>>Cliff: So good afternoon everyone. I'd like
to welcome you to another outstanding authors
at Google talk. Today we're very pleased to
host Trey Ratcliff, who is a famous travel
photographer and the publisher of the well-known
blog stuckincustoms.com which is, of course,
on my list of Websites to visit every day.
There's always an awesome image there.
Trey's one of the, he's one of the pioneers
of the HDR method of photography and he's
one of the main popularizers of the movement.
And so, the technique aims to make photography
fall more in line with what the human eye
sees in terms of capturing the dynamic range
in a single image. And the technique has really
taken off quite a bit. Trey's work is, was
the first HDR photograph to be exhibited in
the Smithsonian Institution.
He recently released a book that details the
practice and method of HDR photography. Many
of you have it in front of you. It's called
A World in HDR, and he'll be able to sign
some copies after the end of our talk today.
And of course, we here at Google are really
passionate about photography, whether it's
through our Google Photo Club we have here,
or the work that we do organizing and making
universally accessible the pictures of the
world ? whether it's through Picasa or through
our partnerships with Panamarina and the Gigapixel
program. So we'll also have a Q & A mic at
the end of the talk for any questions you
may have; and please use the mic for our YouTube
audience.
And then please join me in welcoming Trey
as he discusses the surprising art and science
of HDR photography. Thank you.
[applause]
>>Trey Ratcliff: Thank you very much.
Hi y'all. Um, I am very excited to be here.
My name is Trey Ratcliff. I'll be talking
about the unexpected science and art of HDR
photography.
So, you know, I gotta tell you, I am totally
excited to be here. I'm, at Google. You know
it's cool. It's cool to be a geek now, isn't
it? It didn't used to be cool to be a geek
when I was in high school. Believe me it wasn't
cool at all. But now it's alright. And also,
another reason that I'm happy to be here and
share this stuff with you, is you know, you
guys Google as a team, you've done so much
for me and my family over the past few years.
You've really changed my life. You have. And
it's been wonderful. And so I'm happy to share
this back with you and with everybody watching
it at home or at work, when they're supposed
to be working or whatever.
Everyone's been very supportive. I was stuck
in customs and I'm very happy to give back.
I love HDR photography. And I think by the
end of this, you will love it as much as I
do. So let's get started.
So yes, HDR is very controversial. There's
a lot of old school photographers that just
think HDR is the devil incarnate. And, of
course, I don't agree with that. You guys
are all adults, you're grownups, you can look
at this and decide for yourself what you think
of it.
This is an HDR photo. HDR is an acronym for
High Dynamic Range. And in short, what it
does is it allows you to capture in a final
image the same thing that you can see when
you're actually there on the scene.
This is accomplished in a variety of ways.
Normally it's done by taking multiple photos
of a scene. But it can also be done with a
single raw photo as well. Like Cliff was mentioning,
this is sort of HDR's entree into the mainstream.
This is the first HDR photo to hang in the
Smithsonian. This is of Austin, Texas where
I live. This made my Mom very proud when that
happened. And I think it's beautiful. This
is how I remember these things.
This is a non-HDR photo. I'll show you the
HDR version in a minute. This ran in the New
York Times. A gentleman named John Tierney
has a blog there called "Tierney Labs." I
suggest you guys go read it if you're into
science and whatnot. It's a great science
blog. And he asked readers of the New York
Times, what's more realistic this or the HDR
version? And there was a healthy debate on
there as you'd expect.
But this actually gives me a good occasion
to describe what HDR is. This is a normal
photo taken with a normal camera. Actually
I took this with a really expensive Nikon
camera. A D3X, like a $9,000 camera. And this
is about the best you can do without setting
up lights and soft boxes and all that mess.
Who really has the time for that? That's a
lot of effort, right? Who travels with all
that stuff anyway? And this isn't what I see
when I'm there.
When I'm there, I see this. This is what I
see. I can see all the individual puzzle pieces.
I can see all the detail outside. I can see
the warmth of the wood grain. It all makes
sense to me. It's natural. Your eye scans
around and sees all of this stuff. Now the
way this is accomplished is you normally take
multiple photos of the same scene: a dark
one; a normal one; and a bright one. And then
HDR is an algorithm, right, that runs across
this photo. It does pixel by pixel and it
picks out the best pixel from the various
images based on some setting and uses that.
So it's different than compositing, it actually
happens on a pixel by pixel level. And it's
actually quite analogous to what the human
eye does. It scans a scene. You know your
eye doesn't operate like a camera; you don't
capture a jpeg and store it in your brain.
You build this patchwork quilt. This neural
network of the scene.
This is a very good example of something that
only HDR photography can accomplish. You know
you guys been in these situations where you
look maybe not right into the sun, but you
look towards the sun and you can still see
the golden fields, you can still see the blue
sky, the clouds, it just makes sense. And
the only way to get something like this, is
really with HDR photography. And I think it
comes out beautiful and it makes sense. And
it feels right.
[pause]
This is a remote bamboo forest in Japan and
it was kind of misty that day, and there was
just a nice feeling in there. You know when
you see this you think, is that a photo, what
is that? If you can release what you know
of as a photo, something new can enter your
world. Right, it feels right. It feels like
more than a photo. Because when I was there
it felt like more than a place. It was a wonderful
experience. And I think by using some of these
new techniques, you can eventuate what it
actually felt like to be there.
[pause]
This is the Taj Mahal in India, of course.
Um, a beautiful place and so many times when
you, you know you don't have to travel to
exotic locations to do HDR photography. That's
just sort of an excuse. You can do beautiful
HDR work anywhere. But when you are in these
places that move you, right. Whether it's
a great architectural location or someplace
that just means something to you, you might
notice that you come back with photos and
you show photos to people and you say "well,
you had to be there." Right. That's, that's
an awful thing to say. It's 2010. You don't
have to say that anymore. Now there's technology
and algorithms and software that can eventuate
in the final picture; what you actually experienced
when you were on the scene.
I had wonderful feelings when I was here.
