St. Louis Carousel in HDR

I have recently started working with HDR software. HDR software has improved immensely in the past couple years. HDR still draws criticism from a lot of photographers, but I think it is here to stay. For me, certain subjects really look great in the over the top surreal look HDR can create.

On Friday morning I went to the Missouri Botanical Gardens Butterfly House in Faust Park. I had intended to do some macro butterfly photography. Well my bad luck streak struck again, as I found out they were closed for maintenance until the next day.  So I had to switch gears and think of something else to photograph. Located inside a climate controlled building near the butterfly house is the restored St. Louis Carousel.   The carousel was built by the Dentzel Company of Philadelphia in the 1920's. The carousel was installed in 1929 at the Forest Park Highlands. When the Highlands burned to the ground in 1963 the carousel was the only thing left standing.

The carousel was purchased by a private individual and donated to the St. Louis County Parks. The carousel was operated at Sylvan Spring Park until 1980. The carousel was restored to it's original beauty and moved inside to Faust Park in 1987.

I went over to the carousel building and shot numerous bracketed shots to do some HDR processing. These were all done in the NIK HDR Pro software.

If you click on a photo it will open larger in a new window. This allows you to better see the amazing colors and detail that can be brought out with HDR software.

  
Scott