The sun sets over west Austin, casting the curvacious lines of the 360 bridge in red, iluminating the buildings of downtown in a pinkish hue, and accentuating the autumn colors of the trees.

I love this town!
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This exposure is a HDR amalgamation of three separate exposures. Note the posterization of the water beneath the bridge and the sky the results from combining exposures that contain movement. The astute viewer will notice the repeated cars in traffic.

While I don't believe that digital techniques such as these are 'cheating' per se, I do believe that used incorrectly, they can be a crutch or a substitute for proper technique. Arguably, there is no difference between this, and simply adjusting the contrast and saturation on any normal photo. However, I would say that utilizing HDR and exposure blending willy-nilly simply is an attempt to recreate lighting conditions that simply did not exist at the time the photographer took the exposure, while contrast/saturation editing is simply altering light and colors that were already present.

HDR is simply a way to increase the dynamic range of light in a photograph, much like Galen Rowell did with his stacked filters. However, Galen was well aware of how his filters affected the light available to a camera, while it takes no such consideration to shoot seven exposures of the same scene and have a computer do this work.

After considering all of the arguments, I have decided to stop using HDR for the time being. I would rather suffer through countless forgettable and below-average exposures in order to develop the knowledge to make correct exposures in the first place! It is within the context of this knowledge that the photographer may use HDR properly and in a tasteful manner.

As the Dalai Lama says, "You have to know the rules well enough in order to break them".

The sun sets over west Austin, casting the curvacious lines of the 360 bridge in red, iluminating the buildings of downtown in a pinkish hue, and accentuating the autumn colors of the trees.

I love this town!
---
This exposure is a HDR amalgamation of three separate exposures. Note the posterization of the water beneath the bridge and the sky the results from combining exposures that contain movement. The astute viewer will notice the repeated cars in traffic.

While I don't believe that digital techniques such as these are 'cheating' per se, I do believe that used incorrectly, they can be a crutch or a substitute for proper technique. Arguably, there is no difference between this, and simply adjusting the contrast and saturation on any normal photo. However, I would say that utilizing HDR and exposure blending willy-nilly simply is an attempt to recreate lighting conditions that simply did not exist at the time the photographer took the exposure, while contrast/saturation editing is simply altering light and colors that were already present.

HDR is simply a way to increase the dynamic range of light in a photograph, much like Galen Rowell did with his stacked filters. However, Galen was well aware of how his filters affected the light available to a camera, while it takes no such consideration to shoot seven exposures of the same scene and have a computer do this work.

After considering all of the arguments, I have decided to stop using HDR for the time being. I would rather suffer through countless forgettable and below-average exposures in order to develop the knowledge to make correct exposures in the first place! It is within the context of this knowledge that the photographer may use HDR properly and in a tasteful manner.

As the Dalai Lama says, "You have to know the rules well enough in order to break them".