Is There a Market for Grungy HDR?

I love Photomatix and creating grungy HDR images of old cars, historic buildings, and anything that catches my eye. My friend Ben Willmore showed me the technique years ago after we taught a workshop in the Smoky’s, before the technique was widely known.

I have been creating images since then that are unique to me and I’ve found the technique really exciting and fun to do. But being a working pro who creates images for the markets, I have been wondering if Grungy HDR had found its place in those markets? So I decided to research this and see if I could find any commercial uses

The Grunge Look

What I have seen is some really nice work (and some not so) appearing on photographers websites and the how-to pieces in the magazines but not much in advertising for example. I checked Getty and Corbis and searched for HDR. Both had results of exactly 1 image.

I searched Shutterstock and almost 5000 images came up in the results. Not all are grunge but plenty were. Why the discrepancies between the agencies? Could it be one agent’s content providers are more professional while anothers are more amateur? Does one agent know the markets better than the others? I don’t know.

So I decided to contact the Godfathers of grungy HDR: Trey Ratcliff of Stuck in Customs and Ben Willmore of Where is Ben.

Since both are internationally known for their work, I asked both if they are seeing any commercial use demand for grungy looking images.

Trey Ratcliff:

• “We have a pretty active licensing side – many requests per day.  The grungy ones are less than 10% — most people want something “pretty” to put on their ad, their website, brochure, annual report, etc.  Some ad campaigns go for grunge, but not many.”
  

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Ben Willmore:

• “We get a few requests….but I think people in the photographic community are against the look of grunge which is one of the reasons you don’t see it on Getty, etc. I think grunge is more appropriate for grungy subject matter instead of pure nature photography.”

I also contacted one of my agents and they said they had had no requests from clients and so were not asking their photographers to create in that style.

So this brings up the point of whether or not grungy HDR is a passing fad that will pass by before anyone becomes interested?

In the past there was infrared, cross processing, and the look from various specialized software like Lucis Art that all saw wide use in commercial advertising and design. But grungy HDR isn’t going there for some reason.

Could it be because photographers are doing HDR overkill? It is very easy to go too far and create images full of noise or lacking a full dynamic range which makes reproduction a challenge.

Photographers also need to ask themselves what was the purpose of the image is in the first place.

When it comes to marketable images, failure comes more from a technique looking for an image over an image looking for a technique.  Using any technique because you can is great for experimentation, but guarantees nothing. Garbage in still results in garbage out.

In the mean time, photographers may see success in selling prints or teaching the technique, but I think the real value of HDR techniques will be in creating real versions of the scene before us that the camera just could not reproduce in one capture.

So I will continue to make grungy HDR for the joy and also for my website and teaching, but will also back them up with another non-grunge version for that commercial client I will have in the future.

Note: Trey has a new DVD coming out soon. Signup here.

Has your grungy HDR been licensed for commercial uses? Please leave a comment.

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Related Posts:

Using HDR in Flat Light Scenes
Photographing the Old Homestead

Books on HDR: