The following photo was taken last month while out on the same photowalk with John that lead to the Modern Pastry photo. This is a utilitarian steel and concrete set of ramps that provides pedestrian access over Storrow Drive in Boston. Quite a few people have asked how I got it to look so “cool”, “did you HDR it” stuff like that, so I figured I would give just a brief explanation of the process that I used to achieve the finished product of this image.
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There was NO HDR processing in this image. It was made with one single click in the following manner. Canon 5D mark II on a Gitzo 3541 LS tripod and a Canon EF 15mm fisheye lens. The camera was set to bulb exposure and a Canon cable release was used. It was a 31 second exposure at f/4. During that 31 seconds I took a Canon 430 EX speedlite and with the test fire button, aimed it at the different branches of the tree and fired the flash 6 or 7 times.
In Lightroom I set the correct white balance which turned the sky that purplish color. I then used a technique that Scott Kelby refers to as extended processing, where in Lightroom you crank up the Fill Light, Recovery and Clarity Sliders really high and then add back some shadow with the black slider. I tweaked the tone curve a little and that’s basically it. Finished.
I hope that gives you some ideas to try.
Jeff
