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Last Wednesday the Ironworkers placed a 12 foot diameter, 127 foot tall caisson in the pier near the Kentucky shore. It weighed over 170,000 pounds and was going in one of the deepest piers of the project. Watching them lift it from a horizontal position into a vertical position was amazing. It took two cranes to do it and the coordination required was incredible.
This HDR image is from a three frame handheld bracket set consisting of +2, 0 and -2 EV exposures. I took the three frames into NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I merged them and applied the Balanced preset. While there I set the Detail slider to accentuated and the Drama slider to deep. In order to suppress some serious halos that were showing up along the vertical elements in the sky I reduced the Method strength slider until the halos were gone. I then took the merged file back into Aperture 3 for final adjustments to colors, sharpening and contrast.
Wonderfully designed HDR photograph that packs a real message! Aside from the stunning photograph, we can appreciate the enormity of the construction project!
Thank you for the kind comment Ellen. One of my goals with this project is to share the scope and the effort it takes to build something as large as this.
Neat shot! I love how you document the story behind the photo.
Thanks Karen I want my readers to gain some understanding of the people and the skills required to build something this large.