Jorge Quinteros

Courts at Sea

I’ve mentioned this in the past and simply to reiterate, I have nothing against HDR. In fact, I respect the technique because when executed correctly, the end result of tone-mapping images has potential to communicate a greater sense of a place more than one single photograph can and despite this, I’ve always avoided embracing it.

Why? Well, because I was afraid I would enjoy it too much to a point where I would completely envelop myself around trying to master the technique which in return it would’ve translated to abandoning the free spirited approach I’ve always had towards photographing. I’m not accustom to hauling a tripod around and being stagnant in one spot making sure my shots were bracketed correctly. A tunnel vision of the HDR process would have eventually set in and given me a false sense of who I am as a photographer. I realize I’m probably exaggerating a bit.

During travels or random outings, I’m not tormented by the idea of dedicating a few minutes to take some bracketed shots but that would always take a backseat to the photojournalist/street photography approach that excites me the most.

Writing as oppose to just photographing for this site has given me a reason to pause and think about trivial stuff like this. Initially, photography was all about the experience and developing an eye for the mundane but ultimately it’s also become about being able to stay consistent with making photographs that I’m happy with and can be recognized for.

I’m not sure if I would recognized this photographs as baring full blown HDR characteristics but the attempt was made using Nik Software HDR Efex Pro. As for the location, it was 6am in the morning and we were sailing somewhere in the Atlantic onboard a Carnival cruise ship.

New York Central

When a photograph appears on a reputable magazine like National Geographic, what’s rarely inaccessible to the reader are the hours or days behind a photographer’s progression to obtain that image. For the most part, we simply see the final product and nothing else.

Had I published this photograph taken at the South Street Seaport without any story behind it, you wouldn’t have known that I took advantage of my day off from work to visit this place specifically and that I was completely disappointed with every shot I took with the exception of this one. The weather was cold, it was windy and the entire day felt like a complete waste of time.

Luckily it’ll take more than a couple bad days of shooting to dissuade me from investing as much time as I do to deciding where else to shoot.

Being a photographer can be a way of feeling more special, even if you know there are billions of people just like you and that’s essentially the mindset that drives me to brush off those days where I wasn’t able to produce anything that I cared enough to share.

Over Priced Food on Boardwalk

To address the elephant in the room, it’s no surprise that I publish a lot of photographs from Coney Island and that’s largely for one reason. This may be a subjective appraisal but time seems to slow down slightly on recurring visits. The slew of new impressions one usually gets when visiting a place for the first time doesn’t happen as much after a while, so you’re almost given more than a few chances to what you didn’t notice the first time around the first time around.

The place is generally the same. I feel I’m what’s different in the overall picture is me the photographer. When a place is new, you have all the choices in the world to photograph anything and which subject you choose doesn’t matter so much, but when you only have a few choices, they become very important.

During this particular visit, I happen to be more attracted to the food stands setup along the boardwalk as oppose to the people who are more than willing to pay for overpriced food.

Chicken & Biscuits in Bushwick

Bushwick is 5 blocks away from where we live and it’s one of those recurring neighborhoods on my list of go-to places not just because of it’s proximity but because the sightseeing experience is as diversified as the people. During routine walks up and down Knickerbocker Ave, I wouldn’t be surprised if local merchants haven’t recognized my habitual exploring already since it’s not difficult to spot a guy walking around aimlessly with bulky dSLR.

90% of what I shoot on the streets is captured using the Nikon 85mm f/1.8. Depending on who you ask, it’s probably not the best lens for street photography because there’s a constant struggle in trying to furtively take the right shot from the right distance as oppose to getting close to your subject with a wide-angle lens where people may not realized you even took a photo of them.

What you choose to shoot will generally dictate which lens to use. I inherently have an attraction for photographing people accompanied with a shallow depth of field but this time around, I switched up my approach because I felt that everything I was capturing lately was fair but definitely not good enough to share. Having not used it for almost this entire year, I installed the 18-105mm f/3.5-f/5.6 kit lens back on the D90 and as a mental refresher, I focused my attention more on the properties around Bushwick as oppose to the usual stuff I would gravitate towards.

For a while, I’ve had this silly thought that if you want to distinguish yourself as a photographer, then you should limit the amount of subjects you photograph and just shoot the type of work that improves and highlights your style and that everything else outside that particular style is irrelevant. Perhaps that’s true but I can’t help think of the endless photographic opportunities I would be denying myself if I didn’t take into account that we photographers are visual people and if something appeals to us, the natural inclination would be to aim, focus and shoot.

This was undeniably the case with the fast food joint of Popeyes on Myrtle Ave in Bushwick. I had no intentions of retaining a photograph of a place I don’t even eat at but it’s setting was alluring enough that I couldn’t resist.

Triboro Bridge in Astoria Park

Some photographers embrace HDR while others completely dismiss the technique as a lower form of art because the results “looks fake.” But perhaps the reason why some shrug off HDR is due to the fact that it’s become difficult to distinguish what’s a great example of it since the web is more inundated with horrible cases of the technique as oppose to fantastic ones like the ones Trey Ratcliff produces.

HDR is just like any other effect. If you overuse it or just don’t apply it tastefully, it’ll surely become as annoying as that hideous sound effect (Auto-Tune) Hip-Hop artist use to enhance their regular voice to something more robotic. Not all projects will necessarily look good in HDR, especially photographs of people since it’s difficult getting the look and feel of the skin right. I find the photographs that were originally intended to be modified into HDR, with thought put into why and how it would enhance the photo are the most compelling ones.

By using the 15-day trial version of HDR Efex Pro from Nik Software, I like to think I was able to bring out the details that were hidden underneath the Triboro Bridge. I did all this from one original RAW image as oppose to 3. I don’t think I would have cared for trying the software had I not been able to employ it via a Lightroom plug-in.

I put myself in the category of people who considers HDR processing perhaps a bit overly dramatic or exaggerated but HDR Efex Pro gives you that ability to either keep that exaggeration or to simply enhance the specific areas that you need help with. Not sure if I could commit to paying the $99 for the plug-in because I believe it’s a style you have to fully relinquish yourself to in order to master. On a side note, from the brief interaction I had using Photomatix, I thought it didn’t come close to how much fancier HDR Efex Pro was to use.