I set up on a tripod to take this shot. It
wasn't quite low enough so I, I had to take
the Nikon off the tripod and bury it in the
mud right by the. I hated doing it. It was
painful and I went back to the hotel room
and I made up all night and I cleaned it in
the hotel and made sure it was all clean and
I felt horrible for my Nikon, but it forgave
me eventually. I think it came out very nice.
Uh, this is another part of the Taj Mahal.
Now I, I mentioned earlier that you take an
HDR photo by taking multiple original photos
and combining them. Well you don't always
have to do that. You can also do it with just
one raw photo. That one raw photo contains
a lot of light information. I refer to it
sometimes as a cube of light. And you can
pull out amazing tones and detail within that.
[pause]
This is a beautiful treetop temple in Kyoto,
Japan. And this was a multi-exposure shot
and the quick exposure got all of the light
inside of the temple. The warmth. The long
exposure got these little fire lights down
there. These little Ewok villages or whatever
they are. It just, it feels nice, right? And
this is what I felt when I was there.
[pause]
This is a temple in northern India in Agra
and, um, I'd set up for a normal HDR shot,
multiple exposures and then this Muslim woman
started gliding through this temple. And I
quickly made some adjustments to the settings
'cause I was gonna capture her as a single
raw HDR. And at times like this you, you can't
over think the aperture and the iso and all
these numbers. You'll just, by the time you
figure all that stuff out, you know, you're,
the moment's passed. So you have to be a little
bit like Luke and turn off the targeting computer.
[laughter] And just let it flow. Right? And
that's when you're really taking photos and
really experiencing the world.
[pause]
This is the Perito Moreno glacier in southern
Argentina. In Lago, Argentina. These places
are wonderful subjects for HDR photography.
All landscape is. If you're into landscape
photography, and you've been doing it for
a long time, this is a great excuse to go
out and redo it all. Because now you can capture
everything as you originally saw it. If you
see those dark bits of blue, those are icebergs
that have turned over. And that's the clearness
underneath.
[pause]
Um, this is Chicago. Um, this is another good
example of an HDR taken from a single raw
photo. Um, I have this great fan and friend
there that, she rented a helicopter for me
for four hours. And we took the door off and
I hung out shooting the sunset for four hours.
It was awesome. And I sent out a Tweet on
the way up and, the doors helicopter, the
doors off and made my Mom very nervous. It
makes me wonder, why do we invite our Mom's
to Twitter and Facebook and everything. What
are we thinkin'? Um, but everything turned
out okay. And this ended bein' a pretty good
shot.
[pause]
Ah, here's another wonderful example of HDR.
You know you guys have been places like this
where it's, this is Montana. It's cold outside;
night is falling; there's wildlife around.
You see a warm, cozy cabin. There's a fire
inside. There's hot food. There's nice people.
You just wanna go inside, but you kinda want
to take your time and appreciate it as you
go in.
I think HDR helps to tell that story. It feels
right to me. This is what I see; what I experience.
And I can teach everyone in this room and
everyone watching at home how to do this stuff.
I've taught tens of thousands of people around
the world how to do it. People just like you:
beginner; intermediate; advanced; you're an
old pro trying to learn new tricks. Within
an hour you can be up and runnin' with this
stuff. Um, stuckincustoms.com I have an HDR
tutorial. It's free. And you'll have a great
time doing it. That's one of the dirty secrets
of HDR. It's totally fun. And at the end of
that hour, you're gonna have something that
you can show your friends, your family. You'll
impress all of 'em. And most importantly you'll
impress yourself. Right? That's why we do
this stuff to, so that you're interesting
to yourself. That's why you continue education
after you're outta college. Not so that you're
interesting to other people, that's you know,
that's bs. You want to be interesting to yourself.
'Cause you're the central character in your
story.
[pause]
Um, this is a tip of my hat to Google Earth.
I love Google Earth and I sometimes envision
myself sort of like this old world explorer
that would span maps out on the table and
mark places I want to go. I do it all with
Google Earth now. I find these remarkable
places that I really wanna go get there.
Um, this is at the very southern tip of Patagonia.
And I was tryin' to get over that hill closer
to those mountains. But actually when you
get there you think "oh my gosh, how do I
even get over, that looked so easy on Google
Earth." Um, [laughs] and so it's a problem.
So this night we couldn't make it; night was
falling and, ah, but even when things don't
go according to plan, you can still find a
way to make a great shot. There's still beautiful
things all around. So, I went back that night.
I was actually there with these five Russians.
My tent mate was this 300 pound guy named,
Uri, and he was just the worst tent mate.
He smelled like the inside of a tom-tom and
he was just the worst.
And the next morning we woke up at dark a.m.
and it was me and this other guy who is ex-Soviet
military. Super tough guy. And we climbed
up thousands of feet very, very quickly up
this icy, sketchy trail. We went over a mountain
trying to get to where we wanted to go, and
we eventually got this place. And it was perfect.
Just lovely.
And again, this is the only kind of thing
that can be accomplished with HDR photography.
Because if I was to expose just for the sky
and the mountain, then the snow would have
been almost pitch black. And it wasn't pitch
black. It had a nice blue glow to it. And
those little footprints there where I walked
over, I got on all fours and drank out of
the water like a horse. It was, it was really
nice. It's a nice experience. And that, that
line you see, that's the mountain that I had
just come over. It was casting a shadow. Kind
of made a nice horizon there.
[pause]
Let's talk a little bit about the brain. Um,
not until you trick your brain do you start
to realize all the things it's doing for you.
I love this cube. This is from this German
researcher named Moloto. And this cube alone
makes the case for HDR. Do you see the brown
square on top and the yellow square in the
middle? Those are the exact same color. Now
if I'm gonna sit here and say the outside
brown is the exact same color as inside yellow,
you'd think I'm just totally crazy. I'll prove
it in a minute.
But let's think about where does this fiction
of color come from? It actually comes from
our parents. When you're two, three, four
years old, that's when you learn your colors.
