Since I was going on an outing Thursday night in Oakland, I decided to take more photos for this assignment. I arrived at the location before dusk to find the best view to capture. After deciding that I would photograph the buildings against the sunset, I began to set up my camera settings. Because I was trying to shoot at twilight, long exposure was the best way to go to capture the lights in the buildings and their reflection in the water. Long exposure also got me the soft rippling effect of the water. Additionally, I set the camera to shoot in RAW so that I would not lose detail while processing the image.
In terms of composition, elements of symmetry and rule of thirds was used. The photo is symmetrical because the buildings reflect in the water approximately at the center of the frame. The symmetry is broken by having the figure be at about one third from the left of the image.
The editing process began by making a new adjustment layer so that I could adjust the levels of the photo. Next, I taught myself layer masking because I wanted to adjust the levels of only certain parts of the image. I put the figure on a separate layer and the buildings with their reflections on another, then adjusted their levels. Finally, I played with color balancing until I resulted with a purplish sky to compliment the yellow lights.
Original
Processed
The process which you took to accomplish this twilight feel was well done. Although the original itself is beautiful, the soft purples that come out in the edited image makes it stand out more, makes the yellows and light oranges pop out more. And the long exposure feature, it makes it feel like a dream.
the change of the background colors to a more blue then black show more detail. you can ever see smaller light that were lost in the black background
it looks cool yo, I like the way you waited till the twilight to capture a good background scenery! Overall, i like the colors, its unique, great job~!
I really like your photo! On the image it is obvious that you paid much attention to detail. Thanks to a long exposure you really managed to capture all the light sources and their reflection in the water. I also really like your post-processing especially the choice of colors. Great job!
I really like the clarity and definition that the edits brought to the color and the details of the image. The juxtaposition of the highly defined forms with the softer subjects give the image a very interesting narrative. Great work.
Lots of style in your edits. It’s a different feel when the dusk sky is a moody purple.
This looks professionally done. I like how the person is just a bit blurred. The blur ties in with the ripples on the water quite nicely.
I really like your processed photo. The colors really pop and the purple sky is my favorite.