Impressionism and HDR
I visited the Chicago Art Institute this weekend and, being obsessed with HDRI at the moment, I couldn't help but notice how well impressionists use HDR effects.
Paris on a Rainy Day by Caillebotte illustrates HDR reflection as the sky, though overcast, reflects brightly off the cobble-stone road and cracks. Also there is a bright reflection off of the earing on the woman in the foreground, though it does not show well here. I also really like the lighting on the umbrellas, looks like a very low-exponent specular convolution map was used :)
Venetian Interior by John Singer Sargent is another good example of HDR reflection on the wood and floor. He has also painted in some retinal-response effects around the doorway to the balcony where it looks like the eye has adjusted for bright sunlight coming in and the surrounding walls are dark and lack detail. I also really like the bright patches of light that come through the cloth or curtain seen through the very top row of windows above the door frame. This painting really shows how effective the use of HDR properties of light can be in an image.
Herring Net by Winslow Homer is really not done justice by this photograph but it's the best one I could find. The hilights on the fishermen's caps are amazing and another great example of HDR lighting used well. You can see this kind of lighting right before a thunder-storm where the sky is dark and overcast in the background but the sun is still out and causing a bright reflection on shiny things.
Waterloo Bridge by Claude Monet is definitely one of my favorites. It is an example of something I've been thinking about for a while: HDR fog. The coolness behind HDR is apparent when the color gets modulated and dimmed somehow. For instance partial reflections are cool because if only 10% of the reflected environment bounces off a surface bright light sources come through strong in the reflection but dimmer areas are barely visible. Same would be true for fog, bright light sources from factories, cars, and street lights should show for miles but dimmer details should be lost in fog fairly quickly. I saw several other paintings that illustrated this effect and I'm now inspired to make a little boat-dock scene with a light-house in the distance to demonstrate HDR fog.
I told my parents who were with me about all of this, and they looked at me as if I was crazy. I guess they lack the graphics-programmer perspective of fine art. I still maintain that HDR is where it is at, and in the end I conclude.
Paris on a Rainy Day by Caillebotte illustrates HDR reflection as the sky, though overcast, reflects brightly off the cobble-stone road and cracks. Also there is a bright reflection off of the earing on the woman in the foreground, though it does not show well here. I also really like the lighting on the umbrellas, looks like a very low-exponent specular convolution map was used :)
Venetian Interior by John Singer Sargent is another good example of HDR reflection on the wood and floor. He has also painted in some retinal-response effects around the doorway to the balcony where it looks like the eye has adjusted for bright sunlight coming in and the surrounding walls are dark and lack detail. I also really like the bright patches of light that come through the cloth or curtain seen through the very top row of windows above the door frame. This painting really shows how effective the use of HDR properties of light can be in an image.
Herring Net by Winslow Homer is really not done justice by this photograph but it's the best one I could find. The hilights on the fishermen's caps are amazing and another great example of HDR lighting used well. You can see this kind of lighting right before a thunder-storm where the sky is dark and overcast in the background but the sun is still out and causing a bright reflection on shiny things.
Waterloo Bridge by Claude Monet is definitely one of my favorites. It is an example of something I've been thinking about for a while: HDR fog. The coolness behind HDR is apparent when the color gets modulated and dimmed somehow. For instance partial reflections are cool because if only 10% of the reflected environment bounces off a surface bright light sources come through strong in the reflection but dimmer areas are barely visible. Same would be true for fog, bright light sources from factories, cars, and street lights should show for miles but dimmer details should be lost in fog fairly quickly. I saw several other paintings that illustrated this effect and I'm now inspired to make a little boat-dock scene with a light-house in the distance to demonstrate HDR fog.I told my parents who were with me about all of this, and they looked at me as if I was crazy. I guess they lack the graphics-programmer perspective of fine art. I still maintain that HDR is where it is at, and in the end I conclude.
posted by MonkeyScience at 1:11 AM
2 Comments:
Oh, and while writing this post I realized two things:
a) blogger.com sucks hard at image handling
b) Most prints and photos of paintings are terrible! Every single one I've found is tinted way green and has snotty contrast. I tried to save the ones in this post as I remembered them, but man, you've never seen a Monet unless you've seen it hanging on a wall.
Next time I go, I'm gonna take my camera and take some HDR photos of paintings to see if the color and brightness come through better. Some of the impressionist paintings look like they glow with color and I'll bet crappy LDR cameras take an axe to that.
I never thought of this but it is an interesting point. It makes sense since in a lot of ways HDR is trying to compesate for shortcomings of a normal camera, but painters aren't bound by those same parameters. Cool.
Post a Comment
<< Home