Trying to find some beauty in Las Vegas

Honestly, there is very little that I like about Las Vegas. I am always here for conventions and get really tired of the cigarette smoke, loud noise and crowds. Not to mention the 27 mile hike from the lobby of the hotel to my room.

But amongst all that frustration, there are a couple of sites which I do appreciate. The fountains at the Bellagio Hotel really are cool, and make for some great photos. Since I am staying across the street and had a free hour last night at 10pm, I walked over in the cold and shot images from 3 of the shows.

The great thing about these "performances" is that there are almost endless possibilities when it comes to photos. Every second provides a different scene to capture.

This shot above is a combination of two exposures so that the fountains did not completely blow out the image. I have one exposure for the hotels and a second exposure for the fountains. How did I do that with moving fountains? I processed the RAW image twice and layered them in PhotoShop.

I really like the patterns created by the fountains in this image.


And here, I decided to crop out the fountains and just show the spray coming up into the skyline. I think that the symmetry of the lines makes this more interesting without the fountains and water. What do you think?