Blue Hour on Beale St., a photo from Tennessee, South

Photographer's Note

I was going back in time looking at our trip to Memphis, Tennessee for the Beale St. Music Festival last year and found quite a few shots that I liked, but for some reason never uploaded. Probably because there were so many good ones that came from that short trip!

This event and the subsequent post-processing of the photos marked a turning point for me in my photography and here on TE. Before this trip and while I was preparing some of the uploads, I discovered I had a monitor issue - my uploads, while they looked fine to me, were too dark. (I have a Spyder now) Also, I learned a bit about over-processing, too, while trying to make my photos look better when there really was not that great a need to do so. I'm seeing that more often than not these days, too, so I am lightening up on the PS techniques a bit. Hopefully my images will look a bit better from now on.

This was captured on Beale St. the evening before the music festival started. There was certainly a lot to do and see, as you might notice from my travelogue. Beale St. is loaded with neon and blues and people and beer.I hand-held this one (I was fairly steady after a few of my own beers), a zoom-telephoto shot that sort of compresses a block of the neon on Beale.

I imported this from the NEF file to Photoshop, added a frame and a little saturation (because I like my colors saturated), re-sized for TE and sharpened slightly to compensate for the resizing. Very little post, I think it turned out well!

I have a time compression problem this week (what's different, huh?) but hope to be out and about a little today and tomorrow to catch up on everybody's recent uploads. Have a great Hump Day!

yeln, phwall has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

yquem46 (38752) 2010-03-10 5:06

Hey man, do you feel the blues !!??
Nicely done! At first surprised by the speed 1/80s by night and then I checked the ISO !
Was right there in the mid 70's, time is flying!
have a nice day
patrick

yeln (11516) 2010-03-10 5:47

hello Reed

google translator

very colorful photo.
good contrast and sharpness.
can be a bit too dark in my opinion.
I like it very much.

congratulations
regards
Vojko

tusharkmandal (3173) 2010-03-10 7:19

Good Morning Reed,

Very nicely managed frame. I always love luminous picture s in low light. They just glow out of the dark. The choice of the Shutter speed is perfect with an high ISO. I just learnt one more thing from this picture as earlier with my point and shoot ISO above 300 would have resulted nasty noise and so I had a habit not to go for ISO above 200. But now I can trick with it.

Thanks for Sharing
Tushar

phwall (6787) 2010-03-10 13:45

Hi Reed,
I seem to remember a similar shot of Beale St but from a different POV.
I also think it is a bit too dark, especially the area where the people are standing on the sidewalk. Here you would expect them to be quite well lit by the amount of spill light coming from the signs and the shop windows.
I've added a workshop showing how I'd have approached this area in your frame.
Nothing wrong with saturated colours especially when it comes to Neon signs, the more the better I think.
I like the composition and this POV, you really convey the atmosphere of the street well.
It must be a very buzzy time to be there.
Good work.
Cheers
Peter

[workshop] [compare] +

delpeoples (60342) 2010-03-11 2:26

Hi Reed, nice Blue Hour you got there. Pete's WS is excellent aswell. The deep cobalt tones are just magnificent and always look so goo against the neon lights. Very famous this street, I've heard it mentioned in songs. So thanks for showing us something that isn't seen much here on TE. Great job, and I wish you a lovely Thursday, Lisa

ktanska (44464) 2010-03-11 5:16

Hi Reed,
Time was just right to capture both the lights and blue hour action. Saturation looks just right, those light fixtures are supposed to look saturated. Looks like a night of action, though not like May Day eve is in Europe.
Kari

CliffW (2381) 2010-03-11 6:05

It's really nice to see a shot of Beale. Especially a warmer night, when people are out and around. You've got the neon sharp, which is hard to do - and I know. I never got one I was happy with, and we lived there for 10 years, up until this past December, when we moved here to Australia. So thanks for the nice shot, and the memories. Too darn bad you were swing the wrong way to get my fav, the Rum Boogie Club. Ah well, can't have it all.

Cliff, ps: fellow StL'san originally, give or take a few miles.

batalay (41261) 2010-03-14 21:43

Hello Reed,

Congratulations of a wonderful nighttime capture. Both this and the ws version are very good, but the latter mimics the eye better. Accordingly, I'll go with that one. Memphis is favorite city of ours, with close friends there.

Warm regards,

Bulent

zoomer (6) 2010-04-06 16:11