A Trip to the City of Boston to do a Little Night Time Photography
There is little doubt that the city of Boston is a special city. Boston is the largest city in New England, and one of the oldest cities in the country. Located right on Boston Harbor, the views of the city can be very breathtaking. Spending an evening in Boston for night time photography of the skyline has been on my “to do” list for a long time, and last night I was able to check it off.
Boston City Skyline at Night
Finding places to do some photography in the city is relatively simple – a quick visit to Google Maps revels a host of small parks and public places right on the water that have a view of the city. I selected 3 spots that I wanted to try – the Hyatt Harborside at Logan Airport, John Joseph Moakley Courthouse, and Lopresti Park. A full tank of gas, my destinations programmed into the GPS and I was ready to do a little bit of photography.
One piece of advice – when you are out photographing at night, be aware that you are going to attract attention with what you are doing. Police, security guards, business owners and even regular folks on the street are going to be curious, and even skeptical about what you are doing, and why. When dealing with law enforcement and security guards keep a few things in mind. Be honest and be respectful. Show them a few of the images on the back of your camera, give them a business card. If you conduct yourself this way, and explain who you are, what you are doing and why you might be surprised that these folks will help you. Advice on places to park, safe areas to travel in, and even better locations to shoot from will come your way.
It was a beautiful night to be out, not too cold with a nice clear sky. I managed to take a bunch of photographs that night, and I found that I struggled a bit with how I wanted to process them. When photographing a scene such as a city at night, there is a dramatic range from dark to light, and our cameras struggle to capture it all. In many cases, I will process multiple images to create a single HDR photograph. Sometimes this works for me, and there are other times that it does not.
In this case, I processed the same scene as both an HDR photograph and as a normal single exposure photograph. My question for you is which photograph do you prefer and why? Just add your answer into the comments at the bottom of the post!
This is the HDR photograph is at the top of the page. The photograph below is the single exposure
Boston City Skyline at Night
Here are a few more single exposure photographs as well!
Boston City Skyline at Night
Boston City Skyline at Night
6 Comments
Mike-Superb. Love these. Ironically, both your HDR and single image shot look great. The buildings look more rich and vivid in the HDR shot, but I love the skies in the single image shots. From my experiences, I’ve noticed that its so hard to control skies in HDR shots. I’m by no means an expert in HDR, but I think that there isn’t enough “range” in the dark sky, so when the software blends it, it seems to blend it with a different look (and color) than what you actually saw.
Thanks Sal!
I agree on the skies. In the HDR image I was pretty unhappy with how the colors in the sky came out. For this image I decided not to use the HDR sky, and used Photoshop to put the underexposed sky back in over the HDR buildings and water. I think it *might* be a bit too dark. I am thinking that the sky might need to be just a bit lighter.
Dude these are GREAT!!!
Thanks Matt!
Great shots Mike. I like the HDR, but I think the sky is a bit too dark. I generally do all my urban night stuff as single exposures, but seeing this has me rethinking brackets and HDR.
Thanks Bryan, I appreciate the feedback! I agree on the sky, it just seems a bit to dark. I still can’t decide which one I like better. I am really happy with the non HDR single exposure images.