masking

Head Up High- the making of... by Yuval Shiboli

DOCK office tower is one of the most impressive buildings in MedienHafen Düsseldorf.
It's 63 meters and 15 floors were designed by Architect Jo Coenen and completed in 2002.
I was overwhelmed by the powerful structure and the contrast it holds between the cold gray concrete core and the see-through glass walls wrapping it around.
 

DOCK OFFICE TOWER

JO COENEN
(click on image for original)

I used my super wide angle lens for this shot with a max 10mm focal length to capture as much of the tower as I could, leaving enough space for the post processing distortion I had in mind:

Original shot

Original shot

After setting the right composition and distortion in Lightroon, I switched to Photoshop and used the Nik Silver Efex plugin to create two layers- a dark base with low contrast and a light layer with high contrast:  

The next step was blending it all together using masking, brashing and gradient tools- here is the layout of the layers I used:

Capture.JPG

As always- I've collected those snapshots to a sequence video for you to enjoy:

This shot features the DOCK office tower @ MedienHafen Düsseldorf. Post processing using lightroom, photoshop and silver efex... enjoy Music: https://www.bensound.com