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.