This photo was taken with my new Cannon Rebel T3, at night on the "night" setting (it's brand new, so I am still getting used to full manual). I simply moved the camera upwards while the shutter was open collecting the light. It is drawing with the light (witch in this case are street lamps). Notice the houses in the lower left.
When I shoot this way I never know what I am going to capture. This trial and error process is very enjoyable. Just as fun as framing and composing a picture. You never know what you will get.
When I look at this photo I get a sense of upward movement. It makes me think of a space bound craft lifting off to escape the confines of gravity.
To improve the image I would crop a quarter off on the right and left and boost the contrast a little.
There you go.
I just did that in a couple minutes using a free photo editor. You can see how much stronger it is this way. I did boost the contrast a bit and darkened the image a tiny bit. Just enough to darken the sky. I also tried adjusting the levels but didn't care for the results. Same deal with saturation. When you bring down the saturation it starts to become a black and white image. I like the contrasting colors in this photo. I think it is just right. I could go in there and start playing with the hues, but then I would be here all night.
There are people who tell me that they don't think photo editing is a good idea. If they took the time (and it can be very time consuming) they would fall in love with photography even more. Editing your photographs is key to developing a good eye for when you are shooting. It causes you to really think about the subject, composition, color, everything about the picture. Consider that not editing a photo is like taking your film to a 1hr. developer, and taking what you get. In a way, an unedited photo is like a film negative with an unlimited potential for creative development. Don't let your digital camera have the final say in the "development" of your photographs. EDIT!!
