Please help.

I must have something very basic very wrong.
I have tried 5 different tutorials - always the same problem.
It is all black or almost all black.
I am using Maya 8.5

I am trying to light my scene by using an hdr on a half sphere which is over the entire scene.

My result:


My render settings:

My shader with the hdr:


My sphere (that has the shader with the hdr):


PS: I am not wanting to use the hdr in the environment tab because I want it to effect a finite area.

Thanks in advance!