Teapot Gas Station @ Night

The Teapot Gas Station was built in 1922 by Jack Ainsworth on what later became U.S. Route 12 in Zillah Washington. The station was intended to be a reminder of the Teapot Dome Scandal that rocked the presidency of Warren G. Harding and sent Interior Secretary Albert Fall to prison for his role in leasing government oil reserves in, among other places, Teapot Dome, Wyoming and the Elk Hills Oil Field of California.

I started to process this shot in HDR and did not like the results. I did not like the starbursts on the pumps and the gas sign. I also did not like the glow of the light on the roof of the teapot. I wanted a crisp edges because I thought the starbursts were distracting. I could have shot with a wider aperture(shot at f/11) like f/4 or so, I will have to experiment. I used scripts to stack the images that I shot for HDR. Here is a great video to explain scripts and layer stacking for star trails. I also liked the control of the tone and saturation of the lights on the domes on the gas pumps and other parts of the image.

The result of stacking and masking in Photoshop.

The result of processing through HDR software.