Very early morning at the Hero’s square

I love shooting during the morning blue hour. Just the problem is, that it’s usually so early, that don’t even the city transport is running yet. That actually happened to me the day I shoot this. I was really hoping to catch the first morning metro ride, but just the line I had to take started a half hour later, so instead I took a nice long walk at 4:30 in the morning :) The city looks quite different at that time.

For those interested, this is the Hero’s square in Budapest at 5am. Manual blend of 4 shots (I took 7). I blended only parts of the monument, as I tried not to edit the sky at all, as that created horrible color bending. Btw. not doing any noise reduction really helps avoiding color bending.

Explosions

Those of you who also follow my personal account on FB noticed that I posted a lot of Salsa photos today, so I was quite tired (got to bed around 4am :)) and busy today. So for my daily photo I selected one that I could edit a little more quickly :) This is of course one from the new years fireworks, just a single RAW edited in Photoshop.

Entering the Chain bridge

It so great to explore a city after sunset. So many lights, so many great views. And you no longer have to hurry, as by sunset or sunrise. The lights are there for hours. There are some challenges to night shooting, as the lights can create some ugly flares, but with a little practice and work you can overcome that :)

This is a photo I took last summer in Budapest. I manually blended 6 exposures here, using different exposures for the light streaks, the bridge and the surroundings.

Endless

I really like all the repetition I got in this photo. All the pillars, together with the light the sun created on the ground, it just pulls you in. This was taken in the not used part of the Strahov stadium in Prague, one of the biggest stadiums in the world.

This is again a manual blend from 5 photos (I took 7), where I used one as the base and than two to darken the sky and another two to brighten parts of the shadows. Edited only in Photoshop.

Difficult light in Prague

I tried to edit this photo few times before, and I’m still not sure if it as it should be. The blue from the sky, with the yellow from the square just don’t play along well here. I got a photo with much better colors few minutes later, but that one is not usable. They turned on the flood lights, which shine on the tower from this was taken. So I got so many flares :)

This is a manual blend, from three shots, one for the most of the photo, one for the sky and the bright yellow part in the middle, and one to lighten the foreground and some other dark areas. I could have removed the distortion, but I decided against it, as then the feeling of looking down disappears.

For those interested, this is the Lesser town square in Prague.