Classic view of the Clifton Suspension Bridge during the blue hour

[alastairb]

Very unoriginal photo, but given that I live in Bristol felt I had to do it at some point. Last night a high tide, clear sky and lack of wind coincided with the sunset. Unfortunately at this time of year this was also the middle of rush hour.

Struggled a bit with working out what angle was best, ended up making the bridge level, but this means that the reflection looks wrong. Yet when they were both equally off axis it looked worse in my opinion.


Clifton Suspension Bridge in the Blue Hour by Alastair Begley, on Flickr

thanks for looking

Al

 

[ancient_mariner]

You probably needed the LHS of the bridge to be 'up' slightly, because you aren't taking the picture straight on. That would have balanced up with the amount of 'down' on that side from the bridge reflection, which is plainly quite a bit down on the left, and possibly also levelled out the shoreline on the RHS.

Nice shot BTW, with good colours.

 

[LongLensPhotography]

Verticals should be vertical. Buildings on the right are clearly leaning left. Also you should be able to draw a vertical line through the bridge towers and their reflections.

It's a good reflection, not a perfect one but good enough. I would have done it a little earlier as you have bridge lights so much brighter than anything else thus appearing near enough black.

 

[dcash29]

A quick distort in PS gives you another option

 

[alastairb]

You probably needed the LHS of the bridge to be 'up' slightly, because you aren't taking the picture straight on. That would have balanced up with the amount of 'down' on that side from the bridge reflection, which is plainly quite a bit down on the left, and possibly also levelled out the shoreline on the RHS.

Nice shot BTW, with good colours.

That is how I started and it felt wrong, but was in fact actually what I think was correct. Thanks for the reply.

Verticals should be vertical. Buildings on the right are clearly leaning left. Also you should be able to draw a vertical line through the bridge towers and their reflections.

It's a good reflection, not a perfect one but good enough. I would have done it a little earlier as you have bridge lights so much brighter than anything else thus appearing near enough black.

That’s a really good tip which I hadn’t thought of about the reflections and in hindsight I should have realised about the verticals and making it represent reality.

I had planned on being there earlier, but traffic was worse than expected and my first few shots were with the wide angle before I thought to try a more zoomed in view. Will try again another time.

Thanks for your comments, really appreciate the time taken to reply.

A quick distort in PS gives you another option

View attachment 137186

That does seem to work and improve the image so definitely worth bearing in mind for the future. Unfortunately I don’t have photoshop at the moment as I just use lightroom 6. Thanks for taking the time to do a re edit to show the impact of your suggestion.

 

[Kell]

You can distort in Lightroom too.

Go down to Lens corrections and switch to manual. You can square up things pretty well with some trial and error.

 

[Kell]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m1DqayZff8

 

[SFTPhotography]

You might be able to save it with a B&W conversion - the balance of light is too dark. With blue hour photography you really just have a ten minute window to get it done. The buildings should be every so slight lighter than the sky. It isn't quite level and with architectural stuff you want it level on both axis and dead perpendicular to the subject. Try using the in camera spirit level and live view grid. You need to arrive in good time to get it all levelled up when there is sufficient ambient light around - it's a f****r in the dark.

Ambient light you are aiming for something a little like this

_DSC8527 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

And no darker than this

_DSC8535 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

If you do get darker, best go B&W

At least you went at hight tide - I made the rookie error of going at low tide

_DSC0215 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

 

[alastairb]

You can distort in Lightroom too.

Go down to Lens corrections and switch to manual. You can square up things pretty well with some trial and error.

Thanks for the tip about lens corrections in lightroom.

You might be able to save it with a B&W conversion - the balance of light is too dark. With blue hour photography you really just have a ten minute window to get it done. The buildings should be every so slight lighter than the sky. It isn't quite level and with architectural stuff you want it level on both axis and dead perpendicular to the subject. Try using the in camera spirit level and live view grid. You need to arrive in good time to get it all levelled up when there is sufficient ambient light around - it's a f****e in the dark.

Ambient light you are aiming for something a little like this

_DSC8527 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

And no darker than this

_DSC8535 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

If you do get darker, best go B&W

At least you went at hight tide - I made the rookie error of going at low tide

_DSC0215 by Stephen Taylor, on Flickr

Thanks for providing the time to provide the criticism. I think there is an element of personal taste here as I prefer your no later than shot. I will however make sure I get there earlier next time as agreed that a brighter sky would be better, just need to wait until next spring to try again as don’t want my next attempt to also be in rush hour.