Beautiful end to a busy week

I'm very glad Friday night has come around so quickly - it's been an incredibly busy week at work, but I finally started to feel light there was a light at the end of the tunnel today (and it's not a train coming the other way).

I had gone to the front window part way through my evening meal, as I could tell by the colour beaming into my lounge that the sunset was looking good. I was slightly unimpressed then, and recalled that I previously blipped a similar shot, albeit taken earlier in the day. So I finished my meal and just as I did I realised it was getting even better; I grabbed the camera hastily and dashed out to the front garden.

Unfortunately the only way of avoiding getting all of my car and the neighbours I have to stand on the front wall (rather precarious) and so had to go for slightly higher ISO to get a decent shutter speed. But, of course, it being a D700 the results looked perfect!

And just in time too - by the time I'd come back in and loaded the dishwasher it had gone dark!

I decided that in the absence of being able to use my ND grads (as I had nowhere to stand the tripod) I would have to bracket. The result was a 5 shot bracket, from which I have taken the lightest and darkest photos.

I then took both images into CS6 and blended the two together by using a reduced opacity brush on a layer mask. I then boosted the vibrancy of the sky, before making a levels adjustment over the whole image. I also made a slight layer adjustment on the cars as I decided that the reflection on the roof and bonnet adds to the picture (I was initially going to crop them out).

Have a great weekend :)