Bob Martin's Sunday Wallpaper: A Tale of Two Cities

From fellow boulevardier Bob Martin...
Downtown Albuquerque at 6:38 p.m. on February 8, 2007: ISO 200, 2 seconds, f/5.6, 21mm, Pentax K10D
Lesson: look around the scene carefully for possibilities beyond the initial intent.

I went to the Tricore parking lot (just west of the Embassy Suites Hotel at I-25 and Lomas) to try for a good shot of downtown lighted at night. Originally, I had thought a completely black sky would be best - not so.

How much should I include in the picture? Because I was using a 12-24mm lens, I figured a narrow panorama might be good. Looking over the scene, I decided to aim low and maybe crop out the nearby street scene. Fortunately, that inclusion paid off later.

Only after I had the range of exposures on my screen in PSE did it occur to me that I had more than a scene, I had a story: a tale of two cities.

That was a valuable practical lesson for me to learn: keep my eyes and mind open to possibilities beyond the initial reason for going to an area.

The blue car at the left edge was intentionally not cropped out because it is part of the foreground story primarily told to the lower right.

I may return to try this again for perhaps:
- a slightly more vivid sky, but not so much more as to be distracting - I like the hint of it,
- ISO 100 instead of 200, and
- f/11 to maximize sharpness.

All in all, it was a rewarding experience.

Bob