The Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000

Flickr | Large

Kerry Park features one of the most iconic views of Seattle. Nestled several hundred feet up Queen Anne hill, the tiny plot of land features a sweeping vista of downtown Seattle, Elliot Bay, West Seattle, and Mount Rainier. On any given gorgeous night, photographers, tripods and enough camera gear to make Ken Rockwell blush line the fence at Kerry Park. Although this was my second expedition at this photog hot spot, it was my first foray into creating a commissioned image.

In February 2008 I was shooting a Nikon D40. On a crisp, clear Sunday evening, I loaded up the Explorer and set up camp at the newly discovered (to me anyway) Kerry Park. I found a spot on the fence, setup my cheap Best Buy tripod, and cranked my exposure mode over to Shutter Priority. Through experimentation and sheer luck, I shot a panorama that I was able to assemble in Photoshop CS2.

At the end of the night I had a half dozen sequences, each about 10-12 frames. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, the problem with shooting in shutter priority is that as the meter detects different light values across the skyline, it adjusts aperture to compensate. What I wound up with in each sequence was a series of shots with different exposures that were similar, but still a little off from frame to frame. I spent hours in Photoshop manipulating and adjusting to get something that looked cohesive. I eventually achieved a satisfactory pano and sent the file to be printed by my lab.

There are three prints of this image that exist, each with a slightly different crop. My roommate has one and it hangs in a frame in our house. An old friend of mine, Alex Chu, requested a print after visiting Seattle. Unfortunately, the Dell laptop and Western Digital hard drive I used to back up my files from that era both fried. After several months of DIY data retrieval attempts, I gave up. I told Alex the bad news—he suggested I simply re-shoot the panorama.

Now armed with the superior Nikon D300 and a professional Manfrotto tripod and ball head, I accepted the challenge. At the time of the “commission,” I was living in Washington DC. As I was moving back to Seattle in March of 2009, Alex would have to wait until at least then before I could get to work on creating his piece. Clear nights in Seattle are rare during the non-summer months, and it took awhile for favorable conditions to present themselves. On April 4, 2009 Mount Rainier appeared on the horizon and I took off for Kerry Park minutes before sunset.

The ideal time to capture a city is during the “magic hour,” which is the hour immediately following sunset. The sky begins to darken and the city lights gradually start to illuminate the skyline. The trick is to have enough natural light available to expose the non artificially lit elements of the scene—in this case, Mount Rainier. Before skills like composition, exposure and technical knowledge come into play, patience and timing make or break images like this. To fulfill my mission, I shot for nearly two hours and filled up a CF card.

As I learned from my lucky experiment over a year before, I kept exposure consistent among all the frames in a sequence. This meant shooting manual and turning off Nikon’s auto ISO function. The winning sequence came from the following settings: 6 second exposure at f/18, ISO 200. Nikon 18-200mm VR lens at 65mm with VR switched off.

In post production I assembled the images into a panorama using Photoshop CS4 on a MacBook Pro. I adjusted color, contrast and exposure. I sized the photograph for the web and ran several different sharpening scenarios until I found one I liked.

For print, I sized the image to 9″ x 30″ at 300 DPI. I ordered several test prints with different kinds of sharpening to see what worked best. Once the prints arrived, I knew I overlooked one fatal detail. Modern computer screens impressively illuminate an image—this clarity does not always transfer to print, especially when dealing with a relatively dark subject. What looked great on my LCD appeared muddled on the print; not to mention that Mount Rainier was barely visible. I experimented with a number of fixes, but eventually found a solution using Curves and Adobe’s Shadow/Highlights tool.

Alex visited Seattle again this July. I delivered to him a 9″ x 30″ image—tweaked and adjusted to near perfection. The last decision was up to him. I ordered two versions: one on regular photo paper, and another printed on metallic paper. The metallic paper requires brighter ambient room light to view properly, but it has a great effect on all the lights and metal of the city. It also gives this cool electric effect to the sky. Alex immediately settled on the metallic version, had a custom frame built in Seattle, and a few days later he carted it home with him back to Los Angeles.

Assignment complete.