Brick Alley #3: Turning Daylight In To Night
Nikon D7000 18-135mm @ 28mm ISO 1250 3-bkts f/8 Lr3; HDR Efex Pro
This image was actually captured at 5:28 P.M. on March 5, a day when the sun set at 5:52 P.M. and the ambient light conditions were quite different
Nikon D7000 18-135mm @ 28mm ISO 1250 1/15 f/8 Lr3
than depicted in this rendering. The scene is an alley off of Mercantile Place in Old Town, Pasadena, California. The original center exposure is on the right. I achieved the final image by converting the camera raw file in to .DNG using Lightroom, then processed the three brackets through HDR Efex Pro, tweaking overall exposure, contrast structure, saturation, white and black point, and then used Nik control points to further tweak the left foreground, the human figures, and the sky using some of the same adjustments. Sharpening, noise reduction and vignetting then occurred in Lightroom.
Some might consider this over processing in terms of the saturation and artificially changing the perceived time of day, but I really wanted to feature the brick work and set a mood, so I exercised my creative license. I really like my final rendering.
