Daytime vs Nighttime Photography: Large Commercial Real Estate

CBRE needed fast, professional photographs of a large Las Vegas hotel in a flash. This project presented a couple of logistical challenges: 1) The weather was lousy the day of the shoot, 2) We didn’t have a lot of wiggle room on scheduling. We did our best to give the initial, cloudy photos warmth and color, but there is only so much you can do to create drama on a drab winter day. Our first solution, was to wait until dusk. Even on a cloudy day, dusk brings richer blues back to the sky. Combine them with the Vegas-style lighting on the hotel exterior and there is much more color and contrast. The final solution came the next morning, when there was an unscheduled break in the cloud cover. Without any notice, we were able to shoot back over to the site and fire another series of pictures, this time with blue skies and high clouds forming an intricate backdrop. The end result is that we have great comparison shots of the building in different shooting conditions: Cloudy, dusk, evening, and daytime with clear skies.

 

Shooting from street level and the top of a neighboring parking structure, we were able to use wide-angle lenses to fit the building in single composition. From there we added clean, straight detail shots of the property entrance and porte-cochère. Sprinkle in some signage and we have sharp, dramatic photographs with rich colors and great detail to document the building with a day’s notice.