Tower Life Building with Christmas lighting

Last night I went downtown to take photos of the Riverwalk after the Christmas lights were finally lit for the first time on Friday night. I figured that waiting a day would thin out most of the crowd from the first night and that I would be able to get some good shots.

Well, the crowd was much lighter than I had anticipated, but I was not impressed at all with the Riverwalk lights. There were small portions on the Riverwalk that looked neat but a majority of the scene seemed to be a tree here or a tree there with lights. It also had a very distinct reddish glow as if the designers decided to put up 4 red lights for every other colored light as well. I did take some photos and will work on them over the next few days, but if you want to enjoy a much better overall Christmas display I recommend going to Sea World rather than downtown.

Anyway, this shot of the Tower Life Building lit in Christmas colors is the first shot that I decided to work on, not just because of the red, green, and white lighting, but also because at the top there is the Texas state flag and a Texas A&M flag on the flagpole. I am guessing this is because of the owners of the building celebrating the win over Texas on Thursday night but I am not 100% certain on that.

I blended several things together in this picture to make it look a little different than if you would actually see the building in person. I enhanced the green and red slightly in the lighting of the building. I also darkened the flags so they would stand out a little bit more. I made these modifications because when I did my normal de-saturation process to make the picture look a little less surreal I was not quite happy with the results. The slight over brightening and over saturation actually makes the coloring look more like the original photo, while retaining the added lighting, shadows, and depth that you get from HDR processing.

Tower Life Building Christmas lighting