Mt Kebnekaise, the highest mountain of Sweden, in LapplandRecently, the results of the UK Landscape Photographer of the Year Award were published. BBC News made an announcement on theirwebsite, and a very interesting thing happened. Most of thereaders commentswere not praising the winning images but complaining about one thing: they looked like "HDR". By that, they meant overly contrasted and saturated images that appear unrealistic (on a sidenote, I am fairly sure that only one of the eight winning photos actually was HDR).

The technique has indeed a very bad press, especially in the "fine art" community, and to be fair, much of the criticism is justified. But the point I would like to make here is that, well used, it can be very powerful and look perfectly natural, and is sometimes the only way to capture a scene as our eyes see it. Because there are so many widespread misconceptions about HDR, and because most online resources focus on how to achieve this overcooked effect that...