One of the best locations to take photos of the downtown Austin skyline that I know of. The other excellent spot is on top of the man made hill by the Stevie Ray Vaughn Statue a little further down the town lake trail - try it out sometime. Particularly great at night!
Take the following as suggestions and not as a contempt-filled assault:
As far as post processing, I would suggest increasing the contrast on the first photo and potentially moving towards a slightly warmer temperature but that is more a style choice. Next time you are over there, bring a tripod along and try some long exposures at a narrow aperture (high f-stop or f/#) - that should smooth out the lakes surface a good bit. Something also looks really off about the trees - did you brighten up the shadows or use HDR software to make both of these photos?
No HDR, but I did lighten the shadows. I think I even decreased contrast.
Sorry, here's the EXIF data
18mm 1/200 f/16 ISO 400 handheld
I tried to focus and meter about 1/3 of the way into the foreground, which of course was on the surface of the water. I'm thinking now that I would have been better off set on a tripod, longer exposure and lower ISO.
Would it have been better to focus on the trees on the far bank?
Thanks a bunch for critique. It's only way to learn.
