Danube Night Shot

Hi all .. one I've been working on from Budapest. A night shot on the Danube - the couple were not aware of me, even though I took 6 similar shots, all about 30 sec exposure :D Fortunately they were quite still. The colour was a pig though to get halfway right.

Any comments would be very welcome, as I quite like this as a possible competition shot.

Cheers
Mike

This shot is beautiful but I find myself wanting to look out to where they seem to be looking, out to the left of the shot. The angle of their bench leads to the left. It would benefit from a crop showing a little bit more of the left side in my opinion.

Anyway.. Awesome shot!

Gosh - thanks for your speedy reply .. I had hardly posted it!! Actually I think they ARE looking at the building which happens to be the old Royal Palace. There is very little of interest to its left, which is why I cropped it as I did. There is the presidential palace to its right which is more interesting.

Cheers
Mike

I like how sharp it looks
Beautiful picture
The blues do look a little purple to me. What was the original like?

shooter - I think you're right .. so I've taken just a little red out of it. Thanks for that.

Cheers
Mike

I prefer the reder shot. Seems too cool w/o it.

Amazing image !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like shooter said, it is so sharp.

G

Nice work Mike. I would leave it alone.:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

I was drawn up to the dome in the night sky, and then disappointed it's burnt out.
Did you shoot raw? Do you think it's recoverable?
It might be just the way it's come across in web colours, but as a competition shot it may be an issue.

i think it looks great. i also think that in a larger version you can more clearly see that the couple is looking towards that building. at first i felt the same way about wanting to see what they were looking at, but after zooming in a bit it changes.

Ya taking out the red seems to make the reflection in the water loose a lot of color
Is there maybe some way for you to just change the hue of the blue?
Was this a raw?

Thanks everyone for looking and commenting. I always knew that most comments would be about the colour - it really was a pig to work on and obviously I still have some work to do on it. I think I may wind up having to do test prints on different versions.

shooter & Paul .. yes it was RAW, so I can still go back to the original and maybe try different white balances. I know the dome is washed out - it was the best lit thing in the whole image and a 30 sec exposure doesn't help. If it goes to a club picture I will have to do a little judicious cloning there to put some detail in it. My club does projected image competitions - it would almost certainly be for that rather than a print.

I'll keep working at it .. meanwhile thanks again for your comments.

Cheers
Mike

Hello Mike.
The only thing I have with this is the sky. I'm looking at this in work with tin cans with no calibration. The sky looks so heavy and opaque with an unatural colour. I wonder could it be played with some, so as to bring it back to a sort of "blue period" tone. This of course may also effect the colour on the water. The dome looks a little burned out but I would guess you are photographing something that already looks burnrd out anyway.

Mike, either way it looks spectacular. This is great.
John

Wow outstanding Mike.

You gave me with this picture a instant memory of serene and warm holiday/vacation nights where stress levels are so low that one is able to be romantic.

Going out at night with just a t-shirt and shorts for a slow stroll in the moonlight, not having to worry about waking up early to go to work.

Mike absolutely priceless capture.

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, yours speaks a bit more than a thousand for me.

... as for the technical side of the picture I cant point out anything wrong, I do prefer the first picture it looks more natural and accurate color for a night shoot.


Thanks sharing this beauty Mike

Thanks once again guys for your comments, all of which I have taken on board. Here is the latest and probably the last version - I don't think I can do much more. I have adjusted the colour to lie somewhere between the two previous versions. I have also lightened it just a little to bring out the sky a little more as overbeyond suggested. Finally, I have dealt with the burned out bits on the dome.

I think it's better anyway :D

Thanks again
Mike