Ok, so this is not a wedding image. During the week my work takes me in to the architectural realm.
This week is was to try and emulate an artists impression of the new Westfield Sydney with a real photograph. When I first saw the brief I had some trepidation. Not only is the CGI excellent but trying to match the lighting, people and perspective was certainly a challenge.
First of to get the exact perspective would have meant standing in the road so that was a no no in central Sydney with a tripod and long exposures. Secondly the left side faces South and never gets any direct sunlight in winter. Thirdly, any normal lens could not capture the top of the Sydney Tower in one shot.
Lastly the traffic in this area is horrific so to get an open shot from across the road was going to be tricky.
Oh, and I only had 2 days to achieve this from first contact to delivery.
So, the decision was made to get up at 04:30, get the 5:06 train from Emu Plains and attempt the shot at dawn. The weather forecast was clear, the light would rise on the right hand East side of the building although largely blocked by the building protuding from the right.
I was praying that the lights from the shops would be switched on otherwise it was game over and back home for nothing.
Luckily the lights were on but the entrance to the Westfield was barricaded. I set up at first light to see if I could fit the scene in. No. Way off. I would have to shoot 2 shots with my widest 17mm lens and attempt to stitch them together later. This necessitated shooting everything in manual mode including white balance as any discrepancy from the two images would show up horribly.
Very few cars at 06:30 but no people, aaargh. I have now shot the scene bracketed 2 shots either side, making sure the exposures are the same as I have to combine the shots perfectly later.
There were coned roadworks in front of the Prada building so I knew I would have to retouch them later.
Timing the exposures between the traffic flows was hard but where were all the people. The sun was rising fast and the balance of light between the sky and the lower section with the neon was beyond any cameras reach. I shot the scne about 10 times from the same position and then the barricades came up.
Finally a break, a train must have pulled in at St. James and about 20 people walked toward the building.
Hold fire, wait until they are just in the right spot and then bang, 3 exposures. Phew.
Pack and stack, back to the train and just missed it. Next one in 45 minutes. Blast.
The drama continues. Back at the office at 09:30 and the card is corrupt. All my hard work has disappeared from the card. B*%ger. Running the rescue software takes an hour and I have 4 other jobs to do today, so I won't know all day if I have them or not.
Finally return to discover that they have miraculously returned. Thank goodness.
Now I have to fit the jigsaw pieces together to make an image. The straight stitch is woefully inadequate in its tonal range, the sky is nearly white and the office is near black. From my bracketed exposures I ran an HDR programme and tweaked it to make it look real. Good but the HDR is a mess in the area with the people and cars so back to the drawing board. I am happy with the upper side and the office now so I then have to cut out the bottom area from my best people image and paste it on.
Bingo, nearly there now. A final tweak here and there. Selective contrast changes and change the hues a bit. Retouch out the roadworks in front of Prada. Hooray!
The final result is pleasing, the new client is over the moon and my level of satisfaction is high.
Some images take some considerable time and effort to achieve and this was certainly one of those.
I hope this gives an insight into the day to day problems and challenges of a professional photographer.
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