Amsterdam, the Ij

A little experiment begins. I've been playing with camera movement and long exposures for the last little while. Mostly because of this unintentionally blurred image I'm sharing with you today. I know this is not unique, and that there are several really good examples of intentional camera movement photographs, but that's not really the whole point is it? For some reason this image appeals to me, even if it was an accident, and that to me is the point. The exploration has been interesting even if it has just began. I don't quite get it as it such a departure from what I usually like to shoot and post. But heck, I'm going with it for a while :) Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing some of these. I hope you like them as much as I think I do.

Field Notes

This shot was made in a terribly windy winter morning, in front of the Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. I was attempting to make a long exposure of the area behind the Amsterdam Centraal Station, but the wind had better ideas. I think I accidentally triggered my remote shutter while moving to position the camera and tripod, while avoiding falling into the river.

Processing Notes

Initially processed in Lightroom, to bring up the exposure as it was very under exposed. This lead to a lot of noise being created, which meant I applied quite a bit of noise removal (again in Lightroom). Thankfully given the nature of the photograph, the noise reduction in this case, adds to the image rather then becoming an issue. It was then processed in Photoshop, where I adjusted overall contrast, and toned the image with a mixture of a curves layer, and solid colour layers to target the highlights and shadows. I finished by adding a dodge and burn layer, and dodging and burning particular areas of the image with a very large soft brush. Back into Lightroom where I added a little bit of clarity and exported.