this one was taken hand held, at sunset, from my balcony in rio de janeiro, brazil.
in october of 2020 i moved to an apartment with a wide view of the horizon and an open sky. i was fascinated by the view, especially at sunset, and i've been taking several photos of it since then. this shot was taken in december 2020, but i've taken many more after this, in different periods of the year.
what i found interesting in the moment captured on this photo was the formation of the clouds, looking like they were separating two different realms of reality, because of the massive cloud on the bottom half which depicted a clear straight border separating from the clear sky above, and the density of the cloud looks like is kind of "trapping" the sunlight and the warm colors around the skyline pictured on the bottom right corner.
although the view from the balcony is amazing, the actual entire skyline is not so great, because in several spots along the horizon it gets blocked by closer buildings. so i'm actually very limited on the composition if i want to frame only the interesting pieces of the skyline from my balcony.
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gear: camera nikon D7100; lens 18-300mm f/3,5-5,6.
camera settings: 1/125 sec; f/11; ISO 100; 52mm.
for the post-processing i used only lightroom. cropped to a panoramic ratio, till the point where the dense cloud touched the exact upper right corner of the frame. brought down the highlights so the white clouds are not blown out, and the shadows to enhance the silhouette of the buildings. i mixed the colors a little, messing with green and blue hues on calibration, and added some warmth to the shadows and some cool to the midtones. i used a linear gradient mask on the clear sky to enhance the whites and bring up the blue tone a little to contrast with the orange of the sun. then i finished with some basic sharpening and removed some sensor dust.
It always amazes me how nature can paint views like this!