Featured Photo – Home… (again)

Technical Data:

Camera:  Canon 1Ds Mk II

Lens:  TS-E 17mm f/4 L

Exposure:  30 seconds

Aperture:  F/8

ISO:  100

Post Processing:  Lightroom 2, PTGui

About:

Los Angeles at dusk….

I always wanted to do a sequel to an older daytime shot of the same scene that I had taken a while back when I first started shooting.
I always felt that the original one was over-processed, (although it is one of my most popular photos among clients) so I wanted to do something a little bit different. It’s really hard to photograph here because of the pollution and smog, but the visibility was pretty good on thanksgiving day, so I hiked up and this time, I decided to go directly above the sign, so that there was no chain-link fence in front of the letters. They patrol this with a helicopter every hour since there have been vandals in the past trying to take advantage of such a high-profile landmark. Fortunately for me, they must have had the evening off or something, cause I wasn’t bothered by any helicopters.

There is something about the perspective of shooting from behind the sign that I really like.  When you’re up at this spot, you can see almost all of greater Los Angeles, and on a good day, you can even see to Catalina Island.  It’s a surreal feeling to be right where so many tourists up to a few miles away are pointing their cameras at any given time.  It’s fairly silent up here, except for the hum of the city that you can tune in on if the wind is low…
I used my 17mm TS-E to stitch a two-shot panorama together. (One shot shifted to the left, another to the right.) This helped me get the entire sign in the frame even though I was so close…

I still need to come up here during the day sometime when it’s clear out and do a better day shot than the original.

Also, here’ a link to a zoomable panorama I made of the city that same night from this spot: www.gigapan.org/gigapans/37968/

Thanks for looking

-Mac