Morning Metropolis

Morning Metropolis

As I mentioned in the previous image, Shanghai Looking Up, we arrived in Shanghai during a typhoon. I was able to shoot during brief breaks in the rain. Sometimes I had the luxury of sitting in a bar terrace with a cold beer, waiting for the rain to stop. Other times I was huddled under small shelters.

One evening I arrived at the Bund and saw a very unique glow coming from the buildings ahead. The problem was, the rain was torrential. I tried in vein to shoot with my camera in a weather-proof casing, but the rain was blowing straight on to the lens.

I had left my rain coat in the hotel, as the weather had been pleasant that day. Soaked from head to toe, I was regretting it somewhat. Eventually I gave up and ran for cover near a monument.

A few people were already there, watching the river of water flow around the ground. They greeted me with smiles and then laughter. I wondered what about me was making them laugh. Then I turned around and saw a policeman slipping and sliding down a ramp, and finally ending up on his behind in puddle.

He got up and scampered under cover with the rest of us, laughing as he did so. I sat on a step and waited for the rain to clear, occasionally posing for photos with the locals. In the end, I watched the interesting glow from the city disappear and had to concede that tonight wouldn’t be my night.

At 5:00am the next morning I headed out into the rain for a sunrise shoot, determined to get an interesting shot of the Bund. The city glow was even more interesting this time. As the rain came down I sat on the same spot as the night before, this time alone.

For the briefest of moments I felt the rain lighten. I quickly set up my camera while under cover and made a dash for the spot I’d picked out. The rain was at a slight drizzle. I placed the camera down, quickly composed the shot, fired off 5 brackets, and then the clouds exploded. I ran for cover once more.

Not knowing if I had a decent shot, and with the interesting light slowly changing,  I decided to head back to the hotel. It wasn’t until I sat down at my computer with the image above that I saw some potential.

Fortunately, the weather brightened up somewhat for the last few days we were in Shanghai.

________________________________________________________

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

Workflow Explanation – Morning Metropolis

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

I’d like to begin the workflow explanation by saying that this is not a real reflection (just in case you missed the before image above). I actually used a Photoshop plugin I found recently called Flood, which so far is the best tool for achieving relatively real reflections, in my opinion.

Since the last fake reflection I did was over a year ago, and I have no plans to do them in the future, I haven’t purchased the plugin. I just used the free trial in this image.

Although I used only a single exposure here, I digitally blended that exposure to control only a small highlighted area. I used a process called Double Processing – you can see how I do this in the tutorial found here: Quick Photoshop Secrets 8: How To Digitally Blend a Single RAW file

Essentially I brought back (with luminosity masks in Raya Pro) the bright light in the building to the left. I wanted it at the same brightness as the light behind the tall tower in the middle so that it didn’t unnecessarily stand out/distract by being too bright.

I injected some blues into the image by pressing the Blue Shadows button in Raya Pro. In Color Efex Pro I used the Pro Contrast filter very selectively so that it added contrast to the cityscape and its highlights, and not the water and sky around.

After various Curves and Levels layers I got the contrast to where I wanted it. I then cloned out the boat on the left horizon, and added a strong vignette in Raya Pro.

To finish I prepared for the web and sharpened in Raya Pro as usual.