This was a photo I took of Birmingham University, England when I was a student there during my first year (the photo was taken on 16th February 2007 – doesn’t seem like that long ago!)

It was a HDR-style photo but only using one RAW image as I didn’t have a tripod with me. I took one image, then split it into two layers in Photoshop and messed with the levels of both to end up with one exposed for the grass/buildings and one for the sky. Then I changed the colour levels to make it look a bit more dramatic.

I was searching through my hard drive for this, and also managed to find a couple of the work in progress photos that I backed up, giving an idea of what the image was originally created from – not so good!

The original image

Halfway through, splitting the layers and cutting out the buildings on the second layer

The photo ended up being featured in “Explore” for that day on Flickr, and is still my most viewed photo. It’s also a photo I like because I loved Birmingham University and the time I spent there.