Purple haze on the last Friday in September (or Green Eggs and Ham Landscape)


Diamond Bar, California, Panasonic DMC-LX3
Last Friday was exceptional because of dramatic cloud formation on the west. I used the old Point and Shoot on this image. Set it on manual mode and exposed it for about 15 seconds. If you’re wondering how I was able to hold the camera steady for that long, I didn’t. I placed the camera on top of a wall, and set it to two-second timer delay so I could avoid any shaking while the shutter releases. I made sure that the image stabilizer on the camera was turned off. (The IS will actually ruin your image if the camera is set on a tripod or something solid.) I think it must have been around 7 in the evening when I took this shot.  

What I like about this image: I love how the purple blends with the grayish smog on the horizon. The vibrant green provides a nice contrast to the skyline and the dark trees. I also like how the twinkle from the street lights add a nice to the overall scene. Try getting that from your P&S.

For this image, the tone and colors were enhanced. I post processed it using Lightroom 3 and Photoshop CS5. I played with the curves, desaturate some colors and added some vibrance.

What I least like about the image: I wished that there were less of the trees on the right hand side but that would mean either cropping a good portion of the image, or moving from a different location -- but I would lose some of the nice elements like the street lights and the light streaks. Oh, well.

What I wished I would have captured: I wished that alien warships would emerged from the sky. Man, that would really be cool.

Comments

Anonymous said…
The colors are stunning. Your wish for alien warships would only be cool for a minute or two, then it would be scarey, or worse.

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