Verrazano Bridge. . .whadaya think?

[gahspidy]

This is a shot of the verrazano on the Brookly side (spans from Brooklyn to Staten Island)at about 4:00am Sunday morning a few months ago. I had gotten off work late and had the camera with me. I have a blue filter in my bag for Tungsten lights, but these seemed to be flourescent so I could do nothing about it (need to get that magenta filter. . . or a digital camera . I took at least a dozen different shots and this along with one other were the only ones I felt acceptable.
There was an extremely heavy green colorcast throughout this whole image which i did my best to remove. Alot of grain as well which I used Neatimage to reduce (excellent program). I lost a lot of detail in all the editing, but somehow I think it has a nice smooth feel to it.
what do you think?
Thanks

[bdbloom]

Beautiful photo. I love the shade of blue cast on the water. Great sense of depth, but it almost looks like the bridge is twisting - strange illusion. What camera/lense were you using?

A little grainy (as you mentioned) near the lights, but only up close. At normal monitor viewing length, it looks silky. Kinda feels like it should be printed on black velvet.

Nice work!

[jcharris]

Hi Gary ,

I like the photo from the position or place you were when you took it .
Unfortunatly about the detail one gets to loose in some of the editing programs , but it has that smooth kind of feel to it .
Very good shot !

Greetings
james

[Elysian]

Nice shot Gary, great angle and I like the blue color. But there's something that bothers me about this shot and I can't really put a finger on it. I think it's the water... something doesn't seem quite right with it, although I have some ideas about it.
Are you wiling to share the original with us?

[opus]

I love the colors of the shot, and the shape!

My first thought, though, is that it needs to be rotated. But which way? The water tilts downhill to the left at a steep angle, yet the bridge pole is perfectly straight. The rest of the bridge could stand a clockwise nudge to the right. The whole effect is that the water is flowing downhill and the bridge is leaning upstream against it.

It's a "tippy" visual experience.

[Seb]

This is a shot of the verrazano on the Brookly side (spans from Brooklyn to Staten Island)at about 4:00am Sunday morning a few months ago. I had gotten off work late and had the camera with me. I have a blue filter in my bag for Tungsten lights, but these seemed to be flourescent so I could do nothing about it (need to get that magenta filter. . . or a digital camera . I took at least a dozen different shots and this along with one other were the only ones I felt acceptable.
There was an extremely heavy green colorcast throughout this whole image which i did my best to remove. Alot of grain as well which I used Neatimage to reduce (excellent program). I lost a lot of detail in all the editing, but somehow I think it has a nice smooth feel to it.
what do you think?
Thanks

Hello Gary,

This is a nice picture, I like both your composition and the lighting very much. Unfortunately, the picture clearly appears quite "processed" on my monitor; even at a normal viewing distance (but eh, it's most likely the best you could do in the circumstance and it is still a pleasing picture as I have said).

regards

Seb

[gahspidy]

Nice shot Gary, great angle and I like the blue color. But there's something that bothers me about this shot and I can't really put a finger on it. I think it's the water... something doesn't seem quite right with it, although I have some ideas about it.
Are you wiling to share the original with us?

Shot with a 19-35mm zoom at about 20-22mm. fuji superia 400 film.
This is the original. only cloned out some scanning debris and such and slight adjustment to the levels. I have been reworking this shot and have gotten it to be somewhat better than the one posted, but would be interested in seeing what you could do with this , JoeD.

[opus]

Thank you for posting this original. It answered a different question that I had.

[Mig]

I think it's just the fact that it's the left side of the support that's straight. If you look at the right side it's tilted, as is the horizon - should be rotated clockwise.

The processing doesn't bother me too much, but as JoeD noted the water is distracting - the blue chunk in the lower right looks too solid.

[Old Timer]

Love the compostion on this image Gary. You did an excellent job with perspective and framing. I really like your flow of lines and use of space. The colors don't bother me with the exception of the glassy blue of the water but I can live with that because the rest of the image is so strong. Very nice work.

[gahspidy]

Love the compostion on this image Gary. You did an excellent job with perspective and framing. I really like your flow of lines and use of space. The colors don't bother me with the exception of the glassy blue of the water but I can live with that because the rest of the image is so strong. Very nice work.

This is another attempt I made at it using other methods of altering color. I think it is better, and was able to retain a bit more detail and lose the unatural glassy plastic look of that area of water.
The water or horizon appearing to be tilted does not bother me at all. To me, it seems natural to the composition. But thanks all for the comments and perceptions.

[Seb]

This is another attempt I made at it using other methods of altering color. I think it is better, and was able to retain a bit more detail and lose the unatural glassy plastic look of that area of water.
The water or horizon appearing to be tilted does not bother me at all. To me, it seems natural to the composition. But thanks all for the comments and perceptions.

Hello Gary,

Good work here. This second attemp look much more natural on my monitor than the first version. It is smoother yet more detailled at the same time.

regards

Seb

[Elysian]

Good improvement Gary, because I like it better without the glassy look, not so much when it comes to the bridge, but the water instead; it looked too flat.

