1105 - Night Ride Home

This morning I made some images that could probably have been usable, but then, in the afternoon, on my way back home, in the middle of a slight drizzle, I got pleasantly surprised by an enormous sunset.

It didn’t last longer than maybe 5 minutes, and all the while I made image after image, constantly hampered by the traffic. Finally I decided on this one, embracing the traffic instead of trying to avoid it.

Btw, you may have found my blog to be unreachable today and part of yesterday, and that’s because it was every once in a while. JustHost, my hosting company, had some trouble with my machine. It must have affected quite a lot of people, at least that’s what my stats say. I’m sorry for that, I hope it’s a singular event. If not, well, I’m really not inclined to pay more for something that I’ve bought anyway and that should simply work. But let’s see how it goes on.

It’s far from being the fourth of July, but the Song of the Day still is “Night Ride Home” from Joni Mitchell’s 1991 album of the same name. Great album, great song, hear it on YouTube.


There are 6 comments

Micheline deJordy   (2009-10-23)

I would be curious to know, if you want to, how you post processed the picture. Lightroom, Hdr, Topaz labs? The buildings' and the road's details are so accurate.

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andreas   (2009-10-23)

I don't use Lightroom. Probably I should, maybe I'll try the public beta or Lightroom 3, but so far I use IMatch as image database and Photoshop CS3 as editor. In soem cases I do the RAW conversion not in Photoshop but in DxO. Here I did, at high ISO like 1800 in this case, DxO delivers better results. What makes for the graphic look of this image, is the combination of Topaz Detail (Interior Strong Detail preset), overlayed with a neutral blur layer (30px radius in screen mode, 5px in multiply mode, balanced with varying opacities to give the same overall tonality). This is a combination that I use quite often. They both cancel each other to a degree, but what remains is a sense of depth, combined with snap. Normally you would add a levels adjustment after that, maybe some saturation before. I've done both here.

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Rick Chalton   (2009-10-23)

Very impressive! This shot somehow reminds me of Christmas markets - maybe there's one just out of camera shot!?

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andreas   (2009-10-23)

No, it's not yet the time of the year, but don't worry, they'll begin (too) early enough.

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Rick Chalton   (2009-10-23)

Oh, I know it's too early yet. This shot reminds me of walking round Christmas markets though, I reckon it's the colours (and the tram lines - most of the German markets I've been to have also been places with trams)

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Micheline deJordy   (2009-10-24)

"the same overall tonality" That is what I liked so much in that picture. I forgot to ad this point of view in my comment. Thank you so much for your reply. This weekend, I'll try "your neutral blur layer". I saved the pages you have written about this technique. Thank you for sharing.

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