Don Poulton
About the Image(s)
The genesis of this image is actually from last year when I took the train from the Bay area of California to Chicago supposedly through the Rockies. But, because of track work, everyone was put on buses from Grand Junction to Denver and I missed the best, most scenic part of the trip. So this year, in conjunction with visiting family members on the west coast, I flew to Reno, took the train from there to Denver, and then flew home. I had to spend a night in Reno so I booked the Whitney Park hotel because it was only a couple of blocks from the station. And, because of pure luck, the famed Reno arch sign was right beside the hotel, so I thought I would arrive there at dusk and get some pictures. But a bad flight delay resulted in my not arriving at the hotel to past midnight. Nevertheless, I went over to the sign and photographed it using the usual +/- 2-stop brackets. I did several of these. Then I went back in the morning and shot it again. Back at home, after tone mapping the bracketed images in Aurora HDR 2019, I layered the day and night images together in Photoshop and masked in the day sign at low opacity to mimic dusk conditions. Then I added a gradient layer to simulate how it might look about half an hour or so after sunset with a reddish horizon glow. Enjoy!