Balaji’s Blog

When you absolutely positively know it has gone mainstream

The “It” in the title refers to a couple of different photographic techniques – namely, HDR and “Strobist“.

Now, one might argue that HDR has been mainstream for quite some time now. Witness for instance, the incredible abuse of this technique by perusing the “hdr” tag on Flickr, or even worse “hdr+kittens“.

By mainstream here though, I’m referring to the use of these techniques in the print media. Which surprisingly enough I found examples of both techniques in a single issue of a magazine.

The magazine issue in question, is the Time magazine with the cover story on Princess Diana.

An editorial article on India’s newly globalizing companies carries with it a shot of the Tata Automobile assembly line. The shot has the unmistakable “feel” of a HDR shot – extreme amounts of detail; and very high colour saturation. Now it’s possible I’ve misread this : the subject matter really is not very suitable for HDR – there would too much movement when bracketing the shot needed for the HDR; the extreme range of exposure can be achieved through curves and so on. But still, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck etc.

The final page of the issue carries an article on the growing role of China in African matters. The accompanying photo is of an African Union soldier. Again, looking at the photo, it becomes clear that a second flash fired from low and to the side of the soldier, has been used. This is classic “strobist” technique.

So, now that HDR and Strobist have sold out – I wonder what the next big technique will be?

This entry was posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2007 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Play. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.