See now we are getting somewhere. Your flower pictures you call art I call crap, your right its not my thing. Even if it was painted or screened its not my thing. There is many art that I do not like and then there some that I really like. This is more your thing. I think I can remember back when you argued and others about how HDR photography is not art..I argued that it could be when it is pushed to look like a painting, airbrushed or cartoony. There are many people out there that love HDR and pictures like I post and its my thing and not yours. People appreciate the processing techniques and all the little things that go into the processing that make the photos pop. I will use flickr as an example. Do you see how many HDR photos of similar style are out there. YOU may not like them or appreciate them but, just like your flower picture you call art or pop art people look at those as an expressive art or photo processed art or what ever else they want to call it. Trey Ratcliff is famous for his HDR work and a lot of his work is vibrant and somewhat non realistic while other is more realistic and that guy has done very well for himself.
You can not say your flower is art and then say my work is not. Even if you hate my work which I can accept its not fair to be hypocritical about it. Thats my point! You say you get it out of the camera right and no need for photoshop, great then why even do this LDR almost HDR shot? because you can not get all that info in one single exposure. This is where you need something like HDR of fusion to kick in and make it happen. This to me is fascinating and rather than bash other people for their over the top work perhaps you could be more open minded and look for the good not always the bad or just do not post such negative comments. Were people have liked my work you have come in and bashed it. Thats not cool there is no respect there. When I joined this forum I was never disrespectful to you and others. All I was trying to do is come and learn and try to become a better photographer which is not my profession. People like you try to rob people like me out of the joy of doing things and thats not cool!
I will say hands down you have more experience than me in photography and are more experienced with understanding lighting for photo shoots. I will never argue that I am better than you. My profession is graphic design and printing as you know. Photography is something on the side and I think way tooooo many people here take this to serious.
Point is through out all this is this, You bashed HDR but then attempt it, you bash non natural looking photos and colors but then you apply it to yours (flowers) and call it art but, argue when people push their HDRs doing the same thing you are doing. Perhaps you can be a little more open to the fact art is in the eye of the beholder and their is not just only one way of looking at things. Just because you don't like it does not mean its crap!
We will have to agree to disagree! As stated in the past! There is good HDR (IMO) and BAD HDR (IMO) as there is good and bad in everything. I was doing HDR (or LDR Exposure fusion, call it what you want!) by hand starting back in the mid 90's... on photoshop v3, because of the lack of dynamic range in early digital cameras. I did Exposure fusion (sort of) in the darkroom(70s, 80s), burning and dodging to bring out details in prints like I wanted them.
But I do prefer a natural looking photo.. not something fuzzy, or grungy... or heavily tone mapped. To me, there is a distinct difference in true HDR and Tonemapping, and apparently there are those that agree.. so they are now calling it LDR, even though you process multiple images with multiple exposures that same exact way, minus the Tone Mapping. And that link you posted.. the LDR looks much more realistic than the HDR example they posted.... To me, at least! I will call my stuff LDR from now on, although I consider it silly! HDR has sadly become synonymous with Tone Mapping, which is why they changed the name of this process to LDR.