Telthorst.net

If you haven’t visited stuckincustoms.com and looked at the beautiful photos taken by Trey Ratcliff, you are missing out. But, not one to be content merely to observe, the “Father of HDR” has inspired me to attempt my own pictures. You have to have some fairly high-end equipment, and specialized software in order to do HDR. Trey explains the process in detail in his HDR Tutorial. However, it essentially involves taking multiple photographs at different exposures and then using software to combine them into one amazing image.

I had the privilege of going to Estes Park a few weeks past, and there I made my first legitimate foray into HDR:

There were a lot of these bluffs around, but I was enamored with this one. I took this shot outside of our cabin sometime in the afternoon.

On the other side of the valley, looking North, I took a few more shots:

On the whole I’m very pleased with these shots. I really wanted to take a picture of the historic Stanley Hotel, but it didn’t work out. Next time!

A lot of backgrounds are ugly, they might be too low in resolution for your display, have annoying logos or words on them, or are taken by an amateur.  Well, those problems are over.  Stuck In Customs takes and creates the most gorgeous backgrounds I’ve ever seen.  The pictures are real but they are done using a technique called High Dynamic Range, which is described as a “post-processing task of taking either one image or a series of images, combining them, and adjusting the contrast ratios to do things that are virtually impossible with a single aperture and shutter speed.”  The results are nothing short of stunning.  His pictures are available at a variety of resolutions to fit your background, including the original resolution. You can share them, modify them, etc, with only some (fair) restrictions.  Enjoy!

A Stuck in Customs Photo

Stuck in Customs on Flickr