HDR

HDR technique is something quite new and still not that popular although it gets more and more fans. I recenly had a go trying to create these pictures with dramatic atmosphere and not natural colour palette. First few attempts were not so succesful but i guess essential is to take a good shot and then by setting all features try to achieve best possible result.
HDR - In image processing, computer graphics, and photography, high dynamic range imaging (HDRI or just HDR) is a set of techniques that allow a greater dynamic range of luminances between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than standard digital imaging techniques or photographic methods. This wider dynamic range allows HDR images to more accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes, ranging from direct sunlight to faint starlight. The two main sources of HDR imagery are computer renderings and merging of multiple photographs, which in turn are known as low dynamic range (LDR)(also called standard dynamic range (SDR) photographs.Tone mapping techniques, which reduce overall contrast to facilitate display of HDR images on devices with lower dynamic range, can be applied to produce images with preserved or exaggerated local contrast for artistic effect.

http://mathewfarris.blogspot.com/2009/04/topic-hdr-photography.html
http://www.hdrsoft.com/

Gothic Fashion

Gothic fashion is a clothing style worn by members of the Goth subculture; a dark, sometimes morbid, eroticized fashion and style of dress. Typical Gothic fashion includes black dyed and crimped hair, black lips and black clothes. Androgynity is common, with both female and male goths wearing cosmetics, skirts or high heels. Styles are often borrowed from the Punks, Victorians and Elizabethans. BDSM imagery and paraphernalia are also common. Cintra Wilson declares that "The origins of contemporary goth style are found in the Victorian cult of mourning." Valerie Steele is an expert in the history of the style.
Goth fashion can be recognized by its stark black clothing (or hair or makeup). Other distinctives are subject to interpretation.
I recently became interested in gothic fasion. Combination of outfits is amazing and dictinctive. Amazing is that this style was popular hundreds years ago but it is still considered by some people as something immortal.

http://www.gothicsubculture.com/

Philip Lorca Dicorcia

How amazing is fact that sometimes we do not know someone name but we recognize his art work and when we are looking for a specific artist suddenly one of the pics reminds us something. We can say that we have seen it somewhere before. It seems to be prdinary photograph but it is not. What would half-naked man be doing in front of the supermarket. Why someone took a picture of him? Was is an accident or the scene was carefully set up?
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (born 1951) is an American photographer. He studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Afterwards diCorcia attended Yale University where he received a Master of Fine Arts in Photography in 1979. He now lives and works in New York, and teaches at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. His photographs would then give a sense of heightened drama to the passers-by accidental poses, unintended movements and insignificant facial expressions. Even if sometimes the subject appears to be completely detached to the world around him, diCorcia has often used the city of the subject's name as the title of the photo, placing the passers-by back into the city's anonymity.

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/cruelandtender/dicorcia.htm
http://www.artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles1997/Articles1097/PdiCorciaA.html