For me as a photographer, the best place in Paris to see the sights isn’t the Eiffel Tower because, as is obvious, you can’t capture the number one cultural icon of the city when being on top of it. Instead, a better viewpoint can be found at the observation deck of the Montparnasse Tower, which is usually also significantly less crowded.The Eiffel Tower is directly to the northeast from Montparnasse Tower, and behind it stands the city’s financial district La Défense, providing a contrasting backdrop to the traditional scene.The final image is merged from three exposures and the post-processing is done in Lightroom, Color Efex Pro 4 and Photoshop.

Needless to say, this is a picture of the New York City skyline. I had scouted the Brooklyn Bridge Park as a good location to shoot the cityscape at sunset already before the trip, and while not the most original setup, in my opinion, the scene is affected by the sky so much that fresh images can still be captured from this viewpoint.One of the key reasons I chose this particular location is the fact that the wooden poles in the water create an obvious leading line to Manhattan, and I think this interaction works especially well in the dark when the city lights are on. Yet, although I stayed there to shoot until it was completely dark and came home with different variants of the scene, I ended up liking this one with light still in the sky the best.On the technical side, the final image is a panorama stitched from nine vertical three-exposure HDR shots. I edited it in Lightroom, Color Efex Pro 4 and Photoshop.

Big Ben is definitely one of London’s must-see sights and, in my opinion, looks nice especially by night. Being lit from below, the enormous clock tower representing Gothic Revival architectural style truly gets to both reveal all its details and stand out in the otherwise busy scene.I decided to compose the shot so that Westminster Bridge works as a leading line to the subject. Thus, I went to the south bank near the entrance of London Aquarium. I also included some water into the scene to capture the reflection from Thames that itself got an interesting look with the smoothness.On how the shot was taken and edited, the final image is merged from five exposures and post-processed in Lightroom and Photoshop.

In the right weather conditions, the sunset view over Paris from the Montparnasse Tower’s observation deck is simply astonishing. As a photographer, it’s also a convenient place to take pictures throughout the evening since they allow tripods there.As it got darker and darker, street lights were slowly taking over the natural light. I obviously took several pictures as the light conditions developed and ultimately ended up liking a variant, in which not all of the street lights were yet lit, so that the Eiffel Tower stood out well in the scene.Regarding the technical aspects, this is a panorama stitched from 10 vertical five-exposure HDR shots. I edited the image in Lightroom, Color Efex Pro 4 and Photoshop.

Along the Eiffel Tower, the subject of my previous upload, another important landmark of the French capital is the almost 700-year-old Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris.This mid-April evening the setting sun was side-lighting the church as well as painting the horizon with magnificent colors. I decided to go to the other side of the river Seine to take a picture of the cathedral as I find it more appealing from the side than from the front entrance.As for the photo geek stuff, this is a long-exposure image of about seven and a half minutes, edited using Lightroom, Color Efex Pro 4 and Photoshop.

Being the most populous city in the USA, the main streets in New York are crowded pretty much 24/7. This time there was a parade of some kind going to take place on the 57th street, resulting in it being closed for motor vehicles.I rushed to take advantage of this chance to get a shot of the scene without cars. With the street empty, the road markings formed a clear leading line to the distance, where a couple of skyscrapers stood tall featuring also low-level clouds that highlighted their height further.Regarding technical aspects, the final image is a blended from three exposures. Post-processing, in turn, is done in Lightroom, Silver Efex Pro 2 and Photoshop.

This is the view directly towards the Empire State Building from the observation deck at the Rockefeller Center a.k.a. Top of the Rock. Seeing the Big Apple from this vantage point was definitely worth the hours of queueing for me.When finally arriving at the top, some ominous clouds were quickly approaching from the northwest but before it started pouring with rain, the light was amazing over the lower Manhattan. I managed to take pictures for about half an hour, and then the sky was already completely gray.The end result you see here is a panorama stitched from five portrait-orientation shots at 35mm. Each shot is merged from three different exposures to preserve the detail in both the darkest and the lightest parts of the image. I edited the image in Lightroom, Color Efex Pro 4 and Photoshop.