Canon EOS 5D ,Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
1/125s f/11.0 at 24.0mm iso400

The Getty Museum is one of my favorite places in Southern California. It’s at once both grand and playful, an enormous building complex that yet offers an endless supply of intriguing details. It surely is a photographer’s paradise–one of those places I’d pick if I had to teach a class on composition.

This photo shows the basement (terrace level) of the entrance hall. I love how the sunlight fills the interior in this shot. The starburst of sunlight in the upper right corner is a nice touch. Notice, by the way, that it results in no lens flare. High quality lenses pay off in situations like this. The two people inside are kept to almost a silhouette. The exposure is well balanced such that some details on the outside patio are still barely discernible through the window, but they don’t distract from the image.

The photograph was taken with only available light, i.e., no fill light of any sort (such as a flash) was used. However, I used some adjustments both in the raw conversion and in Photoshop (such as curves), to bring out the light and airy feeling of this image.