| facebook | 500px | ferpectshots |
The first time I saw pier 14 near the port of San Francisco, I was playing tourist with a bunch of family members visiting from the east coast. I made a mental note that the pier will be a great spot to get a nighttime shot of the San Francisco downtown. I was a bit put off by the fact that it was such a popular location. I knew it will be tall order to get a clean skyline photo of the city.
I have been taking cityscape images for a while and I think I have the process down. Here is the secret to a good cityscape shot, do not wait till its completely dark out. You want some color in the sky to complement the lights coming from the buildings. The best time is the blue hour in my opinion. That’s when the light has that beautiful quality but not strong colors to overwhelm the subject.
For this shot, I decided to try my luck during the morning blue hour. So we woke up around 5 am and drove from our hotel to the pier, parking was still a struggle so decided to walk out to the pier while my wife stayed in the car nearby. I was worried that the pier might have some kind of gate to keep people out during off hours but that was not the case. It was a really cold and windy day so nobody else was on the pier. I set up my camera and got my shots way before the first jogger ran up the pier. I could have gotten a bit more intense blue during the night blue hour but I think the pale blue works well for the scene. Let me know what you think.