Otto Berkeley
Cadenza
The scene at Tower Bridge last Friday evening was a busy one, when not one but two ships with historical value were in the area. I had picked a location north of the Thames to watch the bridge's gates lift to allow the Paddle Steamer Waverley upstream, and was fortunate enough to be able to capture a dramatic sunset as well as the moment when the Waverley passed beneath the bridge. I was also pleasantly surprised when I got to the location in the late afternoon to find the tall ship Lord Nelson moored alongside the pier at St Katharine's Dock, with its masts sandwiching the view of the Shard in the distance and adding an element of foreground interest that seemed to complete the scene.
The Waverley was built in 1946 and is now the last sea-going paddle steamer of its kind in the world. The Nelson recently celebrated its 30th anniversary after completing a two-year voyage which took it to 30 countries and covered more than 50,000 miles, but it also has the infamous distinction of colliding with Tower Bridge in 2004, when the bridge's gates failed to lift and when strong tides meant the ship needed to be towed to safety.
Capturing this scene was challenging because it had several moving parts. Besides the Waverley making its way upstream, the Lord Nelson was constantly rocking back and forth in the water, and in order to capture a sharp image of this and the Waverley, I needed a fast shutter speed which meant gradually increasing the camera's ISO and widening the aperture as the evening progressed. The other challenge was the tide along the Thames, which was going down rapidly. My aim was to combine the sunset and dusk colours with city lights and the moment when the bridge gates lifted, but the ebb tide made blending the exposures difficult because the pier and the foreground boat (along with its masts and ropes in front of the buildings) were lower and lower from one shot to the next.
The final result is a combination of dozens of exposures taken over 90 minutes, blended using a combination of luminosity masks, Pen Tool selections and blend modes in Photoshop. My focus was on the exposures captured at dusk, when the colour in the sky was a luscious mixture of pink, magenta and orange, and when the first few lights across the cityscape began to switch on. Using luminosity masks I was able to recover detail in the shadows beneath the pier and to refine a mask that isolated the sky, allowing me to later edit its colour and contrast without affecting the cityscape. Next, I incorporated the building lights from later in the evening using the Lighten blend mode, and used luminosity masks to target the light from the exposures taken at sunset and set this to Soft Light to add a hint of warmth behind City Hall as the sun went down. After this, I used the Pen Tool to isolate both the lifted bridge gates and the Waverley as it made its way beneath Tower Bridge, and blended these into the frame until the finish was seamless.
The colour-grading phase was minimal as the range of tones across the scene was a balanced mixture that I liked almost straight out of the camera. I shifted the city buildings towards a colder tone, taking care to ensure that the elements from the different exposures matched one another at the same time as contrasting with the warmer tones across the sky. Inside Nik's Colour Efex Pro, I used small amounts of the Pro Contrast and Tonal Contrast filters to emphasise the definition of the buildings and the texture in the sky, but I also used Silver Efex Pro to gently lower the structure, contrast and exposure along the Thames, as I felt this had the potential to be a distraction from the architecture, the boats and the sky.
My main concern while shooting the scene was that the composition would be too busy, but perhaps a mish-mash of focal points and architectural elements is an accurate reflection of London's cityscape today, and perhaps that contrast of eras and styles is part of the city's appeal.
You can also connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, 500px and Google+.
Cadenza
The scene at Tower Bridge last Friday evening was a busy one, when not one but two ships with historical value were in the area. I had picked a location north of the Thames to watch the bridge's gates lift to allow the Paddle Steamer Waverley upstream, and was fortunate enough to be able to capture a dramatic sunset as well as the moment when the Waverley passed beneath the bridge. I was also pleasantly surprised when I got to the location in the late afternoon to find the tall ship Lord Nelson moored alongside the pier at St Katharine's Dock, with its masts sandwiching the view of the Shard in the distance and adding an element of foreground interest that seemed to complete the scene.
The Waverley was built in 1946 and is now the last sea-going paddle steamer of its kind in the world. The Nelson recently celebrated its 30th anniversary after completing a two-year voyage which took it to 30 countries and covered more than 50,000 miles, but it also has the infamous distinction of colliding with Tower Bridge in 2004, when the bridge's gates failed to lift and when strong tides meant the ship needed to be towed to safety.
Capturing this scene was challenging because it had several moving parts. Besides the Waverley making its way upstream, the Lord Nelson was constantly rocking back and forth in the water, and in order to capture a sharp image of this and the Waverley, I needed a fast shutter speed which meant gradually increasing the camera's ISO and widening the aperture as the evening progressed. The other challenge was the tide along the Thames, which was going down rapidly. My aim was to combine the sunset and dusk colours with city lights and the moment when the bridge gates lifted, but the ebb tide made blending the exposures difficult because the pier and the foreground boat (along with its masts and ropes in front of the buildings) were lower and lower from one shot to the next.
The final result is a combination of dozens of exposures taken over 90 minutes, blended using a combination of luminosity masks, Pen Tool selections and blend modes in Photoshop. My focus was on the exposures captured at dusk, when the colour in the sky was a luscious mixture of pink, magenta and orange, and when the first few lights across the cityscape began to switch on. Using luminosity masks I was able to recover detail in the shadows beneath the pier and to refine a mask that isolated the sky, allowing me to later edit its colour and contrast without affecting the cityscape. Next, I incorporated the building lights from later in the evening using the Lighten blend mode, and used luminosity masks to target the light from the exposures taken at sunset and set this to Soft Light to add a hint of warmth behind City Hall as the sun went down. After this, I used the Pen Tool to isolate both the lifted bridge gates and the Waverley as it made its way beneath Tower Bridge, and blended these into the frame until the finish was seamless.
The colour-grading phase was minimal as the range of tones across the scene was a balanced mixture that I liked almost straight out of the camera. I shifted the city buildings towards a colder tone, taking care to ensure that the elements from the different exposures matched one another at the same time as contrasting with the warmer tones across the sky. Inside Nik's Colour Efex Pro, I used small amounts of the Pro Contrast and Tonal Contrast filters to emphasise the definition of the buildings and the texture in the sky, but I also used Silver Efex Pro to gently lower the structure, contrast and exposure along the Thames, as I felt this had the potential to be a distraction from the architecture, the boats and the sky.
My main concern while shooting the scene was that the composition would be too busy, but perhaps a mish-mash of focal points and architectural elements is an accurate reflection of London's cityscape today, and perhaps that contrast of eras and styles is part of the city's appeal.
You can also connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, 500px and Google+.