Hi All & @ itsforgotham!

My name is Ben and I'm based in Sydney Australia. You can find me under the handle @ itchban or my work and blog at ITCHBAN.com

@ itsforgotham : Really diggin your work and loved your collab project with Create Explore. Your video is still my favourite collab on there..

I wouldn't say I'm exactly new at Lightroom or Photoshop but I enjoyed your lessons just the same.

The photo

The strengths of Sydney & Australia photographically is definitely not it's city or it's skyline. Our city is not really known to be as aesthecally pleasing as NY or CHI. Our streets weren't planned, aren't straight and our buildings are pretty ugly and thoughtless.

That said, there is this one street (in the photo) where the street is relatively straight and runs right up to a shiny corporate tower. Thought I'd give it a shot and try reppin Sydney on here.

RAW

Gotham City Vibes - image 1 - student project

The idea behind this photo was to capture the street leading up to this great big shiny tower. The buildings on the left and right weren't really the focus of the photo (especially the distracting white one on the left).

Progress shot

Gotham City Vibes - image 2 - student project

From lightroom, I used the the Lens Correction panel to straighten up the buildings and get rid of the lens/perspective warp. I then seperately masked three elements in the photo: left & right buildings together, the road, and the shiny tower. This is so I could selectively adjust the exposure & tones for the three elements.

Final

Gotham City Vibes - image 3 - student project

So this is the final result.

Process

For the buildings on the sides I lowered the exposure, upped the contast, and adjust the tone curves to give it a matte kind of look. This was to remove your eyes focus on them and direct them towards the road and building.

I did the same for the roads but to a lesser extent as I still wanted it to be a feature of the picture.

I highlighted the tower and added some colour adjustments to it to give it a golden kind of look.

The Story

The story & emotion I wanted to convey behind this photo was power. The shiney gold tower fills the full frame and you can tell it even extends beyond the frame of the image. It clearly stands out from the surrounding buildings and environment in an ostentatious / baller kind of way. It's stature is imposing & oppressive - ironically, it's owned by one of the top banks in Australia (NAB).

Thanks for stopping by my project. Any questions or comments feel free to hit me up below. I'll be sure to check back here every now and then.

@ itchban

Benjamin Lee

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