Johan Peijnenburg - HDR // Landscape

Dutch photographer Johan Peijnenburg, lives in the Gruyère region of the Swiss Alps. Since he lives there, he uses it to his advantage by going out and taking landscape images that are very close to him.

His images all seem as if he has used HDR to create the effect he has. This is because he has reproduced a greater dynamic range of luminosity than standard digital imaging. This is highly effective because he captures each aspect of the images in high detail. To create a HDR, he would have taken at least 2 pictures in the exact same position using a tripod, with the camera on Shutter priority, changing the shutter speed slightly.

The image above is full of dark colours, which give an element of mystery to the image. This is from the trees, mountains, and clouds in the sky. There is a light coloured cloud that separates the trees and mountains, which makes sure the viewer can see that there are trees there, rather than a block of darkness within the image. The sky is dark in the top left corner and gets lighter on a gradient towards the bottom right.

This image features a castle of some sorts in the right hand side of the image, with green trees leading up to it. With the rest of the image being of a lake, with mountains in the background behind the castle. The sky is dark above the castle, but is much lighter elsewhere, this reflects of the lake with darker and lighter parts. This gives the castle an eerie feel to it, with it being dark around it and the rest of the image being much lighter.

This image has been taken looking along a lake, with mountains on either side and the background of the image. The mountains are casting reflections along the lake, but aren't too bright because thick clouds are in the sky blocking how much light is within the sky and the image. The HDR has meant that Peijnenburg has managed to capture the texture of the mountains, rocks, and sky within the image.

This image is similar to the first image I have looked at by Johan Peijnenburg because the land in the image is very dark, so that you can only make out the shape of it. The sky is a golden colour from either a sunrise or sunset, which is much more of a gentle colour compared to the bright blue colour of the sky at midday. This is contrasting with the land being very dark, almost, if not black, whereas the sky is such a light colour which are completely different.

My images below:

The image above is an image that I took up at Surprise View as a HDR image. The image has been inspired by the work above by Peijnenburg as well as wanting to try out some HDR images with my camera. To me this is quite effective because the image has captured all the different colours and textures, which a single normal image wouldn't. This is because this image is made up of 3 different photos each having different shutter speeds. This image came out particularly well with all the colours and shadows being very prominent. I altered the levels within the image on Photoshop Elements 13 to make the colours more realistic and the shadows more prominent.

Above is another image I tried as a HDR, but this one didn't work particularly well in my opinion. This is because some of the colours within the image don't look very realistic. I'm not sure how the colours came to look like this.

 Above is a screenshot of the process of creating a HDR image within Photoshop CC.