A Great Local Place (Gold Coast Railroad Museum)

I decided to check out a new local place.  Each time the family and I took a trip to the Miami Metro Zoo I had seen a sign for the Gold Coast Railroad Museum.  I didn't pay much attention to the place because I figured it was just a small walkthrough museum.  There is this really cool iPad app (FREE) out there called Stuck on Earth.  You really need to check it out if you haven't.  It lets you check out local places and see photos from that place.  That is when I really got interested in the Railroad Museum.

So, this past Saturday we (the family) journeyed to the museum.  To say the least I was impressed.  There is so much history stored away for you to see and interact with.  Besides, being a guy it was AWESOME to set foot on the massive pieces of mobile metal!!!!!

The clouds were out in full force which gave me the idea to do some HDR shots.  The first photograph is my favorite of the bunch with the dramatic clouds in the background and the old rusted hunk of metal in front.  The second shot was of a very old steam engine which had to be done in black and white of course.  Lastly, I just couldn't pass up the leading lines down the side of passenger cars.  All and all it was a great trip and I was not even there that long.  The next time I will plan for some addition time!

I Hate HDR?

This is a can of worms topic in the world of photography.  Generally speaking photographers fall in one of two categories:

• Category 1:  "I HATE HDR, it is overdone, overused, it is a gimmicky post processing trick that attempts to turn a bad photo into a good one, and I can't stand it".
• Category 2:  "I LOVE HDR, it is a great tool because it lets us see a dynamic range closer to what the eye sees."

Here is something to consider:  People that buy and/or enjoy photography but are not photographers seem to all love HDR (generally speaking).  These folks don't know it is HDR or even what HDR means.  They just know whether or not they like the photo.  What an interesting concept.  The end product is all they care about.  They might want to know what the photographer was thinking when they composed the image or they might like to hear the story of it's creation.  But dollars to donuts they could care less if it's HDR.

I want to charge each of you with this...  FORGET the method used for a given photograph and evaluate wether or not you "like" the image.  In the end, that is all that really matters.

Update:

Check out these other posts regarding this same topic:

Rick Sammon http://www.ricksammon.info/2012/01/i-hate-hdr.html

Mike Pedde http://www.wolfnowl.com/2011/01/why-use-hdr/