Vinoy Renaissance Hotel Mahaffey