I’m starting a new Los Angeles project this year that will expand on my Metropolitan collection. I plan on documenting various well known spots around L.A. as well as lesser known spots. I’d like to kick off this project with a cityscape of Downtown L.A.
The Fourth Street overpass is a very popular spot among photographers for capturing the Downtown L.A. skyline. I’ve always wanted to capture the Downtown L.A. skyline from this location but never knew how to get there. Since a lot of photographers like to keep their shooting locations a secret, it took me quite a bit of research on Google Earth and Google Maps street view to discover this spot.
I originally captured this scene with a vibrant HDR photograph in mind. I captured five bracketed photos from dark to light, merged four of them with Photomatix, and then brought the fifth photo and the HDR photo into Photoshop for some additional blending. I processed this photo over the course of a week, making minor adjustments to the photo each day until I finally had a finished HDR photo that I felt was ready to publish. Still though, I felt that something about the photograph was unfinished. Using my processed HDR photo as a starting point, I converted it to black and white just to see how it would look. I knew instantly that this should have been a black and white photo all along.
Since I live just outside of Los Angeles, this will be a project that I work on in my spare time over the weeks and months to come. I have quite a few photos on my shot list, so stay tuned for more.
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