Tron – Shanghai Long Exposure

Tron, Shanghai

After getting directions off Simon Bond for the location you see above, we set off to scope it out. As soon as we arrived at the front door of the apartment block, a security guard emphatically said ‘you’re not getting up there’.

I’d read that the locals were annoyed by the increasing number of photographers trying to shoot from the upper floors, outside their front doors, so I expected some resistance.

The security guard pulled us into his office and asked a local to translate. As the apartment block is situtated above a police station, they are now very strict about who can go in and out of the building.

I asked the translator if we could pay to get on the roof, rubbing my fingers together – the international expression for cash. The security guard strongly rejected the idea. I was panicking slightly. I was desperate for this shot. However, as the translator briefly looked away, the security guard slyly winked at me.

I felt a sudden release of tension. I had tucked away extra cash for such an occasion. Once the translator left, I grabbed a pen and paper and gave them to the security guard. He wrote the princely sum of 500 rmb, about $75 to gain access to the roof. I was more than willing to pay to that, but negotiation seems to be a way of life in China.

After many non-verbal dramatic gestures by both of us, showing just how hard up we were for cash, we settled on 300 rmb, roughly $45-$50, for the hour.

We got roof access. However, I was a little bit disappointed. These roads famously light up blue at night. What I didn’t know was that this only happens on weekends. While the scene was fun to shoot, and I was happy with the images, I knew I would have to return.

We were almost kicked off the roof early, as a German film crew turned up. They’d paid ten times what we had, and clearly their guide had over-exaggerated the exclusivity of roof access.

Their guide whined and whined, telling the security guard to remove us from the roof. I asked the film crew if they minded us being on the roof. They said they didn’t care. But clearly the Chinese guide felt he had lost face. I told him politely we had paid to stay until a certain time, and that we weren’t leaving until then.

Wanting to capture the famous blue lights, we returned the following Friday – there were different security guards this time. They wouldn’t allow us on the roof but for 100 rmb we were allowed to shoot on the upper floors for as long as we needed.

This is one of the things I love about shooting cityscapes in Asia – you can access a huge amount of ‘closed’ locations at the right price.

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How I Created The Image – Before/After Post-Processing

Workflow Explanation – Tron, Shanghai

This image was created using Raya Pro – The Photoshop Plugin.

This is a 2-tile pano, each tile consisting of a base exposure, a darker exposure to control some small highlights, and 4 long exposures for the light trails.

The dark exposures were blended into the base exposure using luminosity masks in Raya Pro. To see how to blend light trails easily, please see this tutorial: How To Add Dramatic Car Trails To Your Photos In Photoshop

I always blend exposures first, then stitch the pano.

Once stitched, I corrected distortion using Edit>Transform>Distort and added some Pro Contrast from Nik Color Efex, to try to cut through the haze.

The sky was very flat, and didn’t really add anything to the image. I darkened it significantly in an attempt to focus the eye away from it, and hopefully deepen the mood slightly. I then had to make a selection of the buildings and mask this change out of the buildings, as it had left a dark edge running through them.

The whole image was far too blue. I desaturated it greatly and used the Blue Shadows button in Raya Pro. Then I used a Color Balance layer and added some greens into the sky. By removing some of the blues from the sky, it emphasised the blue of the roads below a bit more.

I added some Orton Effect (around 15%) from Raya Pro (OE2) but this time I changed the Blend Mode of the Orton Effect layer to Luminosity. This deepened the colours in the scene, darkened the image slightly, and added a soft feel.

I added mutliple Soft Vignettes from Raya Pro, each one pushing the eye closer to the light trails in the road.

When I’d finished I decided the perspective corrections had left the buildings in the background a little small. Using Free Transform, I stretched the image a small amount, making them a little bit more prominent.

I sharpened and prepared for the web using Raya Pro.