At the end of last year, as I was preparing my Five Favorite Images of 2022 post, I noticed a number of images – mostly black and white – that I had never published.  After looking at the images, it occurred to me that in each case I was holding on to the images, thinking I’d create more in the same genre, but then never really did.  If you’ve been around Picture of the Week for any amount of time, you’ll have noticed that I run images in a series (or theme), and these days I typically try to do these in threes (mostly so my Instagram feed has some coherence to it).  Anyway, after looking at the images I decided I really wanted to publish them, theme or not, and so this week I’m kicking off an un-series, if you will!  I’ll start this off with downtown images.

Given this is a bit of a mishmash, allow me to talk you through the images.  The image above should hopefully be recognizable – it’s one of the more popular views of downtown Los Angeles.  On this particular day I was hoping for some nice alpinglow, but was instead greeted with a pretty dense layer of haze and smog.  Interestingly, to the naked eye, you really couldn’t even make out the mountain range behind the city, but when viewed through infrared, you could see it plain as day!  For the image above, I chose to brighten the sky to give the image more contrast, but at the very bottom of the Alternative Perspective section, you’ll see another view that’s more consistent with how it came out of the camera.

Immediately below, in the Alternative Perspective section, you’ll see a picture I captured of downtown Salt Lake City.  In 2021 when Holly and I visited the city, I captured an evening shot from this same ridgeline, and so last year when I visited I returned because I liked the view some much.  This go around I went higher up, and decided to focus in on the capitol building.

Below the image of downtown Salt Lake city you’ll find a scene that is familiar to a lot of my readers, that’s good ole downtown Knoxville!  When I captured this I was initially disappointed because the Sunsphere was so reflective, it almost disappeared into the whiteness of the trees behind it.  Using some creative editing I was able to make it stand out, as it should! 🙂  Finally, the very last image, as I mentioned previously, is another view of downtown LA.  I really liked this view, mostly because of the one tall palm tree in the foreground, but also because this row of houses is so idyllic with that incredible scene just behind them.  Hopefully those houses all have nice back porch areas so you can take in the city!

More next week!

–Dan Thompson