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21 June 2017

On summer vacations from school, we used to go downtown to help out at the magazine. On one errand or another, we'd walk through the concrete caverns ducking into the plywood sidewalk tunnels protecting pedestrians from some construction site.

Cityscape. A new angle on an old scene.

When, we wondered then, would all the work would finally be done? When would the plywood come down? When would the construction noise abate?

But a city is never finished.

Properties change hands, new owners have new ideas, the city has its designs on things too. A lot goes on at once. And the building never stops, the skyline never settles into a recognizable silhouette.

In our piece yesterday, we mentioned a new sidewalk from which we could finally see the city at an angle that had just been out of reach.

Don't dehaze that, we warned ourselves as we lined up the shot.

Crossing at the intersection, we'd get a glimpse of it but that carried us across the street where it was obscured by bushes and trees.

With the new sidewalk we could stand right on the edge of the hill overlooking Noe Valley and, further away, downtown.

But we neglected to show you the scene. Until now.

It was a hazy day after a few days of very hot weather here. But we liked the way the haze separated the city from the wild stuff growing in the foreground that framed the scene.

Don't dehaze that, we warned ourselves as we lined up the shot.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to give the distant buildings a little volume using Clarify and Contrast while brightening the White level. But that was it, really.

We did crop it to a 16:9 aspect ratio because there's only so much clear sky you really need to see. We'd shot it 3:2 with a 35mm manual focus Nikkor on our Nikon D300 with a polarizer, same setup as the Stop sign yesterday.

We first processed the image in the new version of ON1 Photo Raw 2017. But we weren't happy with either our control of the process (we're new to it) or the results. So that one stayed in the lab.

Tight Crop. Showing off the landmarks.

These images were processed with Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop CC. The second one is just a tighter crop to make it easier to find a few landmarks as well as the Noe Valley single family residences in the middle distance.

You should be able to make out the old Mint (at the left edge), City Hall (with its dome), the Transamerica Pyramid, the Bank of America building (right of the pyramid) and the very tall new Salesforce tower.

The changing skyline from a new view, in short.


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