The City of Atlanta as seen from Piedmont Park's Lake Clara Meer

Nighttime in Piedmont Park

I took a walk down to Piedmont Park on Monday night to get some photos of Lake Clara Meer and the city. I only live a couple of miles from the park and I'm there a lot, but I go for walks with friends and don't always have my camera. 

I had a specific intention of getting a painterly photo and I feel like I achieved that. I did it by underexposing the shot quite a bit.

This was shot at 1/4 sec, f/5 at 200 ISO on a tripod. 

When you bring up the shadows, it produces a lot of digital "noise" in the photo. Most photographers hate noise, and if you want a super clear, sharp, every-detail-showing photo, then noise is definitely the enemy. 

I like the noise when I'm aiming for painterly - something I love to do. The original shot looked like this:

The underexposed shot of the city

I underexposed the shot and then brought up the shadows which brought in the expected noise. 

I softened the noise in Lightroom which made the details less sharp. I also used a paintbrush in Lightroom and painted in some brighter and darker areas.

The buildings weren't as underexposed so they stayed clear and sharp without a lot of noise. 

When I was out shooting, I got talking to another woman, Danielle, who was also out shooting. We agreed that the sky didn't look that great, and I told her I was going to replace the sky in this shot.

As the evening wore on, we could see some purple and pinks creeping in and I was pleasantly surprised with the sky when I uploaded the photos. I tweaked it a little but I was happy with this, though for fun I still might try a different sky.  

Photo Fun in Atlanta

I went to the park by myself but I ended up talking to so many people. I love that about Piedmont Park and Atlanta. 

There have definitely been some issues in and around Piedmont Park and the city, but I find people to be mostly friendly. 

I ended up taking quite a few shots of people with their iPhones and cameras! It was a fun evening. 

I should have waited a little longer and gotten some more photos at regular exposure but I still had a half-hour walk home. The city is mostly friendly but I didn't want to walk on the Beltline much later. 

It was a good Monday night!

And, I was happy to see that my recent camera sensor cleaning did the trick. I had a pretty big spot in the middle of my photos that I kept removing from all my shots. It's gone now - yay!

Have a fantastic rest of your week! We need some rain:)

See you between the raindrops!

xoxo,
Susan

I've added this one to the website. You can find it here.