P#18: A Neon Moment at Baltimore National Aquarium

Drama at Dusk

Tony Sweet: This is a dusk shot of the Baltimore National Aquarium. This is a great time of night to shoot because it's best to have some color in the sky.

This is a four image HDR. The photograph looks pretty much how you would see it if you've been there, except for some bright spots that are usually a little bit dark.

A lot of the shadow details along the sides of the buildings would be very, very dark in a single shot. HDR balanced all of that out so you can see the detail in all of the buildings, even in the shaded areas, which you wouldn't be able to see in a single image. (click the image for a larger version)

The colors there are really tremendous. They're shot in fairly quick succession. There's a boat sitting out there that was moving a little bit so I fired them off pretty quickly. I raised the ISO up a little bit higher to get a faster shutter speed.

Audri Lanford: Could you see the reflections like that when you were looking at it?

Tony Sweet: No, not quite that dramatic. Again, this effect was the result of painting over that area five times. I really over-dramatized that color, which is fine when you have a shot like this.

In Summary

Sometimes over-dramatizing a shot is okay. That's exactly what Tony Sweet did with this photograph. With a four-image HDR and some vivid coloring, Tony was able to take an ordinary evening at the Baltimore National Aquarium and turn it into a masterpiece.