The Vault Door

[Barefoot]

I went out on a cold December morning to capture a strange little play of light between two buildings in downtown Columbia that I had discovered the day before. After spending about an hour or so out on the street in the cold, I decided to go find a cup of coffee. I saw a Starbucks sign on the awning of the Sheraton Hotel so I dove inside and got a cup.

While sitting in the lobby drinking my coffee and warming up a bit, something caught my eye. You see, the hotel was once a bank back around the turn of the last century and in the recent renovations that Sheraton made they strove to keep the flavor of the old institution.

What caught my eye was the huge door of the old bank’s vault that is now a lounge on the first floor of the hotel. This is a little of what I came away with from there.

[JAS_Photo]

I like it alot. The colors and abstract industrial look make a pleasing composition. I will let the guys do a critique but I did recognize it right away as a vault door. I worked in a small private club that was in an old bank building and all the old vaults were still in place. Let me say it is easier to work the vaults into the decor then try and move them! They made cool conversation pieces too.

[Mad Aussie]

I really like the colours and the angle of the lock in relation to the diagonal of the frame of the photo itself.

[jjeling]

First off, I like this shot. It is in the critique section so I will get critical at your request. It seems just a little dark. Not sure if this came straight out of the camera or not but it could use a little extra PP. If you can go back I might try a different angle as well. This is just a personal opinion. I like looking at flat images sometimes. When there is not much light to deal with, then the DOF can sometimes be a problem and taking a flat picture will sometimes solve that problem. Anyways, that's what I have to say about it. Take it with a grain of salt. It is still a nice image. Congrats.

[Marko]

I also really like this shot. I don't find it too dark.

I think it's quite good the way it is, but if I had one comment it would be that maybe there is too much empty space at the top/left edges. For me, the gears are the most interesting part here. So maybe I would have gotten more gears and less of (but not eliminated) the curve with the 2 golden circular things. Hope that makes sense.

[Barefoot]

Thanks, guys. I really didn’t think I’d get much out of these shots because the lighting at that end of the lobby was so poor. I was wide open at 190mm with an ISO of 3200 and the exposure was still 1/15 of a second. Thank heavens for VR lens.

Shooting at a slight angle was about the only way because the mechanisms are enclosed in glass. It’s not something you can easily see, but if you look to the lower left, you can see some of the glasswork. A straight on shot would have included me, too.