The Colony

The Colony Hotel, 4:30 AM  [Canon 5D]
Delrey Beach, Florida
(click in the image for a larger version)

I returned from my Florida trip on Sunday, quite jet lagged from lack of sleep due to the fact that my airport shuttle picked me up at my hotel at 4:30 AM. Considering that I got to bed at about 1:00 AM, By the time i finally arrived home in California and got to bed that evening, I had been up for nearly 24 hours, which is enough to make anyone a bit loopy, especially after precious little sleep the night before.

So, what's a sleepy-eyed photographer to do in the wee hours when he finds himself in an abandoned and picturesque hotel lobby? Why, make some photographs, of course! In this case, I was playing around with multi-image panoramas to get the whole scope of the glorious lobby of The Colony. The image above is a panorama assembled from 7 vertical handheld shots (see below).

The initial white balance and exposure corrections were made in Lightroom and then all seven frames were selected in the Library module and opened directly into Photoshop's Photomerge command. The rest was all automated apart from some final tonal correction in Photoshop. There are a few minor glitches in the alignment of some of the ceiling beams (I will fix those later using detail from some of the individual source exposures), but overall it is very impressive at how well the automated merging turned out. Better living through technology!

I had a great time at FOTOfusion in Delrey Beach and as always, it was fun to meet up with friends and colleagues whom I only see once or twice a year. Equally satisfying was making new friends and being immersed in five days of photography in the company of many creative individuals. I'll have more to write about FOTOfusion in the coming days.

South Florida Workshop
I'll be returning to Delrey Beach, Florida March 16 - 19 to teach a 4-day class called "Selections, Masking & Creative Collage" (click the class title for more info and a registration link). This is a blend of two of my most popular classes and I'm really looking forward to teaching it in south Florida (the warm weather is an extra fringe benefit!). Space is limited so be sure to sign up soon if you are interested in joining this class.

Comments

[Brisbane Hotels]

Nice photographs. The color of the hotel is so cool. Good ambiance.