Why I hate HDR as much as I hate bokeh

There is a good reason for why you should hate HDR. Think about it. Its like looking at Photographs after taking an overdose of LSD. After HDR came into the light I fear dying because this might be the effect of me grasping for the last breath. Id rather have a stream of clean light or just some Black and white picture in my head at that moment.Think about it your leaving this world and the last thing you see is your maker, not in 3D but HDR 3D. Well ain't that a reason for staying alive.

But this is not the main reason I do hate HDR. The main reason for that is the pure and simple misconception that is behind the word and its use. To many any thing Processed to day is HDR. Any thing with skewed colors is suddenly HDR. Any thing that is different than the flat boring raw file is HDR. This is as bad as the misconception of Bokeh. Suddenly every thing is Bokeh this and that and not half of the people using the word have a slidest idea of what Bokeh really is. Just read Wikipedia and you have yet another misconception of what bokeh is. i found it in Danish and they describe out of focus areas. Depth of field related maters, but nowhere do you find that its a technical flaw(or character) in any given lens and therefore different in each and every object. Still people compete in Bokeh. 

This is the same situation we have with HDR. Lot of people in cyberspace babble about HDR this and that and how bad it is (and bad it can be) but they have not a clue about what they are talking about.

HDR is nothing but a one step in photography process. Its not a picture style. Its not a camera. Its not a preprocess or development technique. HDR is simply High Dynamic rang in an image. Image that has grater dynamic range than you can reach by any single handed process. Its therefore an artifact of camera flaw.

Fact is that the biggest fighter of HDR was probably Ansel Adams (still not on G+). His work on photography processes was all geared towards getting as much informations out on the final image as you could. To do that he would go through lengthy processes in shooting. Involving filters. Push/pull development. Dodging and burning and grading of Paper. Mixing special chemicals. And even using ferrycianide to do final touch up. Oh yes He processed the image probably more than any.

So why my hate of HDR. Well isin't that obvious by now. The share use of the word in the photographic world is simply wrong. It skews your perspective of an individual image. Just as people at one time where using Oh its photoshopped. It casts a stamp on images, stamp that people have now learn't to hate after loosing the "oh its photoshopped" fight. It takes away the share joy of enjoying the image for what it is. Or hating it if that is what you want. 

HDR is no one thing rather than photography in general. HDR is different thing in any given image and can effect the outcome, but its neither a style , technique nor an image in it self. HDR is just one of the tools in photographers toolbox and can be used to a brilliance , but can get you to puke as well as an overdose of Black Death. 

That is why I hate The word HDR but love photography, be it done with HDR technique or not.

My guess is that 90% of those talking about HDR would never have though of the image with this post as an HDR image. But it truly is as its composed of 3 separate exposures and heavy processing in Lightroom and Photoshop.