Getting the Shot 16: Fire in the Sky

The Shot: This was a shot that I could just feel in my bones, even before the sky flared up. I just knew that it was going to be a great night for photography. Trouble was finding the right place to get a good shot from. The key to this shot is the reflection. Thus, I centred the horizon in the middle of the frame which can be a compositional “no-no” but I feel that anytime you shoot reflections like this it balances the fram a lot more.

The Location: I tried to get on top of some different buildings but failed miserably. Time was ticking away and after the third attempt I just gave up on the idea that the shot needed to be from atop of a building and made the decision out of desperation to run across the Taehwa Bridge to catch the sky and the reflections over the Taehwa River. The biggest tip here is to leave with enough time to get to you location early and to get set up. I have been getting into the habit of getting there with just enough time and some day that is going to catch up to me.

The Post-Processing: This was pretty basic just ran it through photomatix to make sure the colours came out in the sky. I then opened the .jpg image with camera raw. This is not a needed step but I normally use it as a first step to hammer out the contrast, temperature and horizon adjustment. These are quite easy steps in camera raw. However for all of the sharpening I leaving that to photoshop as I never really like the results in camera raw. That also goes for curves too. You can take care of a lot in camera raw but sometimes the results are questionable.