Interview with HDR photographer Trey Ratcliff

Stuck In Customs is a blog run by photographer and writer Trey Ratcliff. Ratcliff is a photographer who has drawn a huge fan base strictly from online attention, and his blog as well as his photography have won numerous awards. He’s regularly featured on sites like Digg and Reddit, and his Flickr page has attracted a huge number of views.

Trey specializes in HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography, and as you would expect, he’s quite good at it. His photographic exploits span the world, from Chernobyl to Dresden, from Mumbai to Amish country.

In his “other” life Trey works as the CEO for John Galt Games, but on the web, he’s become the poster child for HDR… so much so that he’s created a popular tutorial regarding HDR (which he wanted me to share).

Despite his busy schedule, we were fortunate enough to have a quick conversation with Trey Ratcliff about his photography. Here’s that interview.

(Fotohacker) Before we get into your photography… you’re the CEO for John Galt Games. How long have you been with them, and what does your role there consist of?

(Trey Ratcliff) I’ve been with John Galt Games for a few years. My main role is more on the creative and team leadership side. We have several games in development, most notably WebWars, and working with the team on the design and execution occupies about 95% of my non-family day.

For those of us who are Eve Online fanatics… how awesome can we expect WebWars to be?

WebWars is awesome. It really, really is - and I can say that objectively. We are still in private beta and I was up at 4 AM the other night overseeing the servers as we had testers connecting from all over the world. It’s a new fresh game in a world of copy-cats, and I know people will have a blast with WebWars: EVE. Feel free to send your readers to sign up for the beta at www.webwars.com!

You have a lot of travel photography. What has been your favorite place to visit so far? Do you ever feel nervous or apprehensive about shooting in a foreign place?

Iceland is the best. I keep saying that, but maybe I shouldn’t because I don’t want people going there and getting in the way of my shots. I hate that… oh god it is so annoying when clueless tourists are walking around with their little cameras using a flash to shoot a mountain range. Anyway, besides the lack of people, there is a raw beauty that I have not found anywhere else. It’s like Yellowstone on geothermal steroids. I rarely get nervous when walking around foreign places like dark alleys in Mumbai or back streets of Bangkok. I carry around a huge tripod slung over my shoulder. I have a gait like Jason Bourne and I’ve learned to flip my tripod around (I carry it SO much) like a nunchaku, so I am sure that this bizarre ensemble intimidates or at least causes a moment of pause for the local ne’erdowells.

How and when did you start taking photographs? Did you begin using film, or digital? When did you get your first digital camera?

I’ve taken photographs my whole life, so I’ve always been learning composition and those sorts of basics. I did not get an SLR until just a few years ago.

Did you get any formal training as a photographer, or have you been self-taught?

I am totally self-taught. I think some people do very well in structured learning environments, but I do not. My curiosity in strange sub-trails of subjects lets me go off into the weeds on deep dives of information. It’s hard for me to all that distraction to be productive within a structured learning environment.

Has your photography inspired any commercial interest?

Yes - I get contacted sometimes by many entities that want to use my photos for various purposes. I am really busy, but fortunately, I am represented by Getty, so I am able just to send people there.

What sort of equipment do you shoot with? Do you use any artificial lighting?

I shoot with a Nikon D2x and the predictable lenses. I’m not one of those camera-guys that gets really into talking about my equipment. For model shoots, I do use special lighting, but not for my landscapes or other interior shots.

What was your introduction to High Dynamic Range photography?

I don’t remember exactly. I think it might have come from playing Half Life 2 on my PC. I noticed how the lighting was quite a bit different than any photograph I had ever seen. I compared it to nice photographs that I had seen on the exact same computer screen. It took me a while to figure out why the game picture looked so much more engaging and exciting than a regular photograph. Then I started surfing around the net and saw there were a few basic HDR photo-manipulation tools. I’ve adopted my own style, which still uses the same basic tools mentioned in the tutorial.

What do you think of the HDR scene that exists online? Is the technique being exploited to it’s fullest potential, or do you feel it’s being misused at all?

Honestly, I don’t keep up with “the scene”. I have chosen a path and I continue to go down it, refining my technique. I see HDR stuff all over the place. Some is good and some is bad. I see a lot of beginners making the same mistakes I did, so I hardly blame them! It just takes a while to learn proper techniques - that’s all…

Are you surprised by the attention your photography has attracted online?

Yes - I am totally shocked. I have over 13,000 emails in my photography inbox still unread. I put a screenshot of that on Flickr and I ended up with another thousand or so that day. I feel bad that so many people email me and I never get back to them… Just too busy - I think most of them understand - at least I hope they do.

What’s “the trick” behind getting that wonderful HDR look? You’ve walked through the process in your tutorial, but parts of the process itself seem rather fluid and organic. If you had to give someone that one tip to remember when processing HDR, what would it be?

That’s a tough question. In the meta-sense, I think the more exposure one has to Impressionist art, the better they can make their HDRs. The great Impressionist painters of the world understood light and color better than anyone. If you have the artistic mind to catalog, recall, and overlay their techniques into your photos, then you can do the microadjustments needed to make the photograph flow properly. I look at Impressionist paintings like CSI investigators - why did Caillebotte choose to make the stone wet? Why did Manet put so much black in the clouds? Why did Degas put the horses over THERE? To me it’s all very interesting to empathize and figure this stuff out. I’ve never taken an art class, so I may be wrong in my conclusions, but I’m always refining my conclusions, and even if I did take a class, I probably wouldn’t believe the teacher anyway.

You talk about photography in terms of impressionist paintings. That’s interesting, because a painter will usually have a good sense of where they’re going with the piece early in their process. When you look at a scene, can you visualize the HDR result before you’ve ever sat down on your computer, or are you exploring and inventing the final result during the actual HDR phase?

I compose most of the photo on the scene. If it’s not composed well, then there is nothing I can do to rescue it in Photoshop. Also, I try to select the proper lighting and colors that I know from experience will turn out well. Not that I bat 1000 - not even close! But I think I see my average getting a little better over time and over mistake after mistake.

You obviously don’t convert everything you shoot to HDR. What kind of conditions or components do you look for when shooting that inspire you to HDR it?

Now I absolutely see the world in HDR. I am acutely aware when I am in a place with various light levels. It’s hard to say, but when I go around with my photographer friends who are into HDR, we can all immediately see the same potential for HDR in a scene. It’s a new way of thinking, but I think it comes very fast after you just do a bit of HDR.

Do you have a favorite lens?

I end up using my Sigma 10-20mm more than I ever thought I would. I thank my great HDR photographer friend in Naples name Valerio for introducing me to the lens!

Do you use any special filters when shooting?

I never use filters. I let all the colors flow naturally into my lens.. I need all the natural colors so that in post processing I can use them as necessary.

Weigh in on this important subject, Trey. Primes, or zooms?

Zooms for everything but very predictable model shoots. In HDR, the f-stops do not matter, since you are on a tripod and you do long exposures. If you are doing single-frame HDRs of moving subjects, then having a prime lens will be nice, but fast-moving subjects rarely stay in the right position for a prime!