Ken Tanaka  Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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Thank you for your comments, Andrew. I did, indeed, shoot the original in color. It was actually a struggle to decide which to post, as the color shot has a pure blue sky and some warm late-day tones on the lighter buildings.
I used Fred Miranda's B&W Workflow Pro Photoshop plug-in to do the b&w conversion. As the scene has a predominance of blue, I used the blue channel as the main control and then varied the balance between red and green. My goal was to get the Hancock Building's antennae to grab your eye by producing a strong contrast against the sky at the top of the frame. Then, I wanted to gradually lighten that dark sky as we reach Olympia Tower (to the left) and Water Tower Place (overlapping the Hancock).
I also used a TS-E 90mm (tilt and shift) lens for the shot, although I did not have to make much of a parallax adjustment since I shot from the 43rd floor and the Hancock Building tapers.
I remember seeing a shot of the Hancock Building by the late, famous architectural photographer Ezra Stoller very similar to this in the 1960's shortly after the Hancock was completed and long before the other buildings were built. It was a real kick to try to replicate that shot, although Mr. Stoller's shot, as usual, was truly stunning.
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