What happens is, you know, you have a blue
ball and you go outside and your Mom says
"the ball is blue." And you go, "okay, the
ball's blue." And you go back inside and then
your Mom says "the ball is blue." You're like
"okay, the ball is blue." And then let's say
you have a brown crayon, right? It's always
the longest one because it doesn't get used,
right? It always the, that's the one that
nobody uses 'cause it ugly. So you go outside
and the label on it says brown and then you
go inside and the label on it still says brown.
Right? Well you know, is Crayola Corporation,
is this a huge conspiracy of color? You know
what, why doesn't it change? You know these
are actually very different colors and we
grow up in this sort of colorful fiction of
naming these things in our world.
Let me show you that these are the exact same
color. Go back and forth. Cool. [pause] So
perception ? they say intelligence is the
ability to quickly recognize patterns in your
neural network. Um, half the people in here
see a rabbit, the other half of the people
see a duck. What's interesting is that your
brain tries to wrap a reality around everything
it's seeing. And it's your left brain that's
doing its best to categorize it and make sense
out of it. Your right brain is actually enjoying
the ambiguity and surfing around in it ? and
wondering ? right, its enjoying that. Your
left brain is struggling with it and trying
to figure out what is this thing. And the
two play together very nicely in an interesting
way.
[pause]
We do swim in waves. I forget who said it,
it might have been Einstein, something to
the effect of a fish can never discover the
water in which it swims. Well, we're actually
smart enough to know that there's this rich
spectrum out there of waves and we only see
a very small bit of it ? the EM spectrum.
But we can do amazing things within that,
especially in terms of dark and light. And
we have this rich fiction that we've been
lying to ourselves all about, about how to
navigate this world, especially the world
of light and shadow.
In this example, both a and b are the exact
same shade of gray. To prove it, I'll have
this gray bar come and cover both. [pause]
Cool.
[pause]
In this one, the green face towards the top
is the same shade of green as the green face
facing down. Here comes a green bar to prove
it.
[pause]
In this example, all of the blues are the
exact same brightness and intensity. Here
comes a blue square to cover it up. [pause]
Cool.
[pause]
So, maybe it takes a while for your head to
get around the idea of color and whatnot.
Um, but HDR is really about light more than
it's about color. So, the way to understand
the way light works is to think about how
your brain reacts to it.
I got this example from, um, Dr. David Eagleman.
Uh, he's at the University of Houston. He's
a brain researcher. And whenever you see a
scene your brain will immediately adjust to
the black, the gray, and the white. And that
will become your reality until something else
comes along that's even whiter. Right? And
you go, "oh, that's my new white." Right?
And you kind of trick yourself and go "oh,
that really wasn't white before, I was just
kiddin' around. This is the new white." Right,
and you kinda lie to yourself like that. And
if something else comes along that's even
more white you go "oh, that's my new white."
Alright. And so think about this: when you
take photos and you show them to people, they
are gonna be entering your world for a few
seconds, maybe more if you're lucky. And when
they're looking at your world, they will adjust
the dark and light to whatever you've set
up in there. Don't worry about going from
the extreme dark to the extreme light. They
will become relatively proficient at understanding
the light levels inside of your photo for
that time period. And, of course, that's not
white, that is white.
[laughter]
So we do swim in these waves and we only see
a very small bit of it. Um, within the EM
spectrum, ah, we have this ah, this notion
that the, the impressionists came to know.
I study the impressionist intensely. Back
then there wasn't such a separation of art
and science like there is today. There's a
problem with our educational system in which
art and science are on these orthogonal paths.
I don't think they're that different. I think
the more you know about one, the better you
can be at another.
So the impressionists, um, Monet, Renoir,
Manet, Chabot, Degas. These were masters of
light. And they had trouble because they used
pigments, right, not pixels like I'm able
to use. And so to make a pure yellow, they
had, they had a lot of trouble getting a pure
yellow pigment so they would take a green
dot and put it by a red dot. And they knew
that at yea distance away from the canvas
the light would mix and give an impression
of yellow.
Well, we can't do that same sort of things,
we use pixels. But we do similar type tricks.
We understand the way the eye works and with
certain tricks you can make things glow and
feel like they really do.
[pause]
Y'all might remember this from, uh, science
class in high school. This is part of the
EM spectrum. Um, we can only see from 400
nanometers to 700 nanometers. Uh, within that
we can do an amazing amount of stuff. Now
here's something very interesting. Just beyond
700 nanometers, just beyond the reds you get
into the infrared and thermal IR.
So where your eyes stop with color, your skin
begins with heat. Right?
You can think of your skin as an extension
of your eyes. When you're there on a scene,
you're pulling in everything into your neural
network. Right? Your brain is recording this
information. The analog of between computers
and man breaks down at some point because
you don't store jpegs in your brain. You have
this rich assortment of colors and feelings
and emotions and smells and the people you're
with, and previous barns that you've seen.
All of this is in your neural network. What
feeds into that is also this heat that you're
feeling. You remember if you were cold somewhere
or hot somewhere. So if you can start to play
with some of these warm colors in your photo
 ? the oranges and red ? you can actually
make the viewer feel warm at a subconscious
level.
This is a Texas sunset.
Now they don't think about this stuff it's,
uh, but it's there and it's quite real. And
actually the absence of thermal IR, the absence
of reds is, is coldness. And by not using
these colors in your photos, you can come
across some of these sorts of things: this
is, this is at um, that's Fitzroy. This is
not too far from Antarctica. I don't add any
colors. I don't change the colors in my photos.
This is how it really was. It was cold. It
feels cold. And I think HDR helps to bring
out the proper light levels.
So a friend and I started something called
HDR spotting not too long ago. We started
with the intent of driving more traffic to
more HDR artists that are out there. I think
that the economy is evolving. I think capitalism
is evolving. I think capitalism is fine, but
I think there is a second currency out there
now called attention.
And we've created what we call an attention
distribution engine. And as attention becomes
more and more important, we think there's
a smarter way to distribute it around. So
we started this HDR spotting and this gives
the ability, ah, to people to, to share their
photos and drive traffic to their smug mug,
to their portfolio, to their blog, wherever
they might want it. Uh, I think a lot of photo
sharing sites kinda stopped, um, stopped innovating
quite awhile ago. And I think there's newer,
better ways to do this. And this doesn't just
work for HDR, it works for any kind of photography,
or any kind of art for that matter.
