I went downtown Joliet, IL last night to take a few night shots of the area. I came upon this sweet neon sign for a guy who is making a go of a cheesecake store. While I'm composing the picture, at least two couples walked out and said how good the cheesecakes were. Naturally, I go in for a slice for the wife and I as a surprise for later. I get to talking to the owner (James...) and I showed him a couple of shots I had taken of his neon and he thought they were really cool. He said if he had the opportunity, he'd hang one in his store.
I really liked how this turned out. I'm generally not a selective color type of person, but for some reason I think it works in this image. Being that I just got a sweet deal on the Canon Pixma Pro-10 printer this weekend ($25 for the printer and 50 sheets of 13x19), I made him a print - and this printer REALLY delivers. I mean, it's difficult to tell it from a lab print. I'm really excited to take it back to his shop this week and see what he thinks.
I wanted to do this in HDR - I took a bracketed exposure and tried LR and PS HDR, but they pale in comparison to what I saw the Photomatix trial do. I've spent way too much on photo gear lately to justify buying Photomatix at this time, but it's next on my list of stuff to lust after.
