Hotel Staircase
Sete Cidades, Azores - abandoned hotel
Sete Cidades, Azores - abandoned hotel
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Apr, 2018Views
1312
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Awards
Chatter Award
Zenith Award
Creative Winter Award
Top Shot Award 21
Community Choice Award
Contest Finalist in Abandoned Photo Contest
Peer Award
Absolute Masterpiece
Superb Composition
Top Choice
Outstanding Creativity
Magnificent Capture
Superior Skill
Genius
Virtuoso
All Star
Emotions
Impressed
Relaxed
Top Ranks
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 1
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 1
Top 10 rank
LizardEyePhotography
May 20, 2018
This shot is simply amazing. I adore abandoned places and things, and this...the staircase...makes me want to be there to see it in person! Congrats on your win!
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
The Monte Palace Hotel in the Azores, a group of islands in the mid-Atlantic. The hotel opened as a 5 star luxury hotel in the late 1980s but closed within 18 months. It's a creepy wrecked shell of a building, full of graffiti and hazards. "Perigo" (Portuguese) means "Danger" and that seemed to sum it all up!Time
Taken around midday. The time didn't really matter a great deal as it was taken indoors but the high sun did help to shed light down through the stairwellLighting
The lack of light added to the sense of abandonment and the general decay. I was drawn to the little pool of sunlight falling on the debris in the centre and picking up the texture of the peeling plaster.Equipment
Olympus OMD EM5ii with brilliant Samyang 7.5m fisheye lens, tripod. I'm usually cautious with the fisheye lens but I thought it worked really well here. It helped to create a lovely question-mark shape to the staircase, and pulled in the sides.Inspiration
I like a good story and there's a big story here! And what a gift to a cautious would-be urbex photographer! If you search on-line, you can see what the luxurious accommodation and decor was like when the hotel was functioning. It's a story of ambition and wealth and big dreams - all turned to ruin. It's kind of sad in one way and yet the whole idea of building such a grand hotel here was crazy in the first place - it's lost in clouds for 200 days per year and there's nothing else there. But wow - when the clouds part - the view of the Sete Citades volcanic crater is stunning! As for this particular shot, I like the curving and spiralling of the stairs and ceiling. The shapes pull my eye toward the central pool of light and the graffiti warning on the wall. And I like the decay. And I wonder what elegant people once descended these stairs... And what ghosts remain ...Editing
It's bleak and grim and could be a setting for a horror movie so I wanted to add as much texture and dark mood as possible! I shoot in RAW so did some of the usual tonal adjustments - reduced highlights, increased whites, darkened blacks. I used an ON1 filter to create a bit more texture in the decay, then used Lightroom to add more clarity and vibrance. It was still a bit too bright so I darkened the top a little using a graduated filter and added a vignette to pull in the sides.In my camera bag
Olympus OMD EM5ii with 14-40mm Pro lens attached most of the time. Also permanently in my bag is my Oly 75-300mm lens. The Samyang fisheye has crept into the bag most of the time now too - just in case! And it's so lightweight I hardly notice it. I carry polarising filters for the main lenses. My Giotto lightweight travel tripod goes with me most places. I have a few other Olympus lenses - 60mm macro, 45mm for portraits, 40-150mm zoom as well as an Oly OMD EM10 body which come and go as required. This is all lightweight stuff as I don't want to be burdened by a load of kit. I'm a mirrorless convert! As for the bag - I have a Mindshift Rotation 180 Panorama backpack - awfully clever design and brilliant for small kit.Feedback
First of all a warning - places like this can be dangerous! I don't make a habit of sneaking into ruined places, but anyone can walk into this former hotel. However you still need to keep your wits about you and stay safe. Look for a pleasing composition 'cos a plain old decaying wall has limited interest. Keep it simple - an old ruin with loads of pipes and wires and bits hanging off can easily get too cluttered so you don't know what to look at. And if it's decay that draws you, exaggerate that with exposure, clarity, vibrance and saturation adjustments.
