As a cultural movement, surrealism is a much discussed and abstract art form. It is largely considered to be one of, if not the, most popular and well-known types of abstract art form that incorporates many photographic and art aspects. These aspects include: strange juxtapositions, elements of surprise, and overall non sequitur. Juxtapositioning is placing two objects with abstract concepts next to each other, and non sequitur means basically that in the order of things presented, the object doesn’t really belong and it creates a confusing or humorous effect. These two important aspects of surrealism in photography really make the picture interesting.

                Now, many surrealist artists, photographers, and writers consider their’ work to be as a philosophical movement. They thought very highly of their’ photographs and art pieces, and not necessarily because of egotistical reasons, but they really believed that they were leading a movement. Andre Breton who served as a neurological psychiatrist for shell-shocked WWI soldiers, became the real first father of the surrealist movement. He joined Dada activities in Paris and transformed it into an automatism movement, and with his partners Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault, managed to bring in many, many more aspiring artists and writers for the movement.

                Over many years after the WWI period, the already popular surrealist movement grew even more as more and more artists were drawn in to the unique style of art. In 1936, the London International Surrealist Exhibition was opened and at the time was considered to be the ideal standard of international exhibitions.

            High dynamic range imaging, or HDR, is a photographic and imaging technique/method set. This is a type of photography called Alternative photography. It allows for a much greater dynamic range in an image from its lightest and darkest aspects. Most cameras, being non-HDR, do not capture all the light details from the real life counterpart. They usually cannot capture the faint sunlight, vivid sunsets, bright, sunny weather, etc that is found in real life. Now, HDR technique doesn’t simply take the desired picture; instead, it takes multiple pictures and combines them using Photoshop. The photographer must take multiple pictures at varying exposure levels so the HDR will produce what is the final product. Basically any camera capable of taking over and under exposed pictures can be used with the High dynamic range photograph technique. With the rapidly growing popularity of this technique, many modern cameras are being made with built-n HDR features.

             Many forms of photography and photographic techniques are used to draw the viewer’s attention, and texture photography is one of those types of photography. If it is applied correctly, it will work just as well as depth of field and rule of thirds techniques. Detail, drama, and information are the three major categories. Detail is most commonly used as it is the most straightforward, focusing on the surface texture of the subject. Drama mainly means anything not focusing on the details specifically. Lastly, information is used when the photographer’s goal is to take a picture that will easily allow the viewer to identify the subject.

             5 Ideas
1. Dirt from planter spread/spilled across the ground.
2. The hairs on my arm.
3. The comparison of someone's sock and shoe.
4. Dirt and grass texture.
5. Ground and grate texture.