Adams Ave. ends at an overlook in University Heights that opens onto a canyon and expansive view of Mission Valley below. The location is where I photographed the feline nicknamed Grand for my Cats of University Heights series 13 days ago. The “End” sign to the far left in the Featured Image appears in post “My Fujifilm X100F Acros Romp“. I had walked down that way this evening hunting for an orangish-tan feline spotted weeks earlier.
The moment captured is unusual for me. I typically avoid shooting directly at—or this case into—the blaring sun. But as I approached, the woman’s silhouetted figure against the guardrail (looked to me like she stood on the other side of it) intrigued. So I flipped the aperture to f/11—other vitals are ISO 100, 1/60 sec, 28mm—crouched a little to compose, and snapped a couple quick portraits. Time was 7:38 p.m. PDT, or 15 minutes to sunset.
The second photo is the uncropped original. I spent some time fine-tuning to my satisfaction, such as pulling back the highlights. I edited the RAW file, captured using Leica Q, in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and exported as JPEG. I present the original to, again, demonstrate the wide perspective the camera’s 28mm lens delivers and show that high image quality (IQ) allows for creative cropping that mostly negates need for telephoto lens.