Nighthawks

GRD II, f2.4, 1/8, ISO 800, RAW, 40mm

After taking 100 pictures yesterday I did not really have time to take many pictures today. The weather was pretty bad again with rain all day long and I've been out with friends so did my usual "Paparazzi" duty but these are not really pictures for the blog.
Still, I managed to take this shot and while it's cropped, I also removed some color noise and changed the levels. Initially I thought of converting it to b&w but for some reason I just can't get images from the GRD II to look good in b&w. The color version always looks better so I think as a color camera it's the best compact available since the colors are very accurate (unless you manipulate them in post processing as I did here).
What I tried to do with this shot is get the colors and mood a bit similar to the painting 'Nighthawks' by Edward Hopper. This is why I also allowed the people to be slightly blurry to gain the sense of a paintery effect, although I resisted to overdo it with the noise reduction in order to get this effect more pronounced. I really like this painting and think it's a perfect example of how a painting can look exactly like a photograph and have the same dynamic and mood.