Sometimes the way things look, sound or feel are created by the tools used in the process of creation. I think that most of the people would think on analog tools like the ones a blacksmith uses.

Strangely enough we live in a digital world where the same effect can be seen. If you look at HDR photography you can see a lot of different styles and it is quite simple to distiguish between Luminance and commercial software. I use HDR Efex and Color Efex for postprocessing.

The picture of the blacksmith is no HDR, I applied tonal contrast which gives a similar effect. It is a lot better for enhanced contrast than HDR.