I made these three High Dynamic Range (H.D.R.)  images about two years ago when I was studying photography at G.V.S.U. For those who are interested, the following is a brief explanation of some details of HDR and the basics of the process.

The dynamic range of a photograph is the difference in brightness between the brightest areas of the image with highlight detail and the darkest parts of the image with shadow detail. Film and digital image sensors can only record so much detail in one picture.  If you were to go into these churches and make one picture you’d have to choose between detail in the stained glass which is very bright or detail in the shadows which are very dark.  (Most cameras on AUTO would chose an exposure that was somewhere in the middle.  The medium bright areas of the photo would have detail but there would be no information in the shadows or highlights) If you manually choose to photograph detail in the windows, the shadow areas will be flat black blobs.  Conversely, if you make a brighter exposure in an attempt to see shadow detail, the stained glass windows will be white blobs with no detail.
High Dynamic Range images are made to reveal detail in both the dark areas of an image and the very bright areas.  This is done by shooting several different images of a scene while the camera is on a tripod.  You start out shooting very dark images with fast shutter speeds revealing detail in the highlights but none in the shadows.   Then you slow down the shutter a bit, and shoot again . Then the shutter is slowed down further and you shoot again. This process is repeated until the highlights in the last image in the series are blown out and there’s plenty of detail in the shadows.

Here’s an example of what a series of the exposures look like…

Using standalone software or the tool that is bundled with Photoshop these images are blended to form a high dynamic range image.  If you have good exposures that line up and are sharp, the process is pretty simple.  It is easy to over do the effect and get a very artificial looking image but if you are careful, the effect can be quite dramatic and beautiful.