Milwaukee

I wanted to stop in Milwaukee and capture something that would be representative, iconic.  I knew I didn't have much time. I found the lighthouse, but I also wanted a cityscape.  As we drove the lakeshore, I enjoyed the park with the lovely weeping willows. I saw a spot that might work with a reflection, but when I walked over with the camera, the angle didn't work. As sunset approached, I knew I needed to make a decision. The area near the Art Museum looked the most promising.  

While I tried many things, shooting multiple images to merge for a panorama, I ended up happiest with these two wide angle shots. 

I like to pick a spot and start near sunset and photograph for 30 or 45 minutes to get the changing colors from sunset, dusk, twilight and dark.

St. Louis

One of the things I like to do while we are in St. Louis for Archon is to go over and take cityscape shots of St. Louis. Each year the sunsets are different - different clouds, different colors, etc. This year I was lucky and the Busch Stadium lights were not on. I like to get there before sunset and take sequences of shot without moving the camera or changing the zoom so that I can play with the images later for specific looks.

These may not be the final versions, but here are the initial workups of this year's shoot. You can click on each image to get a larger view.

The sun was not in exactly the best place for where I was to get the golden hue behind the arch. But in this version I was trying to get the sunset glowing sky and yet keep detail in the buildings rather than a silhouette and get the street lights. So the images used for the HDR were taken over a longer time frame.



This HDR version was created to produce an image similar to what your eyes see at twilight:



I chose the first vantage point so that I could avoid getting a building crane in my skyline shots. But I also wanted view that would get the courthouse better, so I moved. I think I wish I had moved earlier so that the sky would not have been quite as dark.



I also wanted a vertical shot this year: