Photography by Mike Baker » Where is my mind?

Driving back to the ferry from Tobermory, I spied these old weather-beaten boats on the beach.

This bus stop sits, abandoned, inside a disused psychiatric hospital. Just after a rain shower, the site was incredibly quiet and still, and the sky brought an added sense of foreboding and drama.

I had wanted to take an HDR photo, but didn’t have my tripod, so the resulting exposures were impossible to align properly. I exposed the RAW at -2, -1, 0, 1 and 2 EV, then used Photomatix Pro to combine them and tone map to bring out the sky.

City Hall, London. My first venture into the world of High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography.

I took three exposures (1 stop difference), hand-held, leaning against a wall, so I was pretty happy with the alignment of the shots. I’ve since had advice that to get the best HDR shots, a range of 5 stops is recommended, so I will try that (with a tripod) soon.

I’ve used Photomatix Pro to combine the exposures and tone map them (I haven’t figured out how to tone-map in Photoshop). I was so impressed by the ease with which I could do the tone-mapping in the Photomatix Pro demo, that I bought a copy!

I’ll write a bit about HDR photography and Photomatix Pro soon.