MOVIEMEDIA

I tagged along for a photoshoot with our senior photographer to do stills at a new hotel for use in their brochures and websites and various online applications.

Little did I know that I was in for a photography class!

As he was setting up he told me that the human eye has a wide dynamic range. I nodded and told him I have no idea what that meant. He said that for all practical purposes we could see a contrast ratio of a million to one in one scene! He told me to look around in the dark places like underneath the table as well as bright areas such as the lit table top itself. I could see details in both places.
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But that is not the case for a camera’s sensor. So he said that we need to shoot in such a way that details are seen in both areas. He explained to me the technique of High Dynamic Range photography. It was important in such work as considerable amounts of money and efforts have gone into creating a particular ambience in the rooms besides providing comfort and other utilities. The colours, fixtures, lighting, textures…all worked together on the human psyche to give that special feeling of wanting to be there to experience the ambience of the hotel.

Then came the physical characteristics – the walls. We needed to see wide but wide-angle lenses gave converging verticals – the phenomenon by which the walls appear to be narrow on the upper side of the picture when it was photographed from a lower perspective. I asked him “So?”

So he said that we need to apply certain tricks and laws of physics to get the walls to look straight. He told me about how the exact positioning of the camera was vital to get the sides acceptably straight. He also told me that the use of modern lenses minimised these aberrations, at a price of course, he added. He proudly explained the new lens to me. I did not understand a word and it looked like any other lens! It didn’t matter as I was quite fixated by the final results which we saw at the studio. I now knew that there was more to just clicking a camera than what is seen by the bystanders.

I also understood how important it is to hire a professional to do the job. Good pictures evoke the desired response from your potential customers, substandard ones repel, they don’t compel.

We at MovieMedia have been doing both still photography and producing videos in Dubai/UAE for 23 years. Our teams are graduates from film school, who have the experience and creative flair to execute projects to client satisfaction.

Recently we photographed the interiors of Rose Park Hotel to be used for their marketing efforts – print and online. Here are some of the pictures of the hotel’s interiors.