Photo a Day: Wherein You Read The OP, Like A Smart Person

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The Dorkroom > Photo a Day: Wherein You Read The OP, Like A Smart Person

omgitsdave: Jun 18, 2004

Fog rolled in this evening, so I met up with a friend to take some shots. This is my first attempt at shooting long exposures at night (well, and anything other than pets and the wife). I am happy with the results I got, especially this image in particular. Looking for some feedback on what direction to take this.

Here is a version fairly raw.

IMG_2969-2.jpg by omgitsdave, on Flickr

I did a bit of post on this, and I like the tighter crop, but I feel like a bit of the fog is lost.

IMG_2969.jpg by omgitsdave, on Flickr

# ¿ Jan 24, 2012 06:39

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# ¿ May 7, 2024 00:54

omgitsdave: Jun 18, 2004

the posted:

I know you can't do this, but I would have preferred the photo without any headlight traffic. It would seem much "spookier" in my opinion.

bandaid posted:

This is my first post here in a long time, but here goes..

I feel that with fog, you should avoid the headlights, and go with some moon light, or just ambient light that is more white than what you have here. Try for the natural fog look where nothing is moving, maybe see if you can lose part of the image in fog. I think the moving lights would look better crisper. I also think with night time long exposures location is really key, you need space to work. I only say this because this was the exact thought process I had while taking these the other night.

My intent was to capture this without the headlights. This road is not very busy so I didn't expect difficulty, but a single car rode by multiple times and ruined it for me. They also called the cops ( :rolleyes:

), who stopped by to check us out, which wasted a lot of the time we had. Also, the lights are not as crisp in this shot because 2 cars actually came down the hill during my 30 second exposure. I do have another shot with crisper headlights, but they start about halfway down the hill and there was less visible fog.

truncated aardvar posted:

I prefer the second one for it's contrast, but I'm not a fan of the big black area in the top left. Hard to say what you could do about that area though. I do like the darkening in the bottom right corner.

Fog is pretty much the opposite of contrast, so by increasing the contrast, upping the blacks or sharpening in your post (I'm guessing this is what you did) you'll naturally lose some fog effect. Perhaps you could experiment by selectively masking off things like the street sign and the railings and increase their contrast whilst leaving the background fog as originally shot.

I see what you mean about the top left. As far as the editing, you are pretty much on the money. I corrected the white balance, bumped up the blacks, and used just a bit of highlight recovery. I will give it a run with your suggestions.

Thanks all.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2012 00:03

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