Puget Sound XXXII: City

Puget Sound XXXII: City, a photo by doug_r on Flickr.

This image was shot specifically as the final image for a portfolio of beachscapes taken around Seattle. I had made an image in these same tripod holes the weekend before during the day and wanted to come back in the evening to catch the cityscape across the bay against the piers in the foreground.

A storm was clearing when this image was made. The light was changing constantly as the low clouds ascended and the rain turned to a light mist. Most of the light here is from sodium arc lights on the the port cranes off to photo right bouncing back and forth between water and sky. Seals were barking nearby, just off shore in front of me.

The image was made with a Canon 5D Mk II and 17-40 f4.0L lens. The focal length was 40mm, and the exposure was made at f5.6 for 8 seconds. The image was processed using Lightroom 3 to do the raw conversion and to correct lens and color issues, then further processed in Photoshop CS 5 and Nik Silver Efx 2 to do the black and white conversion and sharpening. Prints are made on metallic paper.

My goals for this image were to show the city from a well known but frequently dismissed view point, contrasting the verticals and lights of the skyscrapers in the background with the empty and abandoned piers just offshore in this area. The challenging part of the capture was exposing and recovering the fronts and shadows on the foreground side of the peers without letting them go completely black.

Overall, I'm fairly happy with the composition, capture and processing of this image but I look forward to your critiques. Thank you.