HDRCreme shot of the day: A Review

When listing the areas in which multiple-image HDR has a competency I did leave one out: the still life.  Nowhere is that borne out better than in the image which graces HDRCreme's front page.  See it here.  It is a photo of an old spinning wheel placed against a background of colored wool swatches and hand-embroidered fabrics.   The photographer hasn't given us any details about it and I'm assuming that it originated with multiple images.   It is very low-key and even-contrast.  When I downloaded the largest version and ran it through Photoshop it produced this histogram.

The spike on the right is the over-exposed swatch of wool.  Take a good look at this histogram.  This smooth and even shape, just barely bell-shaped, is the mark of many HDR photos that I've seen.  In fact when we see a histogram as smooth as this one we can be pretty sure that the photo which produced it was created with HDR.  I wish I could pin this specific smooth histogram to a specific HDR tone-mapper but I can't yet.  Perhaps my readers know more than I do about this?  I may devote entries in the future to relating histograms to specific tone mappers.
The creator of this photo identifies him (her?) self as 'Akun2500' and there's a small gallery of his work on HDRCreme.   You can ignore the motorcycles which are beginning efforts but the others are splendid. Sighisoara is a popular tourist destination in Romania which is where 'Akun2500' lives.  Clearly people go there (among other things it is the home of Vlad the Impaler - the original Dracula) to look at the antiques.  The delicacy of this rendering, the absence of any visible HDR artifacts, the over-all violet tonality lend it an inexpressible charm and it is a strong advertisement for multiple-image HDR (if that's in fact what it is) - at least under controlled conditions.  Vermeer would have been proud to do this one.
   Over and over I've tried to make the point that HDR does away with the subject and creates a fully articulated surface over which the eye may wander with pleasure.  This picture is what I mean.  The spinning wheel is deemphasized by the calm and even light, a light which (I'll bet) is purely imaginary - the product of HDR alone; it (the wheel) fades into the background.  The eye takes in the sublime needlework,the old wood,  the textures on the walls and the wool.  It is a decorated surface and nothing more. This picture restores pleasure to the act of looking at the surface of a photograph.  We learn nothing - we enjoy everything.
  I won't give it a '12 out of 10' but I can hardly see how it could be improved.

Bob