Perspective

In this article I want to show you how a fairly boring picture (reffering to the color setting) can get very interesting. With the use of right filters and an eye on how colors affect the setting I show you what I did to get the most out of one of my new favourites.
Here I show you the original picture too so you can see the ideas I had when I first analyzed the picture. As you can see I used a very uncommon angle. I call it the gnome position. Very near the floor you get a nice wide angle effect. In addition I made sure that the people are at a reasonable distance to my camera so you can realize how big the bridge is. Now as you look at the raw picture further down this post you probably agree with me that it has a cool angle but is boring otherwise. At first I thought about the sepia effect but it would not fit the cold architectural setting. So I decided to play with the colours a little bit. Blue was the most stylish one :). To achieve this look I used again the Hue/Saturation settings and the greyish-presetting. In addition to make the image more dreamy I used a special filter called diffuse/glow-filter. Sometimes when you are not sure what to use you can go to the filter gallery and try out all the filters you want. This is a very useful implementation in Photoshop!

After all that processing a big problem were the buildings behind the brooklyn bridge. At first I wanted to try out another picture with no obstacles behind. I decided not use it. My reason are the buildings in the background. With them you get a feeling how the bridge gets into the heart of Manhatten. I am not so pleased with the result but it really looks better than the alternative! I was also thinking about ereasing the buildings in the background with a stamp technique but think about all those cables....it would have been a disaster!

So let us go back to the filter I used. Especially the glow filter allowed me to show the cold day I photographed the setting. The picture was taken in February 2009 and it was freezing cold! Another cool side effect was that the cables were smoothened. The best way to notice that is in the left corner of the picture.
As a last step I have cut the picture a little bit in the upper part because the two barriers which were affecting the harmony of the cables negatively.

You also have to keep in mind that I used a common midclass lense. You see that in the very little deformation of the cables in the upper part of the picture. If you are a fan of architectural photographs you should use special lenses which have not this effect. Those lenses have a Tilt ans Shift-Function. A very good and expensive one is described HERE (in German). I only recommend them if you want to make very nice and clean architectural photos.

At last some details about the picture:

• ISO 100 with auto white balance
• Allround light measurement
• Shutter speed: 1/125 with aperture of f=8
• 28mm setting of the Tamron 28-200mm lense.