Comments on: The Lady Chapel – Anglican Cathedral

By: HiMY SYeD

HiMY SYeD — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 19:07:33 +0000

This is one of those photoblogger pictures that stops me dead in my web surfing tracks and need to type something to note the WOW you created here.

WOW.

By: m i c k e s

m i c k e s — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:05:25 +0000

Congrats to an amazing pic, i think you have done a awesome job with this one. I can see it must have been difficult.

By: Pete

Pete — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:25:36 +0000

@Glyn – None of my HDR work is illustrative. I’m a photographer. I have one aim and that is to show people what I saw. What *I* saw. I saw this. Amazing architecture. I want people to feel 1 foot tall as I do when I walk into places like these. Its just so overpowering and no-one does this anymore. Its incredible that some of the most amazing buildings have been made simply to praise God.

So as this image has been processed further in both Lightroom and Photoshop, can you tell me why the HDR stands out as the bad point? Assuming you can tell the HDR from all the other adjustments I made.

By the way I get these comments on Flickr too. Its not all “Nice shot.”

By: Glyn

Glyn — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:04:51 +0000

Hiya Pete,

Thanks for your reply. OK age and darkness aside, which has to be an assumption from any viewer not knowing the place, it still looks like a drawn illustration, not a human visual experience, it just looks totally unnatural and therefore I can find no human emotional response for it, sorry. It’s not even an anti HDR thing as I am sure there are clever and subtle uses for the process, as seen in some of your other images. I hope that as a fellow professional you will appreciate I am not knocking this for the hell of it, but I find sycophantic comments, (aka Flickr) really hard to stomach. I REALLY enjoy both some of your illustrative HDR, and non HDR stuff, but nevertheless find so much HDR soulless, clever but without spirit. This image will illustrate the form and function superbly from an architectural perspective, but still lacks all atmosphere (for me at least). Respectfully nevertheless, Glyn

By: Pete

Pete — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:49:27 +0000

@Glyn – The light isn’t really low. As you can see the ceiling is well lit and there are huge windows. The issue is the variety of colour. Orange lit ceiling and blue light from the windows. You label something as HDR and its always going to be to blame. By the way, this building was completed in 1978. There are older office blocks in Liverpool.

By: Glyn

Glyn — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 23:39:17 +0000

As a technical illustration it looks great Pete, but unless I simply dosh out platitudes, the HDR effect is too obvious and lacks all feeling and atmosphere of old religious buildings. As you say, it was hard to photograph, almost certainly because of low light, so the HDR has killed it for me. Your snow shots OTOH were totally awesome with the technique!

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:23:53 +0000

Stunning shot.

By: Abhijit Dharmadhikari

Abhijit Dharmadhikari — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:59:11 +0000

Lovely perspective!

By: Pete

Pete — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 13:02:01 +0000

I tried a b&w but I found that it swallowed the image up. It was too hard to really see things. At least this way they’re colour coded.

By: Matt Thomas

Matt Thomas — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:56:28 +0000

Jeesh that looks difficult, I probably would of lost my temper with it and converted to B&W. Nice job.