Pike Place Market Seattle at Night

Public Market Sign at Night with Colorful Reflections, Pike Place Market, Pike Street, Seattle, Washington

Pike Place Market at Night, Pike Street, Seattle, Washington

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Pike Place Market Seattle at Night

I had seen many photographs of the famous entrance to Pike Place Market in Seattle using the display from the florist on the corner of Pike Street and 1st Avenue as a foreground.  No matter what I tried I just could not make this work for me – probably had to do with the time of year and the flowers on display.  Somewhat disappointed we adjourned to dinner.  Whilst we were eating it started to rain – after all this is Seattle!  By the way, Washington DC has a higher annual rainfall total than Seattle – 42.58 inches versus 37.07 per Wikipedia.  The rain in Washington just comes in larger doses whereas in Seattle it seems to be there almost all the time.

We returned to the same corner where I had been unsuccessful earlier in the evening to find the wet cobblestones perfectly reflecting the red light from the neon Pike Place Market sign.  An added bonus was that by this time the market was very close to closing and the tourists had all disappeared leaving a wonderful unobstructed view down Pike Street into the entrance to the market hall.  All that was needed was a tripod and a low POV to highlight the reflections and an umbrella to keep me and the lens somewhat dry (succeeded with the lens but not me!).

All that was needed for processing was to balance the exposure between the lighting from inside the market place with that from the neon sign.  This was achieved by double processing the image in Lightroom and then by opening both images as separate layers in  Photoshop it was just a matter of creating the necessary mask to bring the toned down version of the market hall into the rest of the image.

9 Comments

  1. Really nice color and soft reflection Mark. Looks like the rain was a fortuitous event.

  2. Victoria/Sweden
    Twitter:

    Nice picture and color.

  3. Great job on both creating the image and the processing. Love the lighting.

  4. Looks great Mark, one of my favorite places too! Well shot!

  5. Phillip Burrow
    Twitter:

    Wonderful image Mark. The rain really adds to the mood of the picture!

  6. Beautiful reflections on the wet ground! I dig your processing style here. Nice.

  7. Really nice shot Mark. I love the reflections on the wet pavement

  8. Great image, Mark. The rain really enhances the entire scene, making everything look so much better. This is probably why they do this in the movies. You’ll often see wet streets in film making.

    Wonderful job, man.

  9. I really like this image Mark. Loving the reflections and the dominant reds!

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