This photo not only took an hour and a half to setup and shoot, but because I had to correct the perspective and wide angle distortion of the 11mm lens I used to make this image, every single window of every building on the left and right of the tall building in the center, I wound up have to remake every window in those buildings. That took about 400 hours and was not anticipated at all. Here's the whole story including an interesting with one of NYC's finest. It's copied from 2 pages in MS Word.
This photo is of the site of the South Tower of the World Trade Center in NYC as preserved in the 911 Memorial is by far the most difficult photo I've ever made.
The first time I visited the site I was overcome with emotion. I had to leave after only 20 minutes but at least I’d seen what was there.
I came back the next day and spent about an hour walking around before deciding on what I wanted to photograph. Then it took another 45 minutes to decide exactly where to put my camera and another hour to put my camera in that exact spot, straight and level. I even had to take my coat off to put it under one tripod leg that was almost horizontal being held up by the granite wall surrounding the pond and just barely out of the frame. That leg was quickly noticed by one of New Yorks finest, but he let me be.
I knew it would be a very challenging DOF problem. I wanted the names, which began only 18" from the camera lens as well as the penny in the water only 16" from the lens to be sharp and clear. Of course, all of the buildings had to sharp and clear and so did the antenna on top of the new 1 World Trade Center building. Its top was 1800' high and between a 1/4 and 1/2 mile away. The building that appeared closest to the left side of the WTC was actually a half mile from it, and the farthest building from it.
I considered 2 approaches to making the photograph. Make multiple images correcting the perspective in each shot while having them perfectly match up to their adjacent shots so I could then stitch them together into a 3 row high panorama. That would be tough especially without swings and tilts. The alternative was to make one image and correct the perspective of all of the buildings in Photoshop. That seemed better so I got out my Canon 11mm-24mm f/4 and went for the single shot with my Canon 5D IV.
I centered the image on #1 World Trade Center (WTC) so at least this tapering, twisting building would be vertical and true. The rest of the buildings would all be tipped toward it due to perspective and the wide lens. I would have to straighten them all out to make each one vertical, but I thought Photoshop would make that easy. I set the lens to 11mm and as I thought, I got nearly all of everything I wanted: the water falling from the right edge, the names stretching out to the left and the top of the antenna on 1WTC.
Then I remembered that I needed to see into the pool and all sides of the water return hole at the center of the pool. It took about 45 minutes to get everything I wanted in the image sharp and clear.
The next issue was exposure. The sun on the sides of the buildings on the left was really bright, so bright that there was almost no distinction between the windows and the building surface surrounding them. The sun was also on the water pouring over the right side into the pool as well as the clouds in the sky. But the water on the left side was dark and the water in the pool's water return hole was almost black. I didn't want to have to do HDR because the clouds and water were moving fast, so my only option was a massive underexposure hoping I could pull the shadows back up. I'd learned it is much more likely to be able to recover the slightly underexposed shadows than to recover slightly overexposed bright areas which is to all intents I’ve found is impossible from photographing clouds for many years.
By this time, I had been at the spot for about an hour and a half. The policeman had apparently had enough and came by to ask what I was doing. I told him that I was making a very difficult photo, but that I would soon be done. He was not pleased. I explained in more detail what I was trying to do and that it was very hard but I had finally done it. He could see for himself if he wanted pointing to the viewfinder on the camera. He was skeptical, but took a look, a long look. He came up smiling and said simply "Wow! I didn’t think you could fit that much in,” he said. He didn't bother me again.
The resulting image looks horrible, way under exposed and with all of the buildings leaning toward 1WTC. That's what I expected.
But I was actually very happy. I had held all the highlights and was confident I could pull back the shadows since I could still, though barely, see detail in them.
Initially, everything went smoothly in post-production. I'd fixed the exposure and had my shadows back. I'd been able to show the bright building surfaces all around each window. The windows did seem a little odd, but I paid little attention to them at that time. The clouds all had texture. The buildings to either side of 1WTC had been straightened. The waterfall on the right had the right feel. All seemed perfect.
But then I began to check for sharpness. Yes, the top of the antenna was sharp. Yes, the names were clear and so was the penny. The waterfall on the right side was perfect. The ripples in the pool water were sharp and so was the water flowing into the water return. But then I looked at the windows.
Something really was wrong. Every single window on every single building except 1WTC looked broken. I looked at the original. Though distorted, the windows looked fine. I wondered if the straightening process was the cause of their broken appearance. I did a few tests which confirmed it. Though every single window had been straightened, the glass in them looked broken and that had happened when the building was straightened. Every #!#^ one. My actual language was loud, profane and extended.
There was only one solution. Build one perfect window for each side of each building and copy it....again and again and again. But since windows change in size and shape with their distance from left to right and top to bottom, it wasn't just a simple matter of copying one window again and again. I had to make a row of corrected windows and then copy that row. Even that required frequent adjustments. The windows had to line up with the row below and above it, and the rows had to be properly spaced with the space between the rows changing with their height. Finally, the windows themselves had to change their apparent size as they went higher on the building and were farther away from the camera.
Stunned, I just put the image away for a while. When I reopened it some months later, I began a project that I knew would take a very long time. I don’t mean like one long overnight session or even a few months. But I didn’t imagine it would take a few years. It was very, very tedious work which I could do only for an hour or so at a time. I’d estimate 400 hours went into the window fix. Every single window in every single building except 1WTC had to be remade and replaced. It was truly a labor of love as they say.
If it hadn't been such an important photograph to me, I would have walked away from it. Many times, I've wondered if there was an easier way to make the photo. Could have found a short enough lens for my 8x10 or 4x5? Would their swings and tilts have solved the problem? Should I have done multiple images and stitched them together both horizontally and vertically? Maybe some combination of these. I’ll probably never find out, but I think all approaches would have their own miserable problems.
All I know is eventually I was able to fix the windows, do some minor dodging and burning, remove a few distractions, move the clouds around and add some clouds. When I finished, I finally saw the image as I had imagined. Well almost. Something still nagged at me. Finally, I figured it out. Some names had a miniature American flag next to their name. I understood why people had added them but none of the names in my photo had a flag, so I made and then added one to the farthest name.
Nothing I've ever done with a camera, nothing I've ever done in post whether in the darkroom or on the computer comes close to the time and effort it took to make this photograph. Now that it is finished, I don't dwell on the effort it took. I Just enjoy it no matter how many times I look at it. It is everything I hoped it would be.