Burj Khalifa
black and white treatment
black and white treatment
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Jun, 2016Views
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Peer Award
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Outstanding Creativity
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in Dubai, Burj Khalifa building in December 2015. Burj Khalifa is the tallest building on earth.It took me two years to decide to publish an image of this building as it is one of the most photographed locations.Time
In Dubai the sun comes out very early and i didn't catch the sunrise, so i visited the area later in the afternoon, around 4pmLighting
I was disappointed because the day I was there the sky was bright blue with no clouds in sight (I was looking for a long exposure to catch a few cloud streaks), so that’s when I decided that my image would have a black sky with different shades of white. I envisioned my photo to lead the eye from a total black look at the bottom to a bright top through different zones of B&W.”Equipment
That time I was using an APS-C camera, the Sony a6000 and he Sony 10-18 OSS lens.Inspiration
I was looking for a view of the Burj Khalifa that would be pleasing to my eye, my aim was to capture the whole building in one frame. I took different shots from around the building and I selected this photo as it had the best composition. I wanted to show not only the height of the building (tallest artificial structure in the world – 829.8 meters) but also its massive volume.Editing
I consider this photo a piece of art, it was post-processed heavily using my personal workflow which have been fine tuned through the years. At a glance I usually follow the steps below: 1.Adjust exposure, contrast, highlights 2. Reduce noise where required (by the way, with Sony a6000 I get less noise than my brand new A7RII in long exposures) 3. Create luminosity masks on the colored image 4. Create the hard selection (usually to isolate sky from buildings but not only) 5. Convert to B&W, usually three exposures Under, Normal, Over 6. Darken the sky 7. Work on different layers, based on the normal exposure and adjust contrast by using luminosity masks, curves, levels and gradients 8. Create the lights based on the envisioned image using gradients and brushes 9. Add grain 10. Dodge and Burn layer (50% grey, soft light) 11. Selective sharpening with one or more high pass filtersIn my camera bag
Right now I use the Sony A7RII. For landscapes I use the Zeiss Batis 25mm and for zoom in / details the Sony G 70-300. I also use a 24-70 and the 55mm 1.8 I always carry a tripod, my Formatt Hitech Filters (16, 10, 6, 3 stops) a polariser and an intervalometer for long exposures and time lapses.Feedback
Try to get as many photos as possible. Review the image on site as much as possible, you might end up home with something you don't like. For long exposures use high quality filters, I faced many difficulties in the past with cheaper filters (colorcasts). Every time i go back to the same location i think of a different point of view so scout your location very well and shot from different angles.
