This month I am back to shooting what I love best… Buildings. I spent the morning in the San Francisco Financial District and wanted to look at some contrasts of old and new buildings and different styles of buildings. Two challenges are shooting tall buildings and keeping them straight. Also… power lines. The interesting thing is when you first go through the images, you don’t always see possibilities. This image has three types of buildings and a sharp angle. I did some cropping and some geometry work in Adobe Camera Raw. There was no need for sky, so I cropped in more. It was impossible for me to get everything straight so I thought the white lines on the building in the background were most important. So, if you have a suggestion for how to straighten all of this, let me know.
Shot with Nikon mirrorless with an 85mm lens and shot at ISO 100 at F11 at 1/125s.
This round’s discussion is now closed! 6 comments posted
Julie Deer
Hi Don, I do like your finished image. I like the cropping you have done to bring the old building to the fore. I would dull the brightness of the building on the left as it is very striking and takes the attention. Have you tried PShop..Edit..Transform..skew to straighten various parts of the image? I think you have done well with straightness, it just needs a little tweek at the bottom on both sides. Posted: 09/06/2023 23:15:55
Andrew Hersom
Great subject. I like the treatment in post bringing out the detail. My feeling is that the brown building on the left isn't as interesting as the one on the right, and maybe include a bit of sky instead to give it some context. I would liked to have seen more of the rounded windows at the bottom which have been cut off. Also the lighting is a bit flat and the buildings would look different at another time of day. A thought anyway. Posted: 09/13/2023 08:53:15
Ling Ling Juang
Hi, Don,
I love many buildings in SF, but never tried to capture a image. Your edits made this an interesting picture; love the details, the color tone. I will certainly pay more attention to them when I go out there this week.
I think your building is straight enough. In LightRoom, there is a function "Transform", click the upright tab, it will let you straight up the building.
Posted: 09/18/2023 15:02:26
Don Hill
Hey Ling. If you have not goten to SF yet, please be careful walking around with a camera. There have been many robberies. Thank you for your comments. I do not use Lightroom but I will check the features in Adobe Camera Raw, which is suppose to be just like Lightroom. I just got the New NIK collection of plugins and they have a geometry filter. Thank you for your comments. Posted: 09/18/2023 18:22:35
Henry Roberts
Don, in your post to Ling Ling you suggest using AI in the new PS to add to the right. Where do you find the AI and how do you do it? Posted: 09/22/2023 15:03:21
Henry Roberts
Don, what a magnificent job you did of taking a record shot and turning it into a beautiful image! I like your cropping and your selection of the white buildings to get the lines straight. The contrast and brightness of the brown building on the left really pops as does the white building. The contrast of building styles serves to increase the beauty of your image.
Nice work!
It has been a while since I have been in SF - I am curious as to where you took this image?
And I am really sad that there are now street robberies. I used to wander at will throughout SF day and night without fear in the 1960s. Posted: 09/22/2023 10:52:41
