Blue and Gold Downtown Reflections, Omaha NE I love the view of downtown Omaha from the Gene Leahy Mall, which is not a mall in the sense of having stores, but rather, is a 10-acre park that stretches from downtown in the West to the Heartland of America Park (30 acres) in the East. A shallow lagoon flows through the mall all the way down to the big lake at Heartland of America Park, providing lots of opportunities for reflections. In this case the reflection is on ice, and those are snowballs in the foreground that people had thrown from the bridge. Dad and I went on this shoot together, but we split up, with me opting to stay close to downtown, while dad hiked all the way to the far East side of Heartland of America Park for his reflection. It was kind of a role reversal because I was about two minutes from the car and he was about a 20 minute hike away! This is a single 30 second exposure. I used a Sing Ray Blue ‘n Gold polarizer to make the blue hour sky and gold reflections pop. I rarely ever use this polarizer, but since the sky was pretty boring I gave it a shot. This is a pretty popular angle to shoot the city, but I added a slight twist. Instead of shooting from a pedestrian bridge that crosses the lagoon, I crossed a bit of ice-covered lagoon and shot from a small island in the middle of the lagoon. At least it was a new angle for me, and it got me a lot closer to the water’s edge where I could maximize the reflection. Check out my HDR photo from the pedestrian bridge last year to compare. Merry Christmas Eve!!! Critiques are always welcome. Daily photo: December 24, 2012, taken December 21, 2012

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