I’d like to draw attention to one hyper-specific innovation in particular that might go unnoticed by anyone who is not a cinematographer: the invention and continued development of HDR or high-dynamic-range. 

HDR has been a holy grail of videography for a long time, but with recent advancements in digital capturing capabilities, it’s becoming cheaper and more ubiquitous. HDR is now found on both movie sets and in phone cameras. “High Dynamic Range” means that the image sensor (the central piece of a digital camera) is attuned to a large range of different light levels. In other words, it’s equally sensitive in high-light and low-light environments. Even more powerfully, HDR affords a heightened ability for cameras to discern detail in images that are dynamic in brightness; it allows the photographer to capture images that are extremely detailed in both very bright and very dark parts of the image, and everything in between. In short, it allows the viewer to see everything more clearly, which pretty objectively sounds like a great thing!

HDR is itself a long tradition to improve the clarity of dynamically bright images and is also a smaller part of an even longer and larger tradition to improve image quality in general. It coincides with an explosion in image resolution, with 4K and 8K displays becoming more common, and attention to image tonality with innovations like the OLED display. But even beyond the digital, scientists and engineers have been hungry to improve camera quality since the first photo was taken. McLuhan’s article talks about an assumed sense that technological progress is good and nowhere is that more evident than in the case of the photograph: better photos from better cameras are better, end of story. In the case of the photograph, better could mean a lot of things, but usually, it’s assumed to mean a more accurate reflection of reality the moment the photo was taken. 

But McLuhan encourages us to question the nature of this march of progress toward higher and higher quality images. By extending his argument to photos, one must wonder: “HDR is better, but is it more beautiful?”

The Thing (1982)

The Parent Trap (1998)

Jurassic Park (1993)

The above three movies were all shot without HDR technology. You can tell because they look terrible! In each image, certain spots are difficult to see clearly because they’re too bright, (overexposed) while other spots are so dark it’s difficult to make out any detail at all. Except, something’s off here – because these “terribly” shot films are regarded by critics as some of the greatest cinematic masterpieces from a videography perspective. The engineer might say these shots look terrible because they fail to capture detail accurately, but the artist, filmmaker, and critic disagree. Let’s compare them to some movies from the 2020s:

Wicked (2024)

Red One (2024)

Gladiator 2 (2024)

These images look great from a technical standpoint. Finally, I can see everything! But notice also how the HDR technology smooths out lighting contrasts, and in a more abstract sense creates a “flat” image. Not flat in terms of depth, but flat in terms of personality: a bland shot, ironically, one that is less “dynamic.”

Movies aren’t the only thing to have had their souls drained in the pursuit of higher “objective” quality. A much closer-to-home example would be the smartphone, its camera being the portal through which nearly everyone sees the world. Because of the ubiquity of the smartphone and its intersection with social media, our social lives, and our worldviews, the way this device captures (or distorts) our world has the potential to alter the way we see reality itself – warping our experienced reality in post-production. The smartphone pretends to be an accurate representation of reality (as opposed to cinematography, which is assumed to be artistic) and when the majority of the planet accepts that assumption, we arrive at a point where we see a smartphone video and conclude “Well that’s the way it must’ve looked.”

Undoubtedly smartphone cameras are impressively accurate. With HDR technology they’re able to capture every detail in any lighting condition, and their massive modern resolutions (1080P, 4K, and more) allow us to zoom in and scrutinize those details in further detail. But wait a moment… our eyes can’t do that, even in reality. If I walk through a forest in the dead of night I won’t be able to see all that my Google Pixel can. If I happen upon a deer, I can admire its beauty for a fleeting moment, but I won’t be able to examine every last hair on its head as my Google Pixel’s AI-augmented zoom can.

If smartphones by their ubiquity and assumed infallibility have the power to dictate our experienced reality, and this reality is more detailed – more real – than what our antiquated human hardware can perceive, then what we’re living in is a hyperreality: a reality more real than real.

Similar to cinematography, increases in mobile camera quality seem inevitable and objectively good. But a hyperreality is its own kind of deviation from reality, and therefore, its own kind of distortion of reality. Concrete consequences abound. For example, the ways in which hyperreal cameras distort our perceptions of ourselves have been well studied by psychologists and anthropologists, these distortions having been proven to contribute to low self-esteem and eating disorders, especially among young women. It’s easy to see why: with the power of 4K zoom and HDR, no blemish or ‘imperfection’ (a socially determined construct in its own right) is free to be ignored. These imperfections might be impossible or at least highly improbable for another human to notice at all, but the camera knows no such limitation. In this way, the blemish-detecting camera is more accurate to reality than the human experience of reality. You can now notice all your flaws like never before.

