BROOKLYN BRIDGE by BenoSaradzic

to purchase this print and for licensing requests: benosar@gmail.com BROOKLYN BRIDGE Image of the Brooklyn Bridge in front of the Manhattan's skyline is certainly one of the most iconic ones. It was on top of my wishlist but due to many distractions, I ended up shooting most of New York in great weather while delaying this one until the end of my trip. When I finally found the time to cross the East River to find this view, I was very disappointed; weather was bad and the rain was drizzling all day long. I was cursing the weather gods and more than them, I cursed myself. I only had one more day in New York so there was no way I could repeat the shot in better weather conditions. That was my lesson - if you can do something today, don't push it till tomorrow! Initially, I wanted to stay in my apartment, crying myself to sleep in fetal position. Eventually, I manned up and decided to shoot the bridge anyway so I took the ferry to Long Island, then I walked to the perfect spot and took a few long exposure shots. It was grey, wet, miserable and dull. Oh yea - I froze my ass too! It was obvious this shoot was a failure and I was one very unhappy camper. Sun, which I wasn't able to see was setting and the lights were turned on. It was getting dark. Sky was completely grey and I was ready to pack and leave. I took the camera off the tripod and started packing it in the camera bag. At that moment, and I'm not exaggerating, I started hearing gasps and yelling of the few drenched photographers behind me. I thought something happened so I looked up and what do I see? The sky on the horizon opened up, for the first time that day and revealed a rush of blood red light which filled the whole scene in front of me. The sun was -behind-, not in front of my camera so this sight made even less sense! I stood there in total disbelief. It was one of the most beautiful sights I've seen in a very, very long time. It was epic-movie-ending-perfect! In fact, I was so stunned I nearly forgot what I came for; so I shook my head and snapped back into reality. I knew that this wasn't going to last more than a few minutes tops. You've never seen a man assemble and set-up his camera faster! I quicly connected my Promote Remote Control and set it up to shoot 6 bracketed exposures. I matter of 2 minutes, I shoot 2 panoramas. Each sequence was made out of 8 vertical frames and each frame was exposed 6 times for a total of 48 exposures. Panorama was about 140 degrees wide. I was literally dancing on the way back to the ferry like a proper 6'5" white dork. I knew I had the money shot. The panorama to rule all panoramas. Morale of photo story: location is very important but great light is king. You need both for an awesome shot! tech: 48 photos form this HDR / dynamically blended, 14,800 pixels wide panorama. Detail is pretty stunning as you can imagine. You can see the interior details inside the apartments on the other side of the river! Images were pre-processed with Lightroom 4.4, assembled in Photoshop CC. Final polish was done with Nik Viveza 2 and Topaz ReStyle. Final sharpening was performed with Nik Output Sharpener. Hardware: Canon 5dmk3 + 24-105mm lens Computer: HP Pavilion DV8 with Windows 7 x64 and Wacom Intous 3 tablet. I wouldn't even attempt to do this kind of job with a mouse. via 500px http://j.mp/1qpQJuM