DRP

This photograph features an amazing DRP (Direct Reduction Plant) tower at the steel factory. If you ask me, it looks like a rocket launch pad - it's approx 90m tall, insanely complex structure with an absolutely awe inspiring, menacing presence. With all mist, steel beams and hundreds of glowing lights, it also makes one incredibly photogenic subject. Here's the wikipedia link which explains Direct Reduced Iron, the product of DRP tower. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron tech: I took this shot at dawn with Canon 5D Mk2 + Canon TS-E 17mm f4.0L lens and Promote Remote Control for 7-stop HDR bracketing. I used Oloneo PhotoEngine Pro to create a tonemapped image and exported it as 16-bpp TIFF file to Photoshop for further processing. I had to create a highly detailed, hand-painted mask to isolate the sky from the DRP tower because I wanted to add a bit of motion blur to the clouds which wasn't present in the RAW file. BW conversion was accomplished with Silver Efex Pro with Blue filter and Selenium toning. Final image is a mix of the original, coloured HDR image + BW image with approx 30/70 blending ratio.