buildings 10th Street Bridge

Trying to work on technique & not photshop ability so this photo is

unaltered in photoshop.

Let me know what you think, anything is helpful =)

Hi Heather, this is a pretty challenging scene for any digital camera. As for technique, producing an image of this type will almost always involve post-processing (Photoshop) if you want to take it to the next level. It's about overcoming camera limitations which by itself is incapable of capturing this level of dynamic range.

Night scenes involving deep shadows and bright lights will often call for multiple shots to properly expose different areas then blended in software. This is commonly referred to as HDR (High Dynamic Range) which can be done manually, or in a more automated fashion with specialized software. Here was a recent forum discussion on this subject:

http://photo.net/digital-camera-forum/00SmLQ

As for this picture as a single shot, I would suggest decreasing ISO to the lowest in order to reduce noise. This will necessarily increase exposure time but I presume you're using a tripod.