Here’s an excellent Flickr gallery showing the results of HDR (High Density Range) photography. HDR photos are amalgams of several (usually three) pictures of the same subject, but shot with different exposure settings. Typically one normally exposed image captures the mid tones, an underexposed one captures the highlights, while a third overexposed one gets the shadow regions. Combining them allows you to see details across the entire range of brightness of the image, something that cameras (and indeed human eyes) can’t do in a single view normally.

The process gives the images an unnatural look – obviously, it is unnatural – but it’s very appealing.

Great picture on Shorpy of old-school toilets in Alabama. Similar arrangements existed in the UK and elsewhere, but here we have fences/walls between everyone’s property that would have made it a lot less obvious when you were going to, um, read the paper.

Take a look at 13 pictures that changed the world. While I know there are others that are equally notable (see the comments there for some ideas), it’s a great trip through the history of photography. I was particularly struck by the split between great art (#7 being a particular favourite of mine) and great photojournalism (not so easy to have a ‘favourite’, but there are few images more powerful than #4, though the pictures of the monk Thích Quảng Đức burning himself to death, and the Vietnamese girl Kim Phuc running from a napalm attack would qualify.

I think I might have started the series off with the first photograph ever taken, as that did rather get the ball rolling.

(HT: FreeMacPhoto)