Now lets say we didn’t think to take 3+ images when we were out shooting but we still want a beautiful HDR image of the scene.  That’s were this Lightroom technique for fake HDRs comes in to play.

Lets start with the original image:

As you can see, the image is fairly drab, the colors are not vibrant, and the front of the gas pump is under exposed compared to the rest of the scene.

The image to the left illustrates the Lightroom settings I used to obtain our effect.  The first step is to get everything properly exposed, you can do this by fidgeting with the “Fill Light” and “Recovery” settings in Lightroom.  Add more fill light to brighten up dark areas, and more recovery to restore details to over exposed areas.

Personally, I’m a contrast junkie so I like to bump my clarity all the way up and add contrast to taste. This will create a sharp, crisp image.  And lastly, you will want to bring your vibrance and saturation up.  This will help make those colors bright and vibrant just like you see in many HDR images.

And that’s it, you have your High Dynamic Range image. You can download the lightroom preset I created to make this image right click on this link and choose save as.

In the interview, curator Shervin Shahbazi speaks of the many pieces that should have made it to the exhibition but where stopped by Iranian customs agents.  And most were held because they contained the color green and/or other political statements about the current regime in Iran.

Green happens to be the color of the opposition party that was lead by presidential hopeful Mir-Hossein Mousavi in the heavily debated election of 2009.  This election lead to rioting in the streets of Tehran and conspiracies that the election was rigged by the ruling party.  So it goes with out saying why the Iranian government would have a problem with the world at large getting their hands on these pieces.

The censorship of Iran is so strong, that none of the artists where able to even give their real names out of fear of retaliation by the government.

But despite the difficulties presented to these artists, many of their works still made it to LA, and are being snatched up at a very fast pace.

All images provided by the Crewest Gallery’s Flickr Page

Scream-FRZ

Gun VS Cameric-icy

Election-SOT

COLORFUL FACE-ICY

Scream - SOT

BOMB is a TOY - SOT

Peace Face - ICY

For more images from the Crewest Gallery Click Here

Throughout the works, you can see an obvious cry for change from a society that has been long oppressed.  The imagery depicts the pain and suffering of people long oppressed by threats of war, religious oppression, and potential nuclear warfare and only hoping for the basic civility that many people across the world already enjoy on a day to day basis.

This comes as no surprise as the headlines this week have been dominated with reports on Iran’s missile tests, a secret uranium enrichment facility, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad down playing his opinion that the holocaust ever existed, and the UN beginning to engage in talks with Iran to resolve any potential threats of nuclear armament with the country.

Throughout time war and political upheaval has had an impact on the arts.  As far back as man has been creating art, we have depicted the effects of war in our artworks.

Here are a few excerpts from the IMA’s collection of works that I found depicting war and social upheaval.

Sock it to me - by William Weege - 1967 - Vietnam Era

War - By William Gropper

Making Soldiers: In the Frontline Trench - By Eric Henri Kennington - 1917 - World War I Era

Doing All You Can, Brother? Buy War Bonds - 1943 - World War II Propaganda Poster

Given that I don’t consider myself much of a writer, it seems practical that the rest of my blog contain photos, as this is a little more up my alley. Photography is a great passion of mine, and I’m sure as time goes on, I will share many more pictures on this blog.

photo by Rumi Sakuraeda

During my time at NUVO I had a few opportunities to take photos of some familiar faces here at the museum. I also took some time to get some snapshots of our little neck of the woods, quaintly nestled behind the library.

What geek habitat is complete with out a Rubik’s Cube?

Seriously…You can’t have just one

Most comfortable chair ever

This is the center portion of our office and the general gathering area for MIS meetings

And here are a few that I took while working for NUVO:

Max Anderson, Click here to view the original NUVO article

R Craig Miller, Click here to view the original NUVO article

And of course the beautiful fountain in HDR (High Dynamic Range)

View the IMA on NUVO's site