Photos

Hyde Park is a beautiful oasis in the downtown area of Sydney. It covers two large city blocks (with a defined north and south half). It was established as a “common” in 1810 by Governor Macquarie and named after Hyde Park in London. It began its life as Sydney’s first racecourse and after became its first cricket ground. Today it is a tranquil setting for general relaxation and lunchtime picnics. It is a favourite retreat of office workers at mid day in this area.

The layout and beautification scheme was established in 1927. An avenue of giant fig trees planted in the early 1930’s, runs through the middle from north to south, from north of the Archibald Fountain to the Pool of Remembrance at the ANZAC Memorial.

The scene you have before you now (Sydney’s Green Tunnel II), is looking south through (one half of) this green tunnel of trees towards the ANZAC Memorial. There are currently 122 trees in this avenue. Some of these are diseased. Three different diseases have been identified that are putting these trees at risk. The city of Sydney is working hard to save these trees, and at coordinated tree replacement.

The park is a great place for photography, or just to relax.

Much of this from:
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/Residents/ParksAndLeisure/MajorParks/SydneyCBD.asp and
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/Development/CityImprovements/HydePark/

This is the second shot of this tunnel. The first one facing north can be seen here. I wanted to improve on the first shot so I went back for this one. After posting the first one and looking at it for some time, I decided it was a tad rich on the green side, the symmetry could use a little improvement, the light standards were a little askew and there was too much light showing through on the “roof” of the tunnel. We’re here to learn. Hopefully I’ve improved on the first shot, with this one.

Workflow included:
Shot of this scene (in Raw); it was taken on a mostly overcast day
Setting of highlight and shadow maximums in RAW on the NEF file
Adjustment of black and white points with levels
An adjustment to curves for colour, separate from RGB
Lightening of the light globes and darkening of the ANZAC Memorial through the use of an overlay layer (similar to dodging and burning)
An adjustment to the brightness / contrast (very slight)
I then cropped (with a slight perspective adjustment) to ensure the light standards on either side were aligned and straight.)
Saved at this point as a TIFF
For this post I cropped it a little tighter and sharpened it using smart sharpen, then saved as a JPEG.