Retracing my steps...

I've wanted to return to the spot of one of my signature shots (heh, yeah, understatement -- being the whole backdrop for my photography site, you'd think it'd be an important shot in my porfolio) to see if I could clean up some of the nitpicks that keep hanging over my head every time I look at that picture.

Since I'd arrived at Safeco early enough before the group I was planning on spending the evening with, I had some time to do just that. Lighting conditions are very rarely the same, and I believe the sun was higher up in the sky for my second attempt, so the two photos are definitely different. But I was amazed at how successful I actually was in trying to recapture the things that captured my eye the first time I shot the scene. Here's my second attempt:



Of course, I haven't done much tweaking yet, so there's more to be done with this picture. There are a few things I like better in this shot -- the clarity, the "V" shape of the clouds, etc. -- but it's missing some important qualities of the first shot (which, of course, is cropped slightly differently):



Something interesting for sure.

As a post script, I shot another picture later in the evening, which I like a lot, too. Not everything has to be done in sepia, of course: