Category: Architecture

Another Louisville Sunset

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Sunset on the Ohio River at Louisville, KY

Here’s another image taken at sunset from the Clark memorial Bridge. I can’t stop going downtown and shooting from the bridge. This particular evening the sun was just dropping below the horizon and the colors were amazing. I especially like the way the sunset is reflected in the Yum Center windows.

The composition relies on the balance of the building and roadway with the texture of the clouds. There is also a complimentary color harmony going on with the blues of the sky and the oranges in the sunset.

I processed this image using NIK HDR Efex Pro using the “Realistic Strong” preset and Aperture 3 for final sharpening.

Golden Hour on the Clark Memorial Bridge

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Golden Hour on the Clark Memorial Bridge
(Click on the image to open in a separate window)

This image is on the Clark Memorial Bridge approach from Louisville looking north into Indiana. I chose this composition because I like the way the bridge railing and sidewalk lead the viewer’s eye into the image. The afternoon glow of the “Golden Hour” on the bridge and in the sky is a nice contrast to the coolness of the shadows in the lower third of the image.

I processed this image in NIK HDR Efex pro using the Realistic (Strong) preset as my base point. After the six images were merged I applied the anti-ghosting at the high setting which cleaned up the cars on the bridge and reduced the ghosting they were exhibiting. I then slightly adjusted the shadows and highlights sliders before saving the image back into Aperture 3. I then reopened the photo in Aperture 3 where I did some further enhancement to the colors and vibrancy before the final sharpening.

Thunder Under The Bridge

Posted on by Nick Roberts
Fireworks under Clark Memorial Bridge
Thunder Under the Bridge

This image was taken during Thunder Over Louisville which is billed as one of the largest fireworks displays in America. Thunder Over Louisville occurs every spring as the kickoff event of the Kentucky Derby Festival. For this shot I went under the Clark Memorial Bridge to get a different vantage point from the typical fireworks shot. By including the bridge’s architecture I was able to take a rather mundane subject and give it a sense of scale.

I processed this image in Aperture 3 and Topaz Adjust which really added punch to the texture of the stonework and enhanced the colors in the fireworks. The composition is balanced by the strong diagonal line of the underside of the bridge deck and the curve of the arch on the left which also reinforces the arc of the fireworks as they stream down from the sky.

 

Louisville Waterfront at Night

Posted on by Nick Roberts

One of the difficulties inherent in shooting night scenes is the large dynamic range needed to capture the scene. The artificial light in the image is usually much brighter than the surrounding areas. When this occurs the highlights are blown out which is almost always in the street lights. This image is one such situation. I shot this image using a five shot bracket series from +2 through -2 stops. Even at that range the centers of the lights are blown out in this image.

My studies of my images at night have led me to adopt a wider range of exposures to offset this undesired effect. My current practice is to go as many as five stops underexposed if I encounter scenes that have large ares of manmade lighting such as this one. I watch my histogram very closely and underexpose until I see the right hand side move completely away from the end of the histogram. I have discovered that by doing that I can subdue the blow outs that occur in the lights themselves.

I merged the five exposures in NIK HDR Efex Pro and then used the default setting as my base to tone map it. I then tweaked the sliders until it was where I liked it and finally returned it to Photoshop CS5 to sharpen it using the unsharp mask tool.

Compositionally I framed the shot with the sunset in the right hand third of the frame in order to balance it with the waterfront on the left. The sky counterbalances the architecture and the complimentary colors of the deep blue sky and the orange waterfront create a harmonious whole.

My point in sharing this image is to show you that the conventional practice of using an automatic bracket set to shoot the scene is not always going to give you control of the entire dynamic range. By using the histogram as a tool to analyze the images in your HDR shoots you can take control and prevent blown highlights such as the street lights in this image.