Pasadena

  1. Front View of the Pasadena City Hall

    If you haven't been there before, Pasadena is a small little town with a lot of vibe. It's the place they have the annual Rose Parade.

    The Pasadena City Hall is sort of the center piece of the city. Lots of films and TV shows have been shot here and if you watch Big Bang Theory, this is the view from outside the characters apartment window.

    I don't know why, but it seems buildings from the early 1900's were so cool. Then as the years went on everything got uglier. I guess the industrial revolution took craftsmanship out of city architecture and planning.

    This building was built in 1927 then renovated in 2004 to meet modern building codes. Good thing "the big one" didn't happen before then, or this might not be standing. If you don't know, "the big one" is this legend in Southern California where a giant earthquake is due to come any day. They've been talking about it since I was a kid. 30 some years, and I'm still waiting. It's kind of like if you live in Hawaii, every storm that's sort of big somewhere out in the Pacific is always reported by the news as having an almost positive chance of making that 145 degree turn, picking up power and hitting the islands as hurricane. It never happens either. Well I take that back. It did once in like the 80's or something. I think the media just likes scaring people. After all, what else do they have to talk about in Hawaii. It's like San Diego, "Oh the weather was perfect again. A cat was hit by a car, and the Chargers still suck." 

    Well here it is, the Pasadena City Hall. Probably one of my favorite Night HDR photos that I've taken lately.

    Night HDR Pasadena City Hall

  2. HDR Photo of The Pasadena City Hall

    The other day I drove through Pasadena on the 110 on my way to Mount Baldy. We randomly passed by this really cool looking building that I had no idea existed. It was the Pasadena City Hall. So on our way back we went looking for it to take some photos. (We being my wife and I). It was night by the time I got there so I had to do some Night HDR which I find to be a bit more difficult than shooting regular HDR. Getting the colors to be right is really challenging. I had to take some creative libraties to make it look as cool as it was when I was there. To create this photo I had to do quite a bit.

    My work flow went something like this:

    First off I shot with my Canon 5dmkii and the Samyang 14mm f2.8. Which is a great lens for this type of shoot. I shot three shot bracket, two stops apart.

    I first did the lens distortion correction and proper color balancing before sending them to Photomatix.

    Then I did a very mild HDR effect to bring it all together. Brought it back into Lightroom where I did a whole ton of coloring, gradients and exposure adjustments. 

    Then sent it to Color Efex Pro to give it a split tone look to give it a little style. Then Back to Lightroom for final spot removal, cropping and sharpening.

    Today's Photo

    The Night HDR photo of the Pasadena City Hall's court yard. A pretty awesome place.

    Night HDR Phot of the Pasadena City Hall