Late winter 2012—At the time I had been using a point and shoot video camera for photography, I had come from the film age of SLRs and because of all the cool toys in the video and graphics worlds, photography, though still a hobby, had taken a back seat to everything else. Recently I had found myself bringing my camera with me more and more and really enjoyed just taking pictures again, especially without the need and expense of developing film.
Viewing some podcasts about photography I came across an interview with a guy named Trey Ratcliff. I had never heard of him before but that is the great thing about these podcasts, you discover new things. Trey is a pioneer in HDR photography and I was completely blown away by his photos, I didn't know pictures could look so good! Not only were his pictures the best I had ever seen, he was a totally cool guy and willing to share his "secrets".
In truth, my life had been leading up to photography as a main passion in my life again, at one time a year or two before discovering HDR photography I had found myself overlooking a water hole during archery season before light. I had gotten there about an hour before sunrise to settle in and watch the woods come alive and hopefully intercept some elk. As the sun came up the rays of light hit the yellow and orange Aspen leaves above and the lush green grass below. The scene was breathtaking and I didn't have a camera with me that morning which was just fine with me as I said to myself, "I could never capture this on camera!"
Once I saw the possibilities of HDR photography I realized that I could at least come much closer to capturing that Fall morning. I couldn't capture it exactly, but I could come a lot closer than I thought possible. I became so excited about the possibilities that I sold some video gear and bought my current camera setup, a used Nikon D7000 and a couple kit lenses on ebay.
After some experimentation the result is what you see on this sight, a unique look and insight into the lives of wild things and wild places.
If you are at all interested in finding out what HDR photography is and how it's done I can think of no better place than to visit Trey's site at www.stuckincustoms.com. There are some free tutorials to get you started, some breathtaking photography, and some great advice on cameras and lenses too.