Hoover Tower

The Hoover Tower at Stanford University, as seen from the main quad.

The Hoover Tower was completed in 1941 and is part of the Hoover Institution research center, founded by Herbert Hoover.

This has had a bit of work done -- I wanted the quad buildings to have a warm, friendly light, but most of the lighting in this area was from high-pressure lamps of various types. This meant any attempt to adjust the colour balance would spoil the colour of the sky and the tower, and leaving it as is meant the nearby lighting had a very green tint. As such, I processed the RAW file twice, once optimising for the tower and sky colour, and once for the foreground building lighting, and blended the two images back together in Photoshop.

It was very dark when I took this shot -- this is actually a 20 second exposure, and I had to clone out some stars in the sky (they didn't add to the image). I really like the reflection of the sky in the tower windows (best seen large).

[ThatClayGuy]

Cool shot! I love the light between those arches.

[Mags ッ]

Fabulous - great lighting :)

[Reva]

Wow... lovely colour and lighting! :)

[Julie]

Gorgeous

[Caroline]

Nice lighting.

[Humphrey Hippo]

Now that's cool. Love the arches & the texture of the brick work. The tower windows are fab too.
Not sure I can condone cloning out stars though. ;)

[Glenda B]

This is fabulous! Love the lighting and composition :)

[Cathy]

Love this... great architectural arches, texture in the stone and the lovely tower against that blue, blue sky! Great reflection in the windows! Fav!

[Marie]

Love the gradient sky and lighting.

[Menarose]

This is awesome - the arches, the shadows & lights of it.

[Julie Ryan]

beautiful arches and lights!