My first cityscape...

Y'all know I'm a sports shooter. If it's not moving, I'm not sure how to shoot it. This is kind of sports related though.

Our high school team's trainer/medic is getting married and moving away to another city. What she wanted as a remembrance, and therefore what the booster club wanted to get her, was a poster of a particular building in Atlanta. The building has special significance for her and her fiancé because their apartment was near it, and for a long time the only way he could find his way home to her in the evening was by homing in on this particular beacon of light in the sky.



How did I do?

Nill
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www.toulme.net

Nill,

How did you do? Very well! The photograph is well balanced and the composition is made of strong curved lines of car lights which balance the vertical structure of the building. The shape of the yop of the building is particularly important since it is bright and shaped like almost the the helmet of an ancient warrior, a powerful figure against the night sky.

If that single feature was missing the whole picture would not work. The interest of the photograph would drop to the curved lin es and then we would suffer the missing left lateral curves. Anyway the subject of interest would not be the building.

So really this is a balanced composition of drawing with light using a relatively long exposure to collect the light of the passing cars.. A fast shutter would have missed that out and a daylight picture might be entirely unbalanced.

So this is very special and well thought out and works. There's a special feature of this and that is the liveleness and fast pace indicated by the bright lines of the traffic. This then is a great reminder for someone leaving town.

Some questions.

What would you think of perhaps bringing outr more the contrast between the line of trees on the upper left and the sky above. Also completing the curves of the bright lines on the left?

The lady will be overwhelmed! A great job!

Asher

excellent image nill, and the couple will treasure it i am sure! but you must have done well because there *was* movement in it, right?! if this is your final version already, be proud.
but...i do agree with asher that the curves of light would be better not cut off on the left. i know that doing so will change the balance of the composition slightly, and i do like the elements of the curve of lights, the building, the street light line, and the treeline very much. a part of me wants to move the building to the right a bit for a stronger placement, but i can see the lineup of the street lights+building might be tough to keep.
but sometimes the players don't pose perfectly in the heat of composition, and a shot just works anyway because it is carried by deeper elements, and this image does that!
congrats for expanding your envelope so well )

Awesome, Nill. Thanks for giving me an idea. I haven't tried this sort of shot since the early 70's in Geneva, time to give it another go. (the concept, not Geneva, unfortunately) I think I know a bit more than I did then. Or not.
-Greg

Thanks all, both for the kind words and for the suggestions. This is indeed the "final" because I had a short fuse on it, basically had to run out and shoot it one night and deliver it the next day at 16x24. (It looks nice at 16x24.)

I'll post the uncropped/unedited version shortly for further comments if any.

Nill
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www.toulme.net