Uh, we're still in beta. It's invite only.
You have to know someone to get in. You know
how this works at Google. But, um, we um,
don't ask me for codes. I don't hand 'em out,
but other people do, and as we get out of
beta it will become more and more available.
Since I am encouraging everyone here to try
HDR and have fun with it and I know you can
do it, I also encourage you to start sharing
on here. On the backend we have a system to
make sure that, you know, people aren't uploading
porn or horse mpegs, or weird things. We want
to make sure that they get the right level
of, of a, quality and whatnot, if it gets
enough stars as editor's pick and so on and
so forth.
We're doing our best to, to give back and
part of the problem I noticed is that I have,
um, on my Flicker I have 21 million views
on my photos. And one photo might have a couple
thousand, might have a couple hundred thousand.
Then I go look at my friend's photo, or even
a stranger's photo, that's just as good, you
know, if not better. There's so many great
HDR photographers out there. There's so many
great photographers of all kinds. And they
might only have a few dozen views, right,
or a few hundred views and it just doesn't
seem to add up, right? It's 'cause the Internet
is not properly distributing attention and
getting the interesting kind of art to the
right kind of people.
So now that HDR spawning people are getting
hundreds and thousands of views. It's just
great and it's not a score card. Right? It's
just that, I think artists and all of us just
want to share our stuff and why, I think,
we just wanna know we exist. Right? And as
other people enter our world and as we affect
them, in minute ways we, we know we exist.
And that's, I think that's important to everybody
whether you're an artist or not.
[pause]
So as we move forward in the digital world,
the, the idea of sharing art and being an
artist is emerging. Um, I think we are approaching
this sort of singularity. Right? This is probably
a good place to ask: how long do we have into
the singularity? About 15 years or so? We
gotta a few more doublings between now and
then. What's gonna happen? I don't know, but
I plan on having a good time between now and
then. Uh, it's gonna be tremendously fun.
I think this is going to be a great decade
for artists. I think that now that people
like Google and Twitter and all these other
great companies around world have wired up
the left brain of the Internet, now it's the
creative sides that can come out and start
using this infrastructure.
This is Gullfoss in Iceland. It's this icy
waterfall. Um, ancient theologians used to
think this was the entrance to hell. Hell
was originally a cold place in Dante's hell
and they would advise that if, you know, you
had a loved one that you thought was in hell
that you would come and dive down into here
to rescue them. I don't think it ever turned
out very well, but [laughter] they uh, it
is a real slippery place.
And um, I remember I was walkin' through and
I had my tripod and all that stuff and the
ground was already super icy, and the mist
from the waterfall made these little beads
of, of water and almost gave the ground this
negative friction. And I slipped out and I
fell and I saved my camera, of course, [laughter]
and started sliding down, right? And there
was this yellow rope above me and I reached
up and I grabbed the yellow rope and it saved
me. Um, so as we're all kind of slipping down
towards this point, there's really no yellow
rope anymore is there, we're just goin'. Um,
and I don't know what's gonna happen, but
you know, I think it will be kind of fun and
I think it will be a good time.
[pause]
Um, so as we march forward there is a new
culture emerging, right? There is sort of
an old culture which will always exist, but
people on the Internet they want beautiful
to look at, they want beautiful things to
experience, they want nice music to listen
to. And I think this will be the decade of
artists. I've very excited about it.
So let's move through some, some images here.
Let me switch to a different presentation.
[scratching sound]
So this sort of a, a bunch of different pictures
from my portfolio that shows what you can
do with HDR photography. This is my family.
My three kids at Christmas. I think it's a
beautiful way to capture the world. This is
Christmas to me, right? Warm fires, happy
kids, family. It's nice.
This is Hong Kong. Cities are great in HDR.
It's a wonderful milieu for HDR photography.
It you're into black and white photography,
you can also do amazing things. This will
be all new textures to you, that you might
not have been ever able to pull out before.
This is a HDR out of 90 shots. It was crazy.
I'll never do that again. [laughter] But it
came out pretty good.
This is in Chernobyl. Um, my Mom also was
not happy when she found out I was in Chernobyl.
[laughter] Um, but it was really cool.
Uh, this is what uh, an old school photographer
might call a, a subtle use of HDR. Right?
It's very, you can just hear it, can't you?
This sort of dripping with condescension.
They go "oh, I like HDR but only if it's subtly
applied." So, ah, wonderfully judgmental isn't
it? Um, you know we hear that a lot. Me and,
there's so many HDR photographers out there
that are good. Um, and um, I'm happy to fight
for them and fight for all of us because clearly
this is the way that I see the world, the
way I experience it, and what makes sense
to me.
Um, I don't know about y'all, but I, this
is a really cool shot, isn't it? I would love
to live in a house with a grass roof. It seems
cozy.
Um, so when I go through life I picture, I
picture it like I'm in this Tolkienesque novel,
right? And people and scenes come in and out
of my world. And I wanna be able to capture
it as such. I see things in a rich, romantic,
kind of storyesque way. And I think this is
a very nice way for me just to, you know,
document my own life and insofar as other
people find it interesting that's great. Um,
you know, I think, ah, I think this is, ah,
really, really fun way to experience and kind
of chronicle your life.
Um, now technically I'll jump back and forth
between technical stuff and whatnot, but most
of my images I would say are accomplished,
ah, from going from plus two to minus two.
What does that mean? Well, most DSLR's have
a setting called autobracketing, right? Or
exposure bracketing, where you take multiple
photos of a scene. Um, and that really means
how quick the shutter speed is.
So typically, let's say a three exposure HDR,
the minus two is the fast shutter speed, that's
very dark, but all of the bright spots have
all of the details perfectly laid out. There's
a normal shot at zero and there's a plus two
which is very bright and almost blown out.
Except in that one the shadows are perfectly
exposed. So that range from minus two to plus
two is good enough for 90 percent of situations.
