This is Raleigh's Memorial Auditorium. I used several photos b/w gold hour and blue hour for this time blend. In addition, I was super upset that the tree didn't light up while I was there. Not sure if I really wanted to come back for this shot or not I decided to try and see if I could "turn the lights on" my self. It took 400 radial filters in lightroom and a little more than 2 hours of my time but I think it actually turned out quite nice. I couldn't believe how well it worked actually. After all of that I probably will end up going back and doing the shot again with the tree "actually" lit up. Any feedback would be welcomed. Thanks for looking!
Very nice Kyle. Great job on the photo manipulation but more-so than that, I really like your control of the highlights in the rest of the scene.
Thank you. I used an underexposed image (exposed for the lights) to blend in the highlights.
I'm a bit disturbed by the tree overwhelmingly blocking the best part of the building. I think that the building seems more interesting than the tree. Maybe taking the shot at 4 o'clock to get both in the photos?
Yeah, I struggled with that as well. I wasn't expecting the tree to be there when I went to photograph the building. Had I known the tree wasn't going to light up I would have just moved in front of the tree to keep the building centered. I didn't think the building would look that good from a corner like that but it might have worked. I'll probably end up going back anyway and check it out then. With buildings like this, I like centered compositions better though.
Are you allowed to fly a drone here?
I believe so.
As always, Kyle, your colors are lovely. I had to laugh about your 400 radial filters to "turn on the lights". I just did that yesterday! My daughter wanted a playful Christmas photo. We had her and my granddaughter wrapping up dad like a tree. I added PNGs of the silver garland and lights - if you look closely, it's obvious. To make the lights look a bit more natural, I added radial gradients around each light, subtracted the actual bulb so it wouldn't be affected, then increased the light and bulb's specific color around the bulb. Just those 20 or so bulbs was enough for me. It turned out meh. I can't imagine doing 400 - you did a good job!
Anyway, also your star lit up on the blue sky is lovely!
Thanks Jennifer! I think your photo looks great. The filters were definitely overkill. But once I got started it was one of those things I just had to finish, haha. I don't think I'll be doing anything like that again.
That's cheatin', Kyle! ;-)