The Washington Post has apparently caused some confusion and consternation regarding a photograph that it posted on their front page on Friday.
The photograph in question is a High Dynamic Range (HDR) photo. HDR photos are indeed composites as the WaPo credit indicated, but the way that all HDR photos are taken is to quickly snap several photos (ranging from 2 or 3 all the way up to something ridiculous like 10+), and then to merge these images.
HDR photography’s entire purpose is due to the fact that a camera’s sensor often can’t capture the full range of light bouncing off a scene in the world into the camera. To compensate for that, taking several images that are targeted at several different ranges within a scene allows one to capture the full range of light, definition and detail in a scene in a single photographic representation.
This allows one to take photographs like this composite of three images I took in Chepstow Castle in Wales:
A single image taken from this vantage point would never be able to capture all three of the dark stairwell, the soft reflection off of the wood, and bright sunlight illuminating the ruins outside. If one were to capture the dark stairwell, the brightly lit exterior would be washed out, and likewise, capturing the brightly lit exterior would leave the stairwell in total darkness.
Similarly, looking at the alternative non-HDR image that the WaPo considered running, you will note the bright reflection of the sun off the side of the bridge smack dab in the middle of the photograph. An HDR image of the same scene could minimize or avoid the eye-catching glare. I can see why they chose to go with the HDR image.
Unfortunately, HDR photography is most often associated with the poor artistic choices many novices will make when testing out their compositing tools, which has resulted in a generally negative sentiment towards the technique (poking around flickr will reveal many odd, questionable, or overly artistic uses of the tool).
In spite of that, there should be no editorial controversy about legitimate uses of HDR. A photograph is simply a representation of a slice in time, captured on a single piece of film or image sensor. That slice of time could be a fraction of a second, or it could be minutes or even hours. An HDR composite is no different. It is a technique that allows a single slice of time to be captured in separate data files and stitched back together.
So, what’s the source of the controversy? My opinion is the use of the word “composite”. “Composite” is an awfully broad term, and one that is fraught with difficulties ranging from intentional deception to more innocent misrepresentations. The vital detail that any editor, journalist, or reader should ask is whether the files being composited are contiguous in time and space (would this even be a controversy if we were discussing a composited panorama?). If the answer is yes, they are contiguous, then, in my opinion, there is little room for misrepresentation. They are parts of a single whole divided into constituent components.