I've heard some people say that the human
eye can see 11 stops, right, instead of five
stops, which is plus two to minus two. I don't
know if that's true. I don't know how you'd
measure that.
Um, I know that when I go into a dark area
it takes me a few minutes to adjust, and maybe
that gets me to the 11 stops. I'm not sure.
But I do know from experience, I've taken
a ton of HDR shots, and plus two to minus
two is enough. Um, I shoot with a Nikon D3X
and I have to take five exposures, I do minus
two, minus one, zero plus one, plus two. Only
because I can't set mine just step by two.
I wish I could. I wish I could get in that
firm wear. I, Nikon, I'm still waitin' for
your call.
[laughter]
Um, we need to fix this stuff up. I need to
get into there and hack this around.
Um, now occasionally I will go plus three
to minus three when I'm shooting into the
sun. Ah, because the sun, of course, there's
nothing brighter than that out there, and
that seems to do the trick. That's seven exposures
for me from minus three to plus three. So
I advise that everybody else does the same.
Most DSLR cameras have this setting. And all
that's in the tutorial.
[pause]
Um, the other nice thing about the tutorial
is there is ah, a section at the end on how
to do this with a single raw photo. So let's
say you've been taking photos for a long time
and you have a lot of, a lot of photos that,
ah, are just sittin' around in raw. You can
go back and process those in HDR and have
a lot of fun with it. I advise that.
So, ah, typically when I speak to groups I
notice that about 70 percent of people see
the world like I do, in this rich, vibrant,
romantic way. Another 30 percent of people
don?t. Right? They just see it in a different
way. Now these are not like the HDR haters.
Right? I ignore them. They're not even in
my cone of vision. I picture like I'm playing
a game and these are MPC's and I just ignore
these guys, right?
But, ah, the other 30 percent just see the
world differently than me. Not better or worse,
just different. When I see it, and probably
most of y'all see it, I look at, um, well
you have this neural network in our brains,
right? And we, we pattern match, we filter
stuff as it comes in and the way I rank stuff
is first I look at light, color and saturation
and then I look at line, contrast and shape.
I see it all, but my filtering mechanism is
different.
I think the other 30 percent, there's some
gray area there. I think first they see line,
contract and shape and then they see color,
saturation and light. Not better or worse,
it's just a different filtering mechanism.
And we all have our own experience of how
we view and how we categorize and chronicle
the world. And, ah, um, this is maybe particular
to me, um, but I think we all have our own
particular upbringing in the way we come to
know and see the world and record it. Um,
mine might be a little unique in that, um,
I was born blind in one eye. I can only see
out of my left eye. So I don't see in 3D.
I only see in 2D.
And when you're born, you know, your eyes
are hooked into your brain just like your
legs are hooked into your brain. Well your
legs, it takes a couple years to really know
how to use 'em right, doesn't it? So what
makes you think that your eyes immediately
know how to be used? It takes many, many years
of training and experience. So I came up with
my own system for viewing the world. It's
not better or worse, it's just different.
And I play sports and, you know I'm fully
functioning and all that sort of stuff, right?
But, ah, when I play soccer I don't use parallax
like everybody else does. Um, I use the diameter
of the ball to judge how far it is from my
body. And I notice that people when they're
in the middle of a conversation with two eyes
they'll do subtle movements of their head
just so that they can use parallax to know
where in z-space everybody is. 'Cause it's
important, right for your brain. You know
for survival reasons, is this person a threat?
Are they a mating opportunity? Do they have
food? What are their hands doing? You know
you care about this stuff at a very base level.
Right?
So I've just come up with my own system and
so it's been very easy for me to take photos.
Ah, because when I look at a scene I immediately
compose it. Right? There's no, there's no
struggle for me it's just very natural. Now
I think a lot of people who are probably photographers,
you know, when something is composed, right,
it just feels right, it just feels like a
beautiful composition. And that's, that's
one of the thrills we get isn't it? When we
have a camera and we, we set up a scene and
we click and we just know when it's properly
composed. It feels good. You're, what you're
doing is you're taking the entropy of the
world and you're adding your own beautiful
interpretation of it. Right? You're taking
this chaos and you're making order out of
it even if just temporarily. Right? That's
why we can't stand to have forks kind of sideways,
you gotta make 'em right. We have this, this
human need to fight against entropy.
And I think that same things happens with
photography. It's such a chaotic place out
there and if we can just bring a little bit
of reason and beauty to in a moment, it's
wonderful.
So there's this great thing called fie, it's
the golden ratio. Probably some of y'all have
heard of it. It's know to mathematicians and
to architects and few trivial type things
like that. But what happens is, is this magical
number 1.618 goes on kinda like pi and it
was discovered by Fibonacci, this Italian
mathematician. The Fibonacci sequence is a
new number is always the sum of the two previous
numbers. It goes one, two three and two plus
three is five, and five plus three is eight,
eight plus five is thirteen, so on and so
forth. Now if you divide the most recent number
by the number just before it, you get something
close to 1.618. In fact, once you've gone
about thirteen numbers deep into a Fibonacci
sequence, you get very, very close to 1.618.
Interesting that it's a prime number when
it begins. And this number is the ratio of
beauty.
You know when you look at something and it
just feels right. It just feels beautiful.
That's because something has lined up along
this ratio of one to 1.618. If you look at
the proportions of a face, of a body, of what
is perfect and what is beautiful, that is
that 1.618.
If you look at the way the petals, ah, flay
out in a, in a splay out of flower, that's
at that ratio. A conk shell. If you look at
great ancient old buildings, the Greek architects
knew this, right?
So there is something magical about this number.
And when you line up your photos, um, the
closer you can get to this magical point,
the more it just feels right to the viewer.
Right? So a lot of times you can't explain,
but there is math behind all this stuff. And
it feels right and it feels natural.
Um, you know in photography school and in
books and whenever they talk about this thing
the rule of third, I think that's sort of
a poor man's version of fie. Right? I think
if you can start learning these fie points
and position your cropping around that, ah,
eventually you won't have to crop, you'll
just get it right in the camera. But you can
approach this point of just sort of natural
beauty. I think that makes sense.
