Shutter-life|Adaptive photography and more, by Henrik Johansson

This is a shot of the Mercury Atlas rocket at the Rocket Garden, Kennedy Space Center. It was this rocket/capsule combination that brought John Glenn on Friendship 7 into orbit on February 20, 1962. The light was very harsh, making it almost impossible to get a good shot. When I started working with this one, I never thought the result would be something that I could actually show to other people. However, just a few very simple steps completely transformed the shot. First, I decreased the exposure with about one step and pushed both the fill light and recovery sliders to the max. This turned the blown highlights into something that actually looks like the sun (but it isn’t, the sun was much smaller). Next, I increased the color temperature quite a bit. Finally, I added the usual yellow/red tone to the highlights (about 50 on slider). Finally I did some minor tweaking using the tone curve, clarity, vibrance and saturation. I performed a minor crop and rotation. Looking at the original below, I find it hard to believe that it’s actually the same shot.

A great spot to photograph San Francisco, Berkeley and the Bay Area is Grizzly Peak Road. The road follows the ridge above Berkeley and it’s quite easy to find. Along the road, you can stop at several turn-outs that offer slightly different views of the Bay. The view of the San Francisco skyline at night is fabulous. However, you’ll probably want a telephoto lens if you only aim for shots of SF.

For this occasion, in May 2007, we arrived some time before the sunset. I made some shots with my Pentax DA 18-55mm zoom lens before switching to the Sigma 75-300mm. With the telephoto lens, I managed to get some decent photos of the SF skyline as the sun was setting. Unfortunately, the wind picked up and it was really hard to get sharp photos as the light started to fade, using a tripod and image stabilization didn’t help much. In the end, I only got a single night shot that you might call decent.

Fast forward to the present day. I decided to play a bit with one of the initial wide-angel shot that I made just before the sunset. First, I slightly underexposed the photo. I then added some more black and used the tone curve to make the sky darker (by decreasing the light tones). By now, the foreground was way too dark and I was forced to add some fill light. Next, I changed the hue for both Orange and yellow to make the sky more appealing. As the final step, I used split toning to make the highlights really glow by adding a blend of yellow and orange. The result: a fake sunset that looks pretty real - as long as you don’t study it too carefully.

During my visit to the Bay Area last year, I never got the opportunity to shoot the magnificent skyscraper at 444 Market Street in San Francisco. This year, I’d made a promise to myself to not repeat that mistake.

Wikipedia has the following entry for the building:

The Shaklee Terraces, or 444 Market Street, or One Front Street is an office skyscraper rising on San Francisco’s Market Street in the Financial District. The building, completed in 1979, stands 538 feet (164 m) tall and has 38 floors. The Shaklee Corporation used to be headquartered in the office tower until the company moved to Pleasanton, California in 2000.

However, nothing in the Wikipedia entry describe the building’s fantastic architecture. The lines are amazing, straight and gently curved at the same time. The colors are perfectly matched. The possible variations in perspective are unlimited.

When you shoot the building, try to avoid the middle of the day as chances are that you’ll get a rather annoying backlight. Mornings are probably the best, followed by evenings. During my first visit - an afternoon - I’d some problems with blown highlights on the left (western) part on the building as it was directly exposed to the sun.

For this shot, I increased the contrast using both the contrast slider and the tone curve in Lightroom. I slightly decreaed the impact of the blue tones by slightly increasing the color temperature and decreasing the blue saturation. I also cropped out the portion of the photo where the sky was showing. No special or advanced post-processing at all, just ordinary stuff. However, I made one thing that in my option really increased the impact of the shot - I flipped it vertically. Instead of looking up, it now feels like you are looking down on the building. To highlight this effect, I use the an identical crop in the before image below.