Central Park Reservoir, Jul 2009

This was taken on the west side of the Central Park Reservoir, looking south toward the skyline of mid-town Manhattan. I wanted to capture the reflection of the clouds on the water (see? it's clean enough to drink! it doesn't even glow in the dark!), and I also wanted to use the HDR mechanism to highlight the rich colors and contrast between the clouds and the sky.

All of this was done with 3 images, taken with a handheld camera that was resting on the iron-picket fence that prevents crazed New Yorkers and overly enthusiastic visitors and tourists from tearing off their clothes and leaping into the reservoir to frolic in wild abandon (all of which is allowed on Halloween night, but at no other time during the year). There were, consequently, no people in the scene (there's a jogging path that circumnavigates the reservoir, but none of the joggers are visible); and as a result, I was able to get a "clean" HDR result.

Note: for reasons that make no sense to me, this photo was published as an illustration in a Jul 31,2009 Digerat blog page titled "Digerat.com: pepacton reservoir map." And it was also published in an Aug 6, 2010 Gawker blog, titled "Central Park Now Dangerous (Except Compared to Rest of City)."

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I tried an HDR (high dynamic range) photo once a year ago, but for some reason never pursued it. But it seems that more of and more of the "interesting" photos that I see on Flickr are HDR shots, so I decided to give it another try. The first of these HDR shots were taken from the rooftop of my apartment building at sunset, on the Sunday evening of 4th of July weekend. Subsequent shots have been taken out on the street, from the terrace of my apartment at night, and walking through Central Park at mid-day...

I still have a *lot* to learn about this stuff, but even as a first attempt I'm staggered by what the tonal-mapping software programs (Photomatix, in my case) are capable of doing...