HDR Into Light

Sacred Site Bali
The majority of image processing for this photo was conducted in Lightroom 4.1with some final, subtle enhancements in Photoshop CS6. 
Back in the day I think it’s fair to say that part of being a good photographer was being able to see in the way your camera and film did. To be able to do this it's important to understand what's not possible, by which I mean under what conditions does the camera fail (sometimes dismally) to record the scene in the way our eyes and brain see and remember it.
Think of all those times when the subject in a backlit portrait photographs too dark. Perhaps the sky looks great, but its now hard to discern the identity of the subject.
Except in the case of a deliberate silhouette there was just no way I'd photograph into the sun. That was breaking one of the most basic rules of photography. Don't photograph into the sun is right up there with those other two gems my mum called out to me as I headed out to do my first wedding as an ...