BEFORE: “The move to HDR is as significant as any shift in the history of motion imaging… It represents a fundamental improvement to the way we approach and talk about image mastering, one that better reflects the native language of light and photography.” — Cullen Kelly, pre-Yedlin
AFTER: “HDR is just a standard. HDR doesn’t have any creative implication or aesthetic implication. It’s just a standard.” — Cullen Kelly, post-Yedlin
This isn’t a simple change of opinion. It is a philosophical self-lobotomy.
We are no longer just documenting the spread of technical misinformation. We are witnessing how a powerful personality can rewire a professional’s fundamental understanding of their craft.
Prior to Yedlin, Kelly recognized HDR as a “historic shift” on par with the introduction of sound, color, and HD. Afterward, he was reduced to parroting statements so preposterous they defy logic. By his new definition, Technicolor and audio recording were also “just standards.”
This is not a flip-flop. It is a surrender.
Yedlin’s rhetoric offers a soothing narrative to filmmakers daunted by HDR: You are not struggling because you need to learn. You are struggling because “All the HDR stuff is really just another place for things to get screwed up, and not much more than that.”
Notably, after aligning with Yedlin, Kelly—an established colorist and educator—found himself defeated by a process that children navigate effortlessly from their smartphones: uploading HDR to YouTube.
“There doesn’t seem to really be a solution to that for HDR for platforms like YouTube.”
For anyone questioning their competency, Yedlin’s worldview is an appealing offer. It trades the uncertainty of learning for the comfort of belonging to an in-group of “rebels.”
This intellectual surrender can’t be explained by ignorance alone. The timing was too coincidental, the reversal too complete. It aligned perfectly with Kelly’s partnership with Yedlin on a Color Science Masterclass and continues today with their Genesis plugin.
The benefits of aligning with a powerful, influential figure—access to his base, the cachet of his “rebel” brand—appear to have outweighed principle.
The Daejeon Chronicles 