Last month, I stopped in Atlanta for a day to photograph the Georgia State Capitol. Later that day I searched for a good vantage point to capture an image of the city. A helpful employee in the Atlanta Visitor Center mentioned that he sometimes sees photographers positioned on the Jackson Street overpass. I drove over there and liked what I saw.

I parked by the bridge about 20 minutes before sunset. There was already one photographer set up at the location. When I started to initiate a conversation with him, it was quickly apparent that he could speak very little English. He was visiting Atlanta from Brazil. I speak no Portuguese. By flashing his fingers, he was trying to ask me how long it would be before the light would be good for pictures. He also indicated that his goal was to capture the traffic streaks of the cars by moving his hand in a sweeping motion across the highway. He would flash both hands at once to indicate ten minutes. Two times meant 20 minutes.

I opened and closed both hands four times to indicate 40 minutes. While it was only 20 minutes until sunset, the light gets much better several minutes after that. Once the sun goes down, the sky darkens further which reduces the dynamic range of light in the frame. This reduced contrast helps boost the colors. There's also the added bonus of a deep blue sky ("the blue hour") after sunset, but before the sky goes completely black. Once the sky goes black, the contrast increases once again and all the color is eliminated from the sky.

To achieve those long traffic streaks, it helps to have some traffic. It was to our advantage that the office buildings would be lit on a weekday with the sunset time so close to regular working hours. Given my past experiences driving through Atlanta, I figured that traffic flow wouldn't be a problem in downtown Atlanta on a weekday at 5:15 pm. But, it was!

The problem that we experienced was that there was very little traffic. In fact, it seemed that there was more traffic on the overpass than on the main highway! The overpass traffic caused the bridge to vibrate. That vibration introduces camera shake--which reduces the sharpness of the image.

Capturing this photograph becomes a timing game. Can I initiate a long exposure as I see traffic approaching from both sides of the highway? And, can that exposure be timed during a lull in traffic on the overpass?

After several attempts, I was able to capture a number of very sharp images. The long exposure time helped exaggerate the lines. It doesn't take very many cars to create long streaks during a 13 second exposure. I made sure to check the sharpness during the photo shoot by zooming into a 1:1 magnification view using the LCD panel on the back of my Nikon D800 camera. If the print on some the downtown signs was sharp, I knew I would be in good shape.

Here is one of the images from that photo shoot:

Downtown AtlantaDowntown Atlanta (east side) at dusk from the Jackson Street Bridge over the Freedom Parkway NE in Atlanta, Georgia on December 2, 2014. Later I learned that this was the vantage point of the opening scene of the television series "The Walking Dead".