I came across Charlie’s Diner while out driving around in the next town over looking for subjects to take HDR photos of. I was heading home after a pretty uneventful outing and I decided to take a way home I haven’t gone before (thank you GPS!). I passed by this diner and I immediately knew that this was my subject. I turned around, setup on the side of the road and fired off a bunch of HDR brackets. Before I left, I was reviewing my shots on the LCD and I knew this was going to be a black and white HDR. The old looking diner, plus those winter storm clouds, helped give me that mental image.

I got home and tonemapped the shots, cleaned them up in Photoshop and it looked great. However, I believe turning it to black and white gave it more of a story to tell.

Don’t forget to try your HDRs out in black and white – you may be surprised with the results!