Lake Washington at Night 08.19.11

The weather in Washington has been beautiful for the past few days with blue skies and sunshine. If you know anything about the Pacific Northwest, you know that is something to rejoice in. Last night after work my mom and I decided to try to see a sunset on Lake Washington. We headed to St. Edwards State Park first. It is a beautiful park, but requires quite a hike to get down to the water. There was no way to make it down before sunset. We then headed to nearby O.O. Denny Park just as the sun had set. While we did not win the race for the sunset, the sky was still beautiful. I was able to capture some pretty post sunset shots and then a few night shots (luckily I bring my tripod with me everywhere!).

The photo I am posting today is one of those night shots. My goal was to communicate the peaceful atmosphere and showcase the light from across the lake reflecting on the water. I opened the shutter for a long exposure to get this shot and bumped up the ISO. The one thing I think it is lacking is some sharpness with the lights on the shore. Should I have gone with a much higher ISO and lower shutter speed? Or is there another solution? I would love suggestions!

I am putting up the straight out of the camera shot (SOOC) and an edit I did. It is a vertical shot, too!

Settings: ISO 400, 30 sec, f/13 (full manual, on tripod)

I think this is what would be called a creative edit as I went for a more artistic interpretation rather than going with trying to make the picture match what I saw with my naked eye. For this edit I used the custom white balance tool in Lightroom, played with the tone curve and maxed out the vibrance. What do you think?

"I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day." - Vincent Van Gogh