HDR in Portraits and Group Shots

Recently, Mike Connell, aka, TX Shooter, blogged about how you can use HDR as a background and blend in a portrait at the same place to create a stunning image.  He really explains it quite well and I certainly recommend you check it out if you are interested.  His post inspired me to blog about a similar thing I did while in Whistler this past January.

My wife Eileen and I traveled to Whistler with some friends, and we all wanted a decent group shot.  In the village, there are the Olympic rings from the 2010 Winter Olympics.  That makes a great shot, yes?  However, I wanted the picture to look kind of nice and not just flat from my on-camera flash.  So, I decided to take several brackets of the rings with no one in the picture and then one shot with everyone in the picture using the flash.  In post-processing, I created the HDR shot without anyone in it and then I masked in all of us from the single group shot.  I think it turned out quite nicely considering I don't have any kind of off-camera flash or anything like that.  You can see the result below:

Give it a try sometime. I think you might like the results! Thanks again, Mike, for the post! And, thanks Doug, Tricia, Valerie and Theresa! We had a great time and let's do it again!