A Night at Dakota Crescent Serial - Week 2

Block 4 3rd Storey Lift Lobby

I came around Block 4 and decided to explore further by taking the old school elevator to 6th storey. FYI, there are only 3 lift lobbies on these old flats (Block 1 - 6), basically the ground level, 3rd storey and 6th storey. I walked down the stairs as I explored each household doorsteps just to find something interesting to make photographs of. I ended up here at 3rd storey lift lobby and took up camera position.

I made about 4 or 5 photographs for HDR post-production and somehow I couldn't get the desired result. Hence I resorted to use the stacking and masking technique in Photoshop. I got down to every details in this photograph in which I wanted to show the building block number 2 clearly and getting the right exposure for that light box is petty challenging but I managed to get it by under exposed 3 f-stops or more.

Next I went for the interior details through each household window and balcony as much as possible but to keep it as natural looking at the same time. Well just a little over exposed by 1 f-stop on Block 2, and just about right on Block 4. Of course all done on 2 separate masked layers. The shadow details on the tree is taken care of as well.

Finally, taking care of the exposure on the lift lobby and corridor is pretty straight forward. I'm pretty satisfied with the overall result compared to the HDR generated by Nik Collection HDR Efex Pro, which of course I would not show you.

Next week, an interesting Dakota nocturne will be posted so do stay tuned.