway, one of the images that I walked away with is this street car on Canal Street. They are everywhere and so rich in color and detail. This is actually a hand-held 3 bracket exposure that I royally messed up due to my auto-ISO settings. I somehow managed to fish it out of the garbage though and produce this image. I employed what I suspect may be a brand new sharpening technique. But, I must Google for my technique first before I lay claim to it. LOL I tried sharpening with Nik Software and it just fell flat in comparison with my technique.

Anyway, thanks for looking!

[jeeperman]

I like it Darren, nice colors. Sounds like an interesting trip.

[Mike Buckley]

An absolutely wonderful composition with especially appealing lighting. The image looks more like an artist's rendition to me than a photograph. That's not necessarily good or bad, as it depends on your intentions.

[Momo]

jeeperman - thank you and, yes, it was definitely interesting! We were propositioned by prostitutes, almost peed upon, almost run over by cars more times than I care to count, and verbally accosted by some of the drunk locals. We had a great time! LOL

Mike - thanks... yes, an artist's rendition indeed. That is precisely why I call it "digital imagery" instead of a photograph. I'm making a point to use that description with my HDR work. Standard photographs can be so boring from my perspective. I like rich, vibrant color but not overdone like a lot of really bad HDR. I just want to make images that catch the eye and make you think, "hey, that's kinda neat".

[Mike Buckley]

Now that I understand your goals, Darren, it's clear to me that you accomplished them. However (with tongue in cheek)...

Notice that the street car is perfectly straight even though the poles to the left and the building in the background are leaning fairly seriously to the right. That indicates that the highway is level and everything else isn't, or perhaps the highway is the only part that isn't level. Considering that it's more like an artist's rendition, no respectable artist would mess it up like that.

[Momo]

Nothing in New Orleans is level. For instance, I bought a "grenade" drink (supposedly NO's most powerful) for $8.00 when the sign clearly said $3.50. Yup, handed the guy a ten, he packed it full of ice to "give it some kick" and then proceeded to hand me $2.00 in change for the drink that cost $3.50.

Nope. Nothing is level in NO.

As for the streetcar, who knows which vertical line is correct. In fact, I don't ever recall straightening the image. I ran it through Lightroom to fix some lens distortion and do some minor noise removal. All other processing was done in Photoshop. I got the front right corner of the street car perfectly vertical just by sheer dumb luck.

[Mike Buckley]

I got the front right corner of the street car perfectly vertical just by sheer dumb luck.

I am a self-described expert in this matter and can assure you that that is called proper capture technique, unless perhaps the image was captured after you had that "grenade" drink, in which case you're right that it's sheer dumb luck.