NHM: Arched Alcove

Better in large ("L").

I've been meaning to blip this view for ages: I keep taking this same photograph (ish) and reminding myself of how frustratingly difficult it is to try to take perfectly symmetrical handheld shots... This is the alcove directly above the main entrance vestibule on the first floor: it houses the statue of Thomas Henry Huxley (aka "Darwin's Bulldog") who sits facing the statue of Richard Owen (who was the driving force behind the creation of the NHM, and was its first director). Someone took a photograph of me while I was crouching on the floor to take this photo which left me feeling slightly violated (I'm not keen on having my photo taken, especially by random people I don't know with a Go Pro on a monopod!?). *twitch*

Oh well - I'm quite pleased with this effort; the other pictures that I took today were HDR fodder and I'm still getting to grips with HDR Efex Pro so I think it might take me a little while to achieve the results I'm after. I wish I could combine some of the features of HDR Efex Pro with Photoshop's HDR tool: I like the sliders in Photoshop (and end up controlling the tonality mostly via the tone curve...), but prefer the way that I have control over which image acts as the master image (with regards to ghost removal) in HDR Efex Pro... I'm still not entirely sure how all of the different controls match up between the two, which makes HDR Efex seem less intuitive than it might otherwise be, and I definitely don't like its non-continuous controls for various aspects of the process. I suspect that I'll end up using HDR Efex when I want superior ghost removal, and Photoshop when I'm after more subtle control.