Um, I came about all of this photography through
sort of a back door. Um, I got my first camera
only about three or four years ago. I've never
taken a photography class and never read a
book. I don't know the right way to do anything.
I don't think there is a right way to do anything.
Um, I think that the process is important
and the process should be one of guessing,
trying, making a mistake and then forgiving
yourself and moving on.
That's something we, it's hard for us to do
in a sort of a Western society is to forgive
ourselves. We always put this, these guilt
trips on ourself which kind of holds us back,
right, and makes us afraid to experiment.
But you should get in the habit of guessing
how someone does something, try it, mess up,
forgive yourself and move on and try not to
do it again. This is the same process I do
with everything and it just seems to work
out very, very well. I encourage people to
try that.
[pause]
Um, you'll notice that, ah, um, one of the
problems commonly with HDR photography is
something called ghosting. Okay. Ghosting
is when you take, um, multiple photos and
some of these photos, um, are going to have
a, let's say a dog running across, right?
And he'll be in three different positions
for the three different pictures and that's
a problem, right?
Well there's a few ways to get past that problem.
One way is to, when you take the original
pictures, make them all in raw and pick the
one raw file where the dog is in the most
interesting position and use that to make
the HDR. That's one method.
Another method is to go ahead and, ah, allow
the ghosting and then bring that ghosted image
into Photoshop as a top layer, bring one of
the original raws underneath, and then remix
the two by masking through or erasing through
and putting in the proper dog. That's another
way to do it.
Um, there's, there's a few other little tricks
you can do, but those are the two big ways.
A lot of time I leave ghosting, like in this
ocean shot. I left ghosting in the waves because
I feel like it has a, an element of emotion.
Right? It seems to make sense that there's
movement in water, and one with here in Boston.
It just feels right that there's some motion
there.
Um, I just finished this wonderful book. If
you're into impressionism and art or whatever,
it's called, it's called The Judgment of Paris.
I heard it on audible. It's like this 16 hour
epic. And, ah, um, it talks all about what
the impressionists went through to get their
art accepted by the French establishment.
They didn't have the Internet. The only way
to get a photo shown was to be in the salon,
and to get into the salon you had to pass
this committee of octogenarians, these old
masters who were just not ready to let this
new school in.
They thought the proper to make a painting
was to properly depict the heroic nature of
man and to show Greek gods, to show French
generals, to show the, the amazing moral absolutism
of mankind. Um, and so these impressionists
came along and they would actually use the
new technology of the day. They could take
paints out into the field and paint the light
exactly how they saw it. And, uh, it was very
off putting to old school.
Um, so the reason I want to know all that
is say that, ah, ah, there's not really necessarily
a right way to go about it, and when it comes
to ghosting it's okay to have some adjustment
there. Let the viewer guess what's happening.
Renoir said that no painting should be perfect.
There should be some mystery. There should
be something you're not telling them. There
should be the impression of what is really
happening.
Um, the establishment back then, there was
a guy named Ernest Meissonier and he was the
richest, most wealthy French painter of the
day. Very exacting, battle painting. And his
magnum opus was this painting, Friedland.
It took him 10 years to make and he, he hated
the impressionists because of their rough
sketches. And he was very exacting. And he
was known for painting horses in their, in
all their glory. And so what he did, he was
very wealthy, he had, he built, a, a railway
station in his house and he had a train on
there. He had people push him along a train
by hand while one of his horses would run
buy and he's sit there and sketch the exact
musculature of the horse. And so he displayed
his painting at the salon after 10 years and
the critics were always on his side, and actually
lambasted him because it was so exact, they
said it looked like the horse had been flayed
of his skin.
Just then they were starting come around to
the impressionists, because it gave them a
feeling of being there. And there's something
more to art than being exact. There's something
magical about it.
Um, my daughter, Isabella, I have three kids,
she's my middle child, she's four and she,
ah, she has this wonderful, thin membrane
between what's real and what's not real. And
if any of y'all have kids, you know exactly
what I mean. It helps you to realize the wonderful
things the brain can do, and the bad things
it does to adults. And, you know, so I'm with
my daughter, Isabella, I don't know where
she got this, but she got this idea that whenever
we see Christmas lights around trees or on
a house, she goes "Tinkerbelle's been here."
She gets really excited and so I start to
wonder does she really think that Tinkerbelle's
been there or is she just tricking herself
and enjoying, or does she even take it to
that level? And then I think but does it really
matter, you know. They surf between what's
real and what's not real so easily and it's
wonderful.
And I think actually grownups like to do that
too. But we're not allowed to, right, because
we have to pay our taxes, buy stamps and make
sure there's coffee in the morning. And you
know there's this left brain world that we're
stuck in and the only time we're allowed to
escape is once a week when we go to the movie
theater in public. They lower the lights and
we can escape into what's on the screen. That's
the only time it's publically acceptable to
have a, a fanciful life. But I think we all
long for it because it feels right, doesn't
it?
I think finally the world is changing and
can be free. I think we all have this wonderful,
artistic side that's waiting to come out.
But no one has told you it's okay to let it
come out. I'm here to tell you it's perfectly
okay. It's natural.
[pause]
There's um, there's something happening interesting
on the Internet, I think. There's this idea
of um, Dunbar's number. Maybe some of you
guys have heard of this. Um, I first came
across it in Guns, Germs and Steel. I think
it's a Jared Diamond book. It's an anthropological
concept.
Um, by the way, I've got this great reading
list if you're interested in reading more
about any of this stuff. Ah, in fact I've
got this, it's a reading list and a link list,
a link to this Ted video of Jill Bolte Taylor
talking about the left and the right brain.
She's actually this brain researcher that
had a, a stroke. Um, and she recorded the
whole thing as it happened in her left brain.
It's very interesting. If there's any doubt
in your mind that maybe left and right brain
in psycho babble, it's not. It's all very,
very real.
