The Return of HDR - The Land of Krzeszow

Most of the attention I have got for my photography (and that is a big IF I have got any attention) is still probably down to my HDR photos. It's still a relatively new field of photography, though it's roots go back decades. I had never heard of HDR photography until about 2 years ago, just a few months after I developed a passion for digital photography and I really wanted to learn the techniques to produce these artistic and 'different' photographs. It's been an interesting road to follow over the last couple of years, from initially thinking that most HDR photos worked because of the saturation to the already interesting processing, to the current trend which tends to favour a less saturated look (demonstrated very well by the some of the excellent recent photographs by Artie NG on Flickr). My output has tended to be less HDR in the last few months, as I'm back to wanting to capture images through natural photographic techniques, but I still want to be up there producing great HDR photos, and I know that is what drives a lot of other photographer bloggers out there as well.

Which brings me to today's picture, one I took whilst on my recent trip to Poland. This was taken from a small, rebuilt (it was literally just ruins a few years ago) chapel on top of a hill that overlooks the village of Krzeszow (pronounced c-shes-shov). The view you could see from this small church was amazing and I wanted to capture a kind of 'looking through the door' picture. The church you can see in the middle of the picture is the spectacular Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and yes this was the place I was married recently. That itself is not an easy building to photograph close up as it is literally so huge, but the pictures will be coming soon! I know this may have looked better had I not had features such as the ladder and the unhinged panels, but unfortunately I had no control over those things. I'm very glad to have got the picture though, as the light at the time I visited was on my side, and I would have regretted not getting the picture.