HDR, or High Dynamic Range, is a style photography that uses various methods to capture a wider range of light in a photograph. As awesome as the technology in cameras may be, they are still not as good at viewing both bright light and shadows at the same time as the human eye is capable of doing. This is why you take a picture and it might not look as good or as accurate as what you were just looking at with your own two eyes. The various methods of HDR photography allow you to try and recapture some of that lost light range in your photographs, making them look more familiar to what you were seeing with your eyes.
However, these methods also allow you to extend the range beyond that which your eye can see at any given time and turn photographs into slightly unreal images all the way to full blown surreal/abstract images. HDR photography has also become somewhat of a trend recently, spawning such websites as "I Hate Your HDR". Also, many cameras, smartphones, and even post processing software have built in HDR "features" that either simulate a true HDR image capture, or do a very rough/poor job of creating an HDR image.
My interest in HDR photography lies in the first purpose I mentioned; to capture a wider range of light giving a more accurate portrayal of what you are photographing.
Before attending the workshop, we were given a tutorial on the method of HDR photography that would be covered in the workshop. We were asked to go out and practice that technique (based on the tutorial) so that the workshop would be more effective (i.e., more time spent practicing photography and less time on which buttons to click).
So, here are some examples of my "practice." Once I attend the workshop, I'll post another round of pictures to see if I've improved any. On the left you'll see an typical image, and on the right my attempt at an HDR version of that same photograph. Click on the images to enlarge them. Also, you may notice that the HDR photographs have a watermark for "photomatix", that is the software I am using to generate the HDR images. It is free to use as long as you don't mind the watermarks, which I don't mind while I'm learning.
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