But even beyond those concrete and proven consequences, is there not also an abstract loss of beauty in the world? Phone cameras’ HDR is so accurate that it resists any kind of romanticization. The color grading is typically a cold gray or “blue sheen” of the digital. How can there be any sense of nostalgia, warmth, comfort, or coziness in an era of chrome and electronic blue? Every image becomes more accurate but somehow less lifelike.

Silicon Valley has responded to these complaints in a very Silicon Valley-brand way: by correcting the problems of technology with, you guessed it, more technology. Digital filters, like the ones you see on Instagram, often attempt to impose or reconstruct artifacts of bygone photo-capturing technologies to artificially re-introduce a sense of warmth or nostalgia in an image. Some filters (see image right) even go so far as to re-introduce fabricated dead pixels or simulated scratches on simulated film. It’s a fascinating approach: a recognition that a technology (HDR cameras) has caused an artistic or philosophical problem, and attempting to solve that problem by simulating “worse” technology using even more sophisticated technology. Is that what progress in the digital age is? Progress looping back in on itself, recursively self-referencing to fill in the holes it creates?

Many things define the look of an era. You might think of bell-bottom jeans in the 70s, or punk-rockers with their Doc Martins in the 90s. But equally important to the content of these cultural memories are the ways in which they are remembered, and the technologies behind that recollection. 70s-era photography had a certain look based on the affordances and artifacts of the film technology at the time, just as the iconic 90s VHS look came from the affordances and artifacts of camcorders. The artifacts – or imperfections – of a piece of technology define how we remember that era. What do we lose in the dogged pursuit of perfection when these artifacts go away? Is it not a bit disappointing to think that our era – the 2020s – will be remembered as the era of flat and boring cinematic shots, cold electronic blue iPhone sheen, and faux-filters desperately simulating the past in search of bygone nostalgia? Is it reassuring or unsettling to think that every clogged pore on your face, every nose hair, every tiny “imperfection” of you is now enshrined in a digital cloud until the end of time? One might be tempted to say that what we lose with advanced HDR technology is an aesthetic of our era. But just as artifacts haven’t gone away (they’ve just become less obvious) so too has era-aesthetic not gone away, only this time it’s the disturbing aesthetic of cold hyperreality. 

At the end of his remarks, McLuhan presents us with an especially challenging final question: “How do we utilize advancement without losing our humanity in the process?” In the case of photography, this is especially difficult, because aesthetic sensibilities are wildly different, and it’s hard to convince people that “more perfect” isn’t the same as “more beautiful.” I think the answer will – and has already begun to – include several fronts of artistic rebellion. Many of my colleagues are investing in film cameras to revitalize a dying industry and learn to enjoy the artifacts of old. Others are ditching phone screens for flip phones. In the cinematic world, innovative and avant-garde directors still exist, supported by a thriving ecosystem of independent film studios that experiment with all sorts of capturing techniques both old and new. And indie doesn’t mean small; A24 is one such extremely successful studio. In fact, the bland style of HDR film really only applies to the big-budget mainline Hollywood flicks, while smaller studios and the indie scene are experiencing something of a renaissance. 

I have my answer, though I don’t mean to pretend it’s right for everyone. This is my homemade digital (camera & voice recorder.) I made it out of an Altoids tin and mostly spare parts. The point of this device is to resist the predominant hyperreal photography style we’ve been discussing. Its low-quality images are full of artifacts that give clues as to its construction and limitations. However, these artifacts aren’t anything like the artifacts of a VHS player, camcorder, or film. And they’re certainly not like the faux artifacts of Instagram filters. These artifacts are honest: they are natural impurities created by the nature of the technology, not imposed or simulated in post-production. But these artifacts are also new. The camera uses cheap DIY parts, but it uses new parts, meaning that the affordances and artifacts it creates could not be found elsewhere. In short, it is low quality in a new and unique way.

The camera has a lot of trouble with low-light photography because it doesn’t have an infrared filter. You won’t get artifacts like this anywhere else. Yeah, it’s low quality, but isn’t it cool?

In our pursuit of increasingly perfect images, we’ve lost something. We’ve created a modern aesthetic that masquerades as objective, but in reality, takes the warmth and vibrancy out of our memories. In our cinematic arts, we’ve ironically come to favor clarity over art when art is anything but clear. But not all hope is lost: people crave an aesthetic reimagining and are seeking it through technologies and techniques both new and old. Some day, we’ll look back on the 2020s and be disgusted by this “blue sheen.” But only because we’ve found something more beautiful.