Downtown Austin from Congress Avenue

Took this one last year in austin. I like the photo but want your

openion as to what is missing and what more could be done to improve

this tye of photos.

This is the kind of picture that is very difficult to shoot, and generally needs several tries to get it right. As such, the photograph is technically OK.

However, the foreground - the statue & the lower right hand quadrant are too black. I realize that this cannot be fixed with this type of exposure.

 

Here's how I would try to do this: Shoot the entire scene twice on the same frame (double exposure), shooting the first frame about 15 - 30 minutes after sunset, and underexposing by at least one stop.

Then shoot the second exposure one hour later, this time exposing correctly for the existing conditions.

 

The result will not be an overexposed frame, but one with less harsh contrast and (hopefully) more detail in the shadows in the foreground.

 

Of course you will need a tripod and a gun to guard the tripod against someone knocking it over ...

 

Mind you, I am not saying that with this you will get it right on the first try. The difficulty is that if you want to bracket the shot, you need to wait a full day for the next shot.

 

Best regards

Martin

Something else you could try is different film types. Fuji Astia (Sensia 100) works well for these kind of shots. The contrast is lower than Provia 100F and you don't have to wory about color shifts in exposures up to 4 minutes. I would also suggest bracketing your exposure.

 

The photo is not to bad really.

The way to improve photos like this is to take them a little bit earlier before the sky is totally black this will give you a little more detail in the buildings, look at the building on the left there is nothing but lights, and the shape of the building is invisible, also if you take the picture at dusk there will be a tonal quality to the sky that is different from the structures and the surrounding area, as you can see here just about anything that is not lit up is totally black, and use a tripod, I assume you did here but you did not give shutter speed and f-stop numbers, so I don't know, I hope these suggestions helped.

Based on what I see in the posted scan, I suspect there is far more on film than the post shows. Dark room (or digital dark room) techniques can probably be used to significantly improve the final result. Details can definitely be pulled out of the forground objects, the two brightest light sources can be zoned down, and the lost outline of the building might even be there. This is the kind of shot where the art of printing really comes into its own.