The last light of a winter's day. This time of year the days are short....so the sunsets hold a special feeling. As we move into another long cold night, it's nice to share the special twilight time over a glass of wine among friends. Wonderful view from Flow Restaurant, upstairs, on Main Street in Mendocino, California. Serving organic food and great cocktails with a stellar view of the Pacific. Now open for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. ( Flow Restaurant on Youtube:
youtu.be/FUYO2OONSwE )
TECH NOTES:
1/100 - f/5.6 - ISO 2000
I was asked to take pictures for a new restaurant that just opened in the village of Mendocino. It was going to be difficult to manage the contrasting bright light of the sky with the darker light inside just after sunset. But that beautiful ocean view is so much part of what this restaurant is about, so I had to try to get the shot.
I had no extra lighting arrangements because this was done during business hours and customers were coming in already. So I was improvising as I went along, trying to stay out of the way.
Raising the ISO to record the darker interior while not blowing out the sky was the only way to manage .... but the resulting grain was substantial. So after making my first adjustments in the RAW converter, I ran the image through Ninja program to remove the noise. The color balance was a bit tricky too: rosy daylight from the sunset mixed with yellow interior lights. I opted for a balanced look that evoked the actual tones of the scene rather than try to make something different out of it in photo shop, which one could have done. This is a single exposure shot in RAW, made under available lighting conditions. I was happily surprised at how well it turned out. Testing several exposures and checking my histogram helped me get the exposure. And in post processing, the Ninja software made all the difference, reducing the grain while adding a soft mood to the moment.
