How I took it: Harrisburg City Night Shot
The above shot was part of a project that I had envisioned for the past few months. It began when I started thinking about the photos that I wanted to display around our house, and what was represented there. We had enough family shots, we also had some decent landscape shots around the Hershey area, but we had nothing from the Harrisburg area, save a simple 8x10 print of something I took on a whim near Ft. Hunter park. I then began to think big. Real big, like 4-feet long big. Right above the couch!
With that, the idea was born...what about a nice skyline shot of Harrisburg? At first I thought about an image I had made at sunrise, as the sun comes up over the buildings...then I realized that I would have to be up at 5am and drive down to City Island to get it, hoping the sunrise would be decent. A possibility, but not my first choice...then it hit me: a night shot!
The idea was born, and now it was time to make plans. How did I want this shot to look? Where was I going to take this shot? What kind of equipment and settings would I need? Firstly, I began looking on google maps. There had to be a good place for this shot. My first idea was from the top of the Western shore. I researched the area, talked to people I knew, and even made a quick plan to do the shot with some help from friends, but realized that this would never do. According to the maps and to my friends, there would be too many obstacles that would block my view, save trespassing into someones back yard. I could always ask permission, but I thought that would be weird. So the West Shore idea was axed.
The next possibility: City Island. City island offered a great view of the skyline, and had some excellent areas to get close enough to the water to get a nice reflection from the lights on the other side. I returned to Google Maps and scanned the locations. It was hard to tell. I then took to some other websites and found that some people had taken some daylight shots from City Island. After a little more research, I found a shot that was the EXACT place that I wanted to shoot from. I was ready to shoot.
Well, sort of. The problem was, my idea was ahead of the fact that when I figured these things all out, the susquehanna river was frozen in about 2-feet of ice (so it appeared). I would have to table my idea for the next few weeks until it started to get warmer. You can't get a good reflection off of a frozen, snowy river!
Fast-forward a few weeks later. The forecast was perfect. The river was thawed, and I was ready! I called a friend and we travelled down to City Island that evening with a tripod and camera (tripods are essential for these kinds of shots). I found the location I had scouted online and quickly set up my camera on a tripod and began taking exposures. At first, I realized that I was making a huge mistake: I was shooting on a tripod and then clicking the shutter button. This causes vibrations, even on a tripod, so the first few shots had a little bit of blur. Once I realized this, I became more focused...f/11, ISO 200, 15-20 second exposures. Boom! I got the shot. Then another. Then another.
My last shot was actually a series of shots. I put the camera vertically on my tripod and took a 7-image panoramic shot of the scene, which gave me a spectacularly wide view of everything, beyond what my 18mm lens could give me. My plan was to stitch this together at home in photoshop.
The photo above was NOT the panoramic photo that I stitched together, however it was one of many that I had taken. The panoramic shot came out so well, it ended up being my favorite of them all. So I ordered it in a 51x14 inch canvas print and it hangs above my couch to this day (see below)
The most refreshing thing about this whole experience is the print, and how much time and research went into conceiving, planning and then capturing it. It took lots of patience too. Sometimes the best images need all of that.
