Santa Barbara Mission - Flashes and Layers

Last weekend I took this pic of the Santa Barbara Mission with the help of my friend Tuan. The day was perfect for a picture; a storm had just rolled through town and it cleared just around sunset...nice recipe for some moody light.

But there's a catch here... see the building? Grass? Cross? Well that stuff was lit with my flash...there were no lights on the building. Don't believe me? Well here's how I did it...

First things first:

So here's the shot with no modifications. There is no way I could get a good exposure for both the sky and the ground. I thought to myself, "why does this picture suck?"...

1)sky is too bright...no color
2)grass sucks...too dark..
3)building...dull

So how do I fix these problems?

Filters and flashes to the rescue! Forget HDR!
First, I put a Neutral Density Graduated Filter on my lens. If you have a camera, this is one of the best investments you can make if you want to shoot landscapes. Easy to use, balances the exposure and makes the colors in the sky come alive. But it's still not enough to bring out the detail in the building and the cross.

Time for flashes...With my camera on a tripod, I used two flashes with CTO filters (it's just orange plastic) on full power and this is the result I got. Wait wait, I know, the rest of the building is still dark and the grass too. So I took multiple exposures while my bud Tuan moved the flash to different positions on the building. This is one of about 7 shots to make the final image. The building, the cross and the grass in front were all lit independently...

Thank you photoshop... - With layers in Photoshop you can just take all those exposures and make them one by deleting the stuff you don't need. Also, as you can image, there are lots of people walking around considering the mission is a big tourist attraction. By taking multiple exposures I was able to take out all the people. Finally, I also boosted the contrast and made it a little brighter.

Hope this helps and this goes to show that you can use flashes for landscapes/architecture and get good results.