Hotels with a view

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When I organize a photography tour, I not only try to find a hotel for my group that has a great location -- obviously, but I also look for a spectacular view whenever possible. Sometimes hotels have rooftop terraces or lofty restaurants that offer impressive views of a city or distant landscape from the elevated perspective. Older hotels may also have upper-floor balconies that also offer remarkable views from which you can shoot. When you travel with friends or family, research online for hotels that offer beautiful views enabling you to take dramatic pictures from unique perspectives. You’ll be amazed by the images you can take. For example, I took the photo below of Singapore at twilight from the balcony of my room on the 47th floor of the Swissotel. It’s great when you don’t have to shoot through glass. In the morning, I rolled out of bed and photographed the sunrise. Talk about convenient!

When shooting at this kind of distance, remember that depth of field isn’t relevant. You’ll get the exact same picture if you shoot the cityscape with f/2.8 or f/22. Assuming you are using a tripod at twilight where the shutter speed doesn’t matter, the choice of f/stop should be one or two f/stops down from wide open. This will be the sharpest aperture. So, for an f/4 lens, you

I took the two pictures of San Juan, Puerto Rico on this page from a Hilton without a tripod. I was there to photograph a Christmas parade, and I never would have gotten these establishing shots from a hotel situated in a less desirable location or from a lower floor.

Usually, a hotel with many floors is needed to gain a spectacular view of a city skyline. Sometimes, though, simply being close to a famous architectural structure is enough for a classic image. I photographed a sunrise shot of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, page 16, from my seventh floor room because the hotel was built on a small hill. This particular hotel also had a rooftop terrace where my photography tour group had breakfast every morning. The view

NAMIBIA PHOTO TOUR May 22 - June 1, 2021 Monster dunes Wildlife Walvis Bay cruise Dead trees Milky Way

POST-PROCESSING online course

by Jim Zuckerman

Learn how to process your images to give them visual impact. You will be introduced to Photoshop techniques that go beyond what you see and even beyond what you can imagine. This four-week course is invaluable to making your pictures look as good as the photographs you envy! You will receive detailed critiques on the images you submit for every lesson.

The great thing about online courses is that they can fit into any schedule. Life gets in the way at times, and Jim puts no limit on the time you can submit your work for his critiques. CLICK ON THIS PHOTO to read more about the course.

couldn’t have been better. Because there was such a sweeping view from the terrace, we could also see and photograph another classic icon from Istanbul, the 6th century Hagia Sophia mosque shown at right. When you have access to unrestricted views like this, you can shoot at the best times of day -- sunrise, sunset, and twilight -- for outstanding images.

From the street, with the cluster of buildings typical of any large city, this kind of classic view just isn’t available.

With the use of Google Maps, your online research can locate any great perspective and angle from any location. You can see images taken by other photographers who have been there before you, and you can move to a different position on the map to study the scene again. That’s how I found the fantastic view of the Duomo and Campanile in Florence,

Italy, on page 18. Starting with the location of the iconic cathedral, I moved outward on the map until I found a hotel nearby with the right height. I then went to the website of the hotel and saw the view I wanted from their rooftop bar. The image on the website was amateurish, but it was the right angle and the right distance for the perfect picture I knew I could take. §

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