Seattle in HDR

On the first week of August, I got a work trip to Seattle, and of course, I brought my X-Pro3 with me. Recently, I have been exploring a software called Aurora HDR, which has the ability of generating amazing HDRs from a single RAW, so I don’t need to make bracketed exposures anymore, unless I am using a JPEG file.

Aurora HDR comes with some built-in presets that come super handy as a starting point. When editing, I usually load a preset that does not modify that much on the photo, and do my fine tune from there. When I see HDRs around, usually people exagerate on the effect, transforming the image into something kinda bizarre and ugly. My approach to HDRs is to usually preserve what my eyeballs were seeing at the moment, with an extra of some spices, but that’s why I like doing them at the very same day as the day the photo is clicked.

Feel free to mouse over the images and check the map on the lower left corner, to see where the picture was taken, as well as enjoy EXIF info on the right sidebar!

Starring with the iconic Space Needle, this picture was taken when walking on the street with the 100-400mm, at a 400mm focal length. The results were magestic when I loaded in AuroraHDR and had it figuring out the best look by using its AI/ML Black Magic!

I love the way she looks to the boy, who is giving a tip, and she has a shirt saying “have a little faith”, I felt this was a very strong picture, again, brought to you by the 400mm lens, this was taken on a Saturday, close to the Seattle Public Market.

Seattle Great Wheel, it’s a big thing, we paid a ticket to get onboard, but the glass was kinda dirty and the pictures taken from inside the cabinets weren’t as good as these ones, taken from the outside.

We departed to Bellevue to explore the beaches and surroungind areas, like a Botanic Garden. Bellevue is a very beautiful place with jawdropping landscapes and nature. We explored a bit over there before coming back to Seattle Downtown. GPS didn’t get coordinates of these two shots below, but they were taken at the Bellevue Botanic Garden.

Also in Bellevue, we found our favorite spot. A place called Chism Beach Park, where I took these pictures. My eyeballs simply were not believing on the Sunset and location.

The Spheres (an Amazon office) is jawdropping. They have plants from everywhere in the World, and these ones highly deserved HDRs. Their size is something impressive, some of them are 4-feet long!

And Because Seattle is peculiar, I took these in Seattle downtown. The drunk-and-tourists sign is at a place called The 5 Point Cafe. One thing that I loved doing was just walking through Seattle downdown and taking pictures of silly things. Some of them deserved HDRs.

When coming back home, at Seatac airport, I took this one from the airline lounge. I always wanted to have a shot like this (it is every nerd’s dream).