Btw, also try to experiment using NeatImage (or any other tool like curves, levels, H&S, sharpening) on selected areas. People tend to use it on the complete image, but many times it's not necessary and it can remove details in some areas that you want to keep.
Let's say that I want to remove the noise in a sky. I duplicate the layer and apply a NeatImage correction. Then I add a mask to this layer and mask those areas in the foreground for which I don't want this noise correction. I do this by painting on the mask, but sometimes I select the sky with the magic wand and create a mask out of that selection. A selection like this might include some blue parts in the foreground, but they are easily masked by painting on the mask. Never create sharp masks, always soften them with a bit of Gaussian blur. The same applies to sharpening. Sometimes we want to sharpen the eyes but we don't want to sharpen the skin (to avoid noise). In that case masks can be very useful too.

[villenadecorte]

This is fabulous. I love the depth, given from the angle inwhich you shot. The hues in this I think give it a great feel. I am a big fan of the city at early a.m. hours- and I think this captures that.

I have yet to use Neatimage... what are its strongest points?

-VillenaDeCorte

This is a shot of the verrazano on the Brookly side (spans from Brooklyn to Staten Island)at about 4:00am Sunday morning a few months ago. I had gotten off work late and had the camera with me. I have a blue filter in my bag for Tungsten lights, but these seemed to be flourescent so I could do nothing about it (need to get that magenta filter. . . or a digital camera . I took at least a dozen different shots and this along with one other were the only ones I felt acceptable.
There was an extremely heavy green colorcast throughout this whole image which i did my best to remove. Alot of grain as well which I used Neatimage to reduce (excellent program). I lost a lot of detail in all the editing, but somehow I think it has a nice smooth feel to it.
what do you think?
Thanks

[Chunk]

This is another attempt I made at it using other methods of altering color. I think it is better, and was able to retain a bit more detail and lose the unatural glassy plastic look of that area of water.
The water or horizon appearing to be tilted does not bother me at all. To me, it seems natural to the composition. But thanks all for the comments and perceptions.

All three are terrific, Gary. This shot is really a wallhanger. I've been seeing the first one as a 1930's movie poster or something, maybe a bookjacket. Have you looked at not bringing the contrast quite so high or does that not give the effect you want. There's more of the lower supports in the original and I think the shot looks a little better with them shown.

I've been enjoying playing with your image in Paintshop pro and came up with a different take on it by doing a color balance to remove the color cast and warm it overall. Then selected parts of the sky and gaussien blurred it and did the same with the supports.
I hope you don't mind. I don't think its an improvement on yours - just different.

[bendik]

hi Gary,
the third picture looks better than the first. Some details on the water were lost on the first picture. HOw long is the exposure for that shot?

benedict

[gahspidy]

Thanks all for the help and opinions.

Chunk. . .I like what you have done and the color, but I don't like the bridge tower being the same color as the rest of the cast. . gets a little lost. As for contrast, I think i may be bringing it up a bit high but it is the image i keep seeing in my mind for this . . .but i think as i keep working out evrything until I get it exactly how I want it, I think i will be curbing the contrast some.

JoeD. . .thanks, I do use selective applications and have used it on the neatimage program with this. I got the Pro+ version so i can use it as a plug-in and use it selectively. I applied a reduction first to the entire image, then worked with the colors and editing, then did two selective noise reductions around and under the bridge, and then finished with a noise reduction at half strength with a bit of sharpening included on the whole image. Great program Your mentioning it, and I think Yoyo uses it on his night shots, sold me on it. I'm not experienced with masks yet, but do wand and freehand selections. . . for now

Villenadecorte, thanks for the comments. . .which version did you like best? I am still leaning towrds the first original one. . but will just work on losing the plastic water look. The Neatimage program is excellent. . .www.Neatimage .com it removes grain without losing almost any detail in subjects. . .amazing. you make a profile for yopur camera or scanner ( usually they have already profiles for most popular digicams) and then the program knows what is noise and what is the actual image.

Bendik. . . thanks. . .I think the exposure was aroud f8 about 4-6 seconds

[gahspidy]

This is one last edit. I used a little of everything I was happy about with all the other edits. This is the one I feel I will be keeping and I think I eliminated that overl processed feel about it.
This thread and all your comments has been a great source of feedback.

[villenadecorte]

Looks great!

VD

This is one last edit. I used a little of everything I was happy about with all the other edits. This is the one I feel I will be keeping and I think I eliminated that overl processed feel about it.
This thread and all your comments has been a great source of feedback.

[Chunk]

This is one last edit. I used a little of everything I was happy about with all the other edits. This is the one I feel I will be keeping and I think I eliminated that overl processed feel about it.
This thread and all your comments has been a great source of feedback.

Print it! Great job.

[bdbloom]

The final one you posted looks great, Gary! You're right - a combination of all the best features from the other iterations.

[gmen]

I love it... you should market it as a postcard!

[ChaosCubed]

I love it Gary. I think the color ended up perfect.

[gahspidy]

Thanks all for taking the time even to tell me that you like the end result. I very much appreciate it. I showed my daughter the sunset pic. . .she loved it. . . and she also saw this bridge shot and flipped over it. She loves city scenes and the bridge at night. So she wants me to frame her both of them. So I will be printing them out at 12x18 and matting and framing them for her room.

[opus]

gahspidy, does your daughter share your love for photography? Are you handing down knowledge to her?

I know when I was 16, my dad tried to sit me down and "teach" me photography. I was like, "yeah, yeah, dad, that's nice, can I go now?" But because of his example, I signed up for a photography course in my junior year. What was so funny was that then I would come home and excitedly say, "Dad! Did you know this and this about photography...?" and from then on I was unstoppable.

So he passed it down to me, one way or another.