Miami Skyline Breakdown

Recently, I had the opportunity to shoot the Miami skyline. A shot that I had drooled over many times while driving over to Miami Beach. I'd always look over to the glowing and beautifully lit downtown. Purple and blue glowing giant structures of glass and metal. There's just something beautiful about it all. On several occasions I would attempt to find a spot to capture the skyline. However, not from Miami I failed several times to find that money shot spot, until recently.

I was on my way back from a long shoot at D.Rodriguez Ocean, A brand new restaurant in the Hilton Bentley Hotel. If you have a chance go eat at this restaurant as the food is simply outstanding. Anyways, I digress! on the way back I look over to Ben Price my able assistant that day and say "what do you think about trying to find a spot to get that shot" he was down for it as this was his first trip to south beach and downtown Miami. We drove around for a while and just when things were looking bleak I found the exit to the Miami Children's Museum. I had followed the road to the water and saw a car in the distance, dimly lit and creepy looking. however, it was blocked by a fence. it was so dark I had a hard time seeing even with the headlights. I knew that if there was a car there was an entrance, so I followed the fence until I found it... an opening. If you were to call it a road you'd be grossly exaggerating. The bumpy and uneven path eventually let to a rough paved road that ran along the river for about 300 yards. I pull up and throw the car into park. My poor excuse for headlights dimly illuminated a drunk man drinking a beer and from his unsteady movement and reliance on a pole for balance, I'd say it was not his first drink of the night. Despite the inherent danger and the voice of my father in my head saying.. "use your head, is the picture worth it" I quickly responded with a overwhelming "yes" this all in my head of course. To appease the voice in my head, I decided to arm Ben with a C-stand arm (a 3 feet aluminum pole with a heavy clamp thing on the end.) and instruct him to stand behind me while I take pictures.

We set up and started snapping away. Mean while a make shift underage rave started to form near my car, which we were now around 50 yards from. With wallet and camera gear in the car I was a little prejudice of the flash mob of glow stick twirling teenagers. I pushed on, snapping away. Ben and I switched off using the only tripod and eventually decided we had gotten the shots and decided to move on. Being a perfectionist, I wasn't satisfied and decided to head down through the rave and past the 2 cars with what appeared to be prostitutes in them, past the dark car playing a rap remix of a Metallica song all the way to the end near the bridge. I got a few shots of the bridge and then turned the camera back to the skyline. this was the shot! this was the angle I was looking for. I took a shot with my cell phone, uploaded it to Facebook and then started to capture the skyline the way I've seen it in my head for so long.


Cell Phone Shot!

Now for the technical part:

There is 3 things you need to make a shot like this.

  • 1. A camera capable of taking multiple second exposures. A Digital SLR camera is a good start. You can get them used for as little as 300.00
  • 2. A sturdy tripod. A multiple second exposure is very susceptible to the slightest wind or vibration. When I'm capturing long exposures I put the camera on a 2 sec delay so that the camera has time to settle before firing. A remote control is another method of eliminating user vibration.
  • 3. A Program like Photoshop or PhotoMatix Pro to combine the 3 separate exposures into one file.

Miami Skyline 4 shot HDR

Equipment
Canon 40D on my Bogen Tripod

4 shots @ f6.3 ISO 100
Exposure 1. 3.2 sec
Exposure 2. 13 sec
Exposure 3. 20 sec
Exposure 4. 30 sec

From this point I used PhotoMatix Pro to combine the 4 shots into one HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo. This combines the images so that the lightest and the darkest areas of the photo show up. It increases the detail and gives a painted or computer animation look. This process is commonly overused and overdone. however, when done right the result is amazing. the processed HDR gives me this shot

For the final touches I added a slight purple tone to the water using LightRoom 3 and cropped it to a wide aspect ratio.

...and that's how I captured the Miami Skyline I so longed for.