[pause]
And so, um, ah, with Dunbar's number, ah,
there's a few texts I have on it in these
various books. What is means is that we often
keep track of about 150 people or so. Okay.
And it comes from our villager days, right?
When we kept track of our immediate family,
our secondary family, the village elders,
the warriors, the medicine man, it's about
150 people or so that you keep track of, right?
Men are very good at keeping track of direct
relationships and that sort of thing. Women
are particularly good at keeping track of
relationships of relationships; secondary
and tertiary, and they remember all this stuff.
Right? And actually, the it, it's very important
for the cohesion to have women keeping track
of who wrongs who and whatnot. That's why
they remember. That's why they don't forget.
It's deep in them.
And, ah, and now we don't live in villages
anymore, do we? We're all spread out all over
creation in suburbia. But we still have to
keep track of about 150 people and our 150
people has really gotten messed up. Um, by
the way, this is my own half-baked theory.
But I think it makes sense. Maybe you guys
can bake the over half. And it is that, um,
we do keep track of about 75 family members
and close friends, but the other 75 or people,
75 people or so have been blasted into our
homes by Hollywood because that's our village
now, right? We all kinda know that vaguely
who Brad Pitt is dating, right? Why? Right,
why do we care? But we can't help but care.
I used to get on planes and, you know, walk
through first class and very, very intelligent
people were sitting there reading Us and People
and I think "what are they doing?" You know,
these, are a, but they can't help it, they've
got to keep track of these people. They've
got to keep track of, because celebrities
have accidentally become part of our Dunbar's
150.
I think now thanks to Twitter and the Internet
we're able to come up with a proper 150. Right?
We're able to get rid of people like, um,
Elayne Boosler, right? Why is she in my 150?
She doesn't need to be in my 150. I can get
rid of her and I can replace her with someone
who has meaning in my life, maybe it's an
artist, maybe it's a poet. And I can follow
them on Twitter and these sorts of tools.
I think that, I think we'll find that 150
to 200 is about the magical number of people
to follow because that's what makes sense.
That's what strikes us on a deep level.
Um, this is in Yellowstone.
By the way, if any of you guys have any questions
about any of these particular images we can
do it in Q and A afterwards.
Uh, this is Bangkok. It's called the bangs,
or the Veins of Bangkok.
As I've traveled around, I've been, uh, been
lucky to meet other great, um, photographers
and HDR photographers all over the world,
and we go out and we exchange ideas, we shoot
all day, we post-process all night, and just
have a ball of it. And everyone does things
a little bit different, so I've been able
to take their techniques and their successes
and integrate them with my own, and come up
with something that's wonderfully, that's
wonderfully unique, I think. It's different.
I wouldn't say that I do straight up HDR photography.
I would say it kinda falls in that realm,
right? And there's a lot of old school photographers
have, that have not yet crossed the Rubicon,
let's say, into the world of HDR. Maybe they've
dipped a toe in. I think it's interesting.
Ah, but I think over time that they will see,
as everyone will see, that this is not necessarily
"the" evolution of, of photography, but it
is "a" evolution of photography. And if you
see the world like this, like I do, um, then
it's a tremendous, ah, set of ah, tools to
add to your arsenal.
You'll see that sometimes I really amped it
up and sometimes I'm not quite so amped up.
It just depends on my mood and how artistic
I'm feeling or what song is playing while
I'm editing these things. Um, it?s wonderful
kind of right brain experience. I edit these
things at midnight after my kids go to sleep.
This is Iceland. Iceland is a wonderful place
for HDR photography. We're used to these places
in the US and have all these boardwalks and
whatnot, it's wild there.
This is Hans Zimmer's studio. He's one of
my favorite artists. I was very lucky to use
my, my network, my seven degrees of separation
to find out I was lucky and I was only one
degree away from Hans Zimmer. So I got in
to his studio to shoot it. It's just wonderful.
This is Seoul, Korea.
It's great to take night shots with HDR photography
because it's not as simple as just leaving
the shutter open and letting light come in.
You use all kinds of light levels there that
you don't really know that you have access
to.
Um, when it comes to different ways of, of
thinking about light, um, I recommend, ah,
among other books, um, there's some great
works by Richard Feynman. Ah, one of his favorite
books that I've read is called The Pleasure
of Finding Things Out. And it's a different
way to think about the world, right? It's
actually a collection of his essays that all
kind of revolve around this central topic
of ways to think about thinking. And a lot
of it involves the idea of not worrying so
much about the names of things and how other
people have a, a common lexicon for stuff.
It is, it is how they think, how they behave,
how they act and what they do that matters,
rather than what they're called.
So I don't get caught up in a lot of this
kind of stuff about how do you, um, how to
you talk about certain subject? I just let
it flow. Right? And I get some flack sometimes
from photographers who just want to know the
hardcore technology of how it happens. Right?
They want to know, they wanna discuss optics
and some of the particular things about - I,
I'm much more into the whole experience of
it. And not until you really let go; and what
you need to do is understand the technology,
the basics of it with your left brain, but
then let your right brain kind of execute
on it. That's what makes sense to me.
So these things that Feynman discusses, he,
leads into all kinds of various areas like,
so much of human conversation is this, is
this uh, act of, ah, getting one perspective
to mesh with another perspective. You spend
so much time trying to explain yourself to
someone else, they have to take all your words
and rearrange them to their own world view.
And it's the same idea as colors, right? Maybe
my red is not your red. It's not just red,
but it's every other word of the human language
we've come to know. And you come up with your
own internal system for this. That's all fine
and well, and that's exciting, but we should
let go of that stuff and just let it flow.
It's a very, very difficult concept to get
your head around. Once it happens, it becomes
very natural, very easy.
Do you see those two people right at the very
top? Tiny. That's a huge thing called the
Grand Prismatic. I found that one also on
Google Earth. There's this boardwalk that
everybody else goes down. I didn't wanna go
down. I don't like all these tourists around.
So I like to go up; and we climbed up this
mountain and shot down at the Grand Prismatic.
So I'll leave you with these final images.
Um, this is Argentina. I woke up one morning;
my sleeping bag was covered in snow; after
I had vacated the tent I was sick of Uri.
Um, walked around the forest just as the snow
was penetrating the autumn leaves. It was
just gorgeous ? this magical experience. We
made it out into the plains. Saw this beautiful
landscape.
It really is a beautiful world out there.
I encourage you all to go out there. Accept
it and feel it and capture it in your own
way. I think that is a wonderful way to live
your own adventure.
I wanna leave you with this thought that:
the left brain is for getting through life
and the right brain is for living.
Thank you very much.
[applause]
>>Trey Ratcliff: So any questions? How long
do we have, timekeeper?
[unintelligible voice in background]
Ten minutes. Alright.
[pause]
Yes, sir.
>>So photographers have been doing dodging
and burning for at least a century and ah,
is HDR qualitatively different from that or,
eh, is it just a way of automating it, eh
>>Trey Ratcliff: That's good question. So
is it that different than dodging and burning?
Well, I guess in one instance it's not. Um,
dodging and burning almost takes on the idea
of painting on the picture to me. Right? Because
you do have to go on with a brush and dodge
one area and burn another. Ah, for the uninitiated
dodging is lightening an area and burning
is darkening an area. Dodging and burning
work to a certain degree and they will generally
lighten and darken an area, but it doesn't
necessary go through the entire tonal range
that the other exposures have captured. And
maybe one of the exposures had captured a
different tone of blue that you're unable
to dodge to. Now, also, another problem with
dodging and burning is it takes a long time
and requires a lot of meticulousness, especially
with today's photos at 12 megapixel or 24
megapixels. If you're gonna get in and dodge
and burn on a very small level it would take
an eternity. This does through these HDR algorithms,
goes through a pixel by pixel level and does
most of that work for you based on certain
settings. So I think it's easier, it's much
more, a little more batch way of doing it.
Does that make sense?
[pause]
Yes, sir.
>>Ah, I have a question regarding the reproduction
of these HDR pictures.
>>Trey Ratcliff: Um, hum.
>>Because, ah, the camera with the multiple
exposures can capture very high dynamic range,
but when you reproduce them on screen like
here, you're limited to 100 to one contract
ratio.
>>Trey Ratcliff: That's right.
>>So I was wondering if, ah, maybe are other
media that reproduce these images better like
high dynamic range monitors.
>>Trey Ratcliff: That's a good question. There
are a few, ah, techno files that do foresee
a future of HDR monitors. I don't, I don't
think HDR monitors will every catch on. Ah,
for a number of reasons: one, there's not
enough HDR content to warrant such an expensive
device, especially in small quantities would
be extremely expensive, even though it might
actually be a better viewing experience, I
don't think they'll ever catch on.
And second, these, this tone mapping that
I'm doing, where it's displayed on a screen,
it's actually good enough. Right? It, it looks
so pretty and so nice that you don't feel
like you need a better monitor to see it because
it already feels good enough. I, I am not
the biggest expert in the world on display
technologies, but I, I do kind of feel the
same about regular DVD and Blue Ray DVD. I
think the average person can't see that much
different so that there's not that much impetus
to dump everything old and go the new way.
Especially when it comes to something as expensive
as what will inevitably be an HDR display
which, which are gonna be extremely expensive,
um, you know, who knows which way the future's
gonna go? Um, but in my opinion, this is,
this is good enough. Now there's viewing issue
that with HDR photography ? I believe the
screen has to be big enough so that your eye
actually travels around, right? Because if
all that light hits you at the same time,
your brain might reject it as too much. If
you can actually physically make the eye biologically
move around and take in different light and
build that patchwork quilt just like it does
on the scene, it makes it much easier for
the brain to accept it.
>>I see. So for mixed illuminate scenes, do
you compensate for the different illuminates
to remove the color casts? Because, for instance,
when I'm indoors and I look outside, I might
have some incandescent light indoors which
is like very yellow, but the outside is bluish
because of the sky. So if I just leave the
image like this it will have a very pronounced
color cast that creates a bit of attention
 . . .
>>Trey Ratcliff: Right.
>>. . .which I not what the eye sees.
>>Trey Ratcliff: Right. Well, ah, that gets
very tricky, right, because your, your camera
is capturing whatever light is there and,
um, as we saw in some of those example, what
light really is there, what is light and dark,
what the brown, what are all these colors?
So what I've learned to do, is when I'm there
on the scene, I remember it as best I can.
I remember the feelings of the colors and
I kind of equate the sounds and smells and
somewhat of a synesthetic fusion and then
I try to bring that back later when I'm editing
the photos to make sure that the greens and
browns and blues make sense. I think that
there is this sort of golden ratio of, of
line and shape in the photo, but I also feel
like there's something there with the colors.
At some point if you jamb the colors one way
to far, you lose that beautiful translation
in tone mapping between the two.
I think this is something that comes with
time and practice.
>>So color processing is part of your post
processing?
>>Trey Ratcliff: I do, I do a bit of color
processing, but mostly it's how intense do
I wanna make one color or another. I don't
go through and paint on top of these items.
Now you did see some of these have a texture
overlay. I have a textures tutorial on the
website. That one isn't free. Um, but sometimes
when a photo comes out too boring and I want
to give it a little bit of panache or something,
I'll put one of these textures or multiple
textures over it to give it a big of feeling.
That's only time that I really dramatically
adjust the color of something. But I, I uh,
I actually, whenever I go in and I change
the, the white point, ah, or I change, ah,
something, it, it dramatically changes the
colors. And either it feels right or it doesn't
feel right. I just move it around until it
feels right.
>>I see.
>>Trey Ratcliff: It's not the most scientific
answer, but it's the best I can do.
>>Thank you very much.
>>Trey Ratcliff: Sure.
[pause]
>>Trey Ratcliff: If there are no other questions,
ah, you guys can always send me Tweets. I
do my best to answer to all Tweets. If you
have questions about the book or about the
processing or on your own journey through
this stuff. I can't answer everybody. I'm
a little bit covered up, but I'll do my best
and again thank you guys for your time.
[applause and talking]
