I’ve added a new gallery to the site of HDR images. HDR stands for high dynamic range and is a special technique that captures a vast amount of detail that is impossible to achieve in regular photography. Rather than take just one picture, to create an HDR photograph you take several pictures of the same scene at different exposures. This captures lots of detail in midtone, shadow and highlight areas that would be impossible to capture with just one image exposed for, say, the midtones or highlights. The images are then put through special software that blends all of the exposure information to create a composite with an incredible dynamic range (hence the term).

The most popular software for HDR conversion is Photomatrix. This is an easy programme to use but there are no hard and fast rules – each image has to be experimented with until you get the effect that you are happy with. Tone mapping can create images that either look like regular photos or, at the other extreme, more like hybrids between illustrations and photos.

The technique is gaining popularity and looks set to become a new art form. I’ve certainly enjoyed playing with it.