My September 2011 Photo of the Month is Downtown From El Prado, an image made in the evening in San Diego’s Balboa Park.
Downtown From El Prado Background
The El Prado bridge is important and iconic to the history of San Diego. Many a great image has been made of the bridge.
Equally spectacular is making images from the bridge itself. Up top, a fence makes it difficult to make a clean image. However, if you take some time to set up correctly with a lens that has a smaller lens diameter, you should be able to do it with ease.
One thing I wanted to avoid that many people attempt to incorporate is the plane traffic. This doesn’t look very good at night, as the light streak isn’t particularly pleasing. Because planes seem to land every 5 minutes, I simply waited for one to pass. That gave me a few exposures at 30 seconds before I needed to watch for the next plane coming in to land.
This was a light traffic night, but Highway 163 is busy enough on any night to give you plenty of light streaks.
I made a lot more images from Balboa Park that I liked, and it was a tough decision, but I think this view towards downtown San Diego is sublime.
As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the image.
Further Viewing
Photos of the Month Portfolio Gallery
Greater San Diego Portfolio Gallery
T.M. Schultze is a San Diego-based photographer, traveller, and writer. He writes, photographs, and draws things of the outdoors that have inspired humans for thousands of years. He co-authored the Photographer’s Guide to Joshua Tree Park which can be purchased here.