Las Vegas - The Strip at Night

Last Friday, I returned from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. Most of my daylight hours were spent either presenting or in meetings, but I still managed to get out for a couple of night shoots along the famous Las Vegas strip.

On my first night in town, I met up with my good friend, Matt Sweetwood (who is the President of Unique Photo in New Jersey) and we had an awesome dinner. What is the best way to work off dinner? Take a walk around and shoot some photos, of course! (Photographer's note: I shot this photo with a 6 second exposure to create the light trails from the cars. I timed this exposure so that the cars were turning towards me. I found that the curved lines were more appealing than straight lines. Since I was not planning on shooting at this time, I did not have my tripod with me. I set my camera on a nearby wall and used the 2 second timer on the camera to avoid any camera shake.)

A couple of nights later, I decided to walk half of the strip (a 10 mile walking day for me) and took my tripod this time.

Here are a couple of shots of the Excalibur Hotel. It is cool looking from the outside, but I stayed there once many years ago, and would never stay there again. But, hey, this is all about the photo so...

When in Las Vegas, I usually stay at the MGM Hotel. Since I had a little spare time, I decided to set up my tripod and shoot this image in the lobby of the hotel. 

A photo of the New York, New York hotel from the strip. (After countless trips to LV, I finally joined a bunch of friends and rode the roller coaster at this hotel - seen above.)

The West Coast version of the Statue of Liberty...

I shot this to highlight the angled buildings, which were nicely lit from the lights on the strip.

Another view of the buildings..

There are many walkways which cross over the strip. Unfortunately, the majority of them are bordered by large plexiglass panels, making it very difficult to shoot through. I would always walk to the ends of the walkways, where there were clear unobstructed views, to shoot my images. 

If you saw my blog post from Minneapolis, you know that I was fascinated with building reflections. Once again, I came across a really cool reflection of the Paris Hotel across the street.

I took this photo looking over the Bellagio pond towards the Paris Hotel. I purposely shot this before the water show, to highlight the light reflecting in the pond. 

And then I walked into the Bellagio Hotel where I was meeting a bunch of my friends from Canon.

I got to our meeting place a couple of minutes early, which meant that I had a little time to shoot images in the lobby of the hotel. 

Looking straight up, I wanted to capture images of the amazing colors in the "Fiori di Como" chandelier, designed by the famous glass sculptor, Dale Chihuly.

Moving around and keying in on certain areas of the chandelier, created so many different views and perspectives.

After walking for many miles, I decided to sit down and wait for my friends. I picked a seat that was right under the nose of the gilded horse. I looked up and thought that this would be a cool and unique view of the ceiling. I set the camera low on the tripod, pointed it almost straight up, guessed at the right angle and fired from a low vantage point on the floor. Something different from what most people were shooting in this lobby!