Gallery: 24 Beautiful HDR Photos of Abandoned Places

Article by Urbanist, filed under Photography & Video in the Art category.

Something about the vibrant colors, stark contrasts and vivid depths of an HDR approach lends abandonments to HDR photography like few other subjects. Beautiful HDR pictures bring dead places and long disused spaces powerfully to back to life. Beyond this gallery, check out our collection of 100+ Abandoned Buildings, Places and Property.

Photographers like Julie Berlin (whose work is shown above) and many others (shown below) have opened the door on a new art form: that of HDR photographing dead spaces and deserted places in colorful ways and from carefully chosen perspectives. Click the thumbnails to learn more about the subjects and the sources to learn more about those that created these bright, unique and animated HDR images.

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Meaghan Fitzgerald
September 21st, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Wow, those are absolutely stunning. Living in London you don’t get quite as many properly abandoned places (probably true of any big, growing city) but I think the closest you get is something like underground walls covered in graffiti which has a different sort of abandoned feel.

My favourite abandoned areas in London are the ‘lost’ underground tube stations which if you look very carefully you can see as you go by. Makes you wonder what, or who, is down there now… :)
Arnold - Mr.Gadget
September 21st, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Superb collection of photos!
Mike Panic
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:16 am
They are indeed stunning, but the HDR trend is on it’s way out. The original intention of it was bent so far that most images, while looking pretty cool, actually look worse (in my eyes) because there is so much blending and have the dreaded halo effect to them as seen in a few of the shots above.

For me, as a photographer, HDR is the new running water, shooting a photo of a stream or waterfall on a long exposure with a camera on a tripod looks so cool until you figure out how to do it and realize there isn’t a ton of magic in the shot, outside of finding the location and proper angle. HDR is cool but being far too abused imho.

Another great collection though is http://stuckincustoms.com/.
design
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:03 am
What kind of camera/lens are they using? I am buying one. I know they have a tripod and a remote switch.
Pushpinder
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:01 am
cool collection…
Jeri
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:09 am
How can I find out what HDR software (if any) they’re using? Beautiful images.
melanie
September 22nd, 2008 at 10:14 am
I’ve never seen anything like these before. Sorrowfully delightful… or something else.
Mike Panic
September 23rd, 2008 at 12:36 am
@design – almost any DSLR will work, most people tend to use wide, fast lenses though. 35 f/2 or 24 f/1.8 lenses would be ideal, but like I said, almost any lens will work.

@Jeri – they are all using software, no camera does this automaticly. Most commonly it will either be Photoshop CS3 which has a merge HDR option to it, or on the Mac platform, Photomatix, which is what stuckincustoms.com uses primarly.
ebow
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:25 am
When I saw the title of this series I got quite excited, being both a photographer of abandonments and someone who employs HDR. However, when I saw the collection of photo’s I was disappointed. They are a continuation of the bad side of HDR, the one that creates halo’s around edges, tonal switches that makes the shadows actually lighter than the mid-tones, and over saturates everything.

Upon first introduction to HDR you can’t help but be fascinated and delighted by them. But with their heavy-handed treatment they become more of an effect that lose their photographic qualities, becoming more hyper-realistic bordering on illustrations.

You can see how the technique can be easily abused, as pointed out by Mike Panic (but why did you recommend Stuck In Customs? He’s just as guilty of these offenses!). Personally, I feel that there are warranted uses of the technique if the purpose is to achieve a more realistic outcome. Currently, the technology of cameras is limited in their natural dynamic range. The human eye has a much greater range than cameras, which is why in some high contrast scenes (such as is often the case in abandonments that have little interior lighting) can’t be adequately captured/recreated from how you see them. This is why HDR can be such a useful tool for these conditions.
Jeri
September 23rd, 2008 at 1:30 am
I agree, I like the first images, but the halos and skies leave something to be desired. I do all my HDR by hand, very time consuming in some cases, but much better result. I’m still waiting for the “magic pill” software that will see what I see in my head.
Brian Everett
September 23rd, 2008 at 4:26 am
Personally, I don’t really like HDR that much. I can see how people might be attracted to it though. I will admit the abandoned place series works well in HDR, but almost everything else I’ve seen with HDR I don’t like.

The reason being is HDR tries to achieve to much equal balance and most of the images end up looking flat, imho. HDR tries to achieve more of a look of what our human eye sees, since our eyes can see the details in the shadows better, and the highlights don’t get blown out. The camera sees differently, which in my mind is the whole entire point of photography.
Timm
September 27th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
Thanks for the glowing reviews of two of my pics (the ones from the abandoned brewery in Switzerland) on one of my favorite webzines! What a pleasant surprise on a Sunday morning!
Jayce
September 29th, 2008 at 8:20 am
HDR is way overused, and any photographer worth his or her salt wouldn’t destroy decent images by using it like this. It’s like the lens flare effect in Photoshop – sure, it’s cool and great the first few times you use it, but then it become nothing but a cliché.
sa?l?k
October 1st, 2008 at 6:31 pm
i new learn hdr format in images. great photo i like it
justiNYC
October 9th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Those are nice…however, i agree with Mike Panic about the HDR…i kinda think abandoned spaces are better viewed in the raw….great post! i really appreciate your blog…
Bart
October 15th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
Wow, great pics!

Gr,
Bart

http://www.urban-travel.org
dehlilia
December 16th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
isnt the point of any artistic medium that it shows what the individual artist wants realized? if you dont like it, then its just not YOUR kind of art, but it doesnt diminish the vision.
zayiflama
February 14th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Beautiful images, but I don’t think I will ever try HDR photography. It looks fake to me.
kozmetik
May 30th, 2009 at 7:02 am
i new learn hdr format in images. great photo i like it
evomed
May 30th, 2009 at 7:24 am
I’ve never seen anything like these before. Sorrowfully delightful… or something else.
bitki derman
June 27th, 2009 at 3:43 am
thanks alot for sharing
bitki derman
July 6th, 2009 at 7:49 am
What kind of camera/lens are they using? I am buying one. I know they have a tripod and a remote switch
bitkiderman
July 6th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Superb collection of photos!

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