The Image: I have to tell the story behind this image.
My wife was working in Sydney for a few days, and she invited me to Cirque de Soleil (Dralion) for which her company is the prime sponsor. We had VIP seats and Tapis Rouge passes. So of course, I decided to go, take a few days off. Perfect! She works hard all day, I have a love affair with Sydney and my Nikon. At night we go out.
It was our last day and I decided I would catch the harbour in the Magic Hour. I checked the sunrise time and it was 7:30. It was a 15 minute walk to Circular Quay, so I set the alarm for 6am knowing that would be ample time to get there and wait for that 10 minutes of pure magic.
Well, at 6am, I got out of bed, drew back the curtains and the sky was already lit up. It was the most gorgeous deep purple and the clouds were a complimentary orange.
I ran out of the room and ran down George Street like a lunatic, all the while watching this amazing sky disappear before my eyes. By the time I got to the Quay the sky was gone and the sun was coming up. This is the image I captured that with a bit of a tweak, captures the colours I saw.
There's nothing like the sight of the harbour in the morning. The orange light across the Harbour Bridge trusses are magic.
If only I got up half an hour earlier! D'Oh!
There is a PS to this story: I am having lunch overlooking Darling Harbour in what has turned out to be a gorgeous day. On the balcony of the restaurant I am eating at, there is an old man very nicely dressed in a BOSS business suit accompanied by a drop dead gorgeous woman. She looks like his 'escort'. Along comes the waitress who knows them. They've just returned from a 'holiday' in Thailand.
As they chat, I continue to eavesdrop (as you do when you are the only other person on the outdoor balcony). The waitress talks about how lovely the weather is every time this couple visits: Blue skies and not a puff of wind, and 20 degrees today. And, did you see the dawn this morning? It was an amazing deep purple. I have never seen anything like it! To which the rich business man says: Yes, I was up, I saw it. It was magnificent.
Little did he know, along with the stunning woman who was most probably in his bed with, was that Enzo Maisano aka hotpasta was running down George Street, Sydney with a heavy camera bag and Manfrotto tripod, trying to catch what he was looking at before it vapourised away!
Enzo
The Edit: Colour Balance, USM, Noise Ninja, levels.
Prediction: Not sure...might be difficult with all of the purple flowers that should do well. 6.2345???
Post Challenge: The thing I regret about this image is the over saturation. I only had my TabletPC with me in Sydney and on that it looked fine. But when I got home, I thought it looked so unnatural. Thankfully the folks at dpc tend towards oversaturation :) It's great to have finished in 10th place. Thank you everyone.
Statistics
Place: 9 out of 227 Avg (all users): 6.5571 Avg (commenters): 7.4667 Avg (participants): 6.3171 Avg (non-participants): 6.7109 Views since voting: 2608 Views during voting: 373 Votes: 210 Comments: 27 Favorites: 9 (view)
Great capture and portrayal of Sydney Opera House. Colour is imazing in this
Not convinced by the crop though. Probably a little too much taken off the right hand side (ie the Opera house is too much to the right) and also maybe a little too much at the top. Not sure, the crop just doesn't seem to work for me. Good marks though still as its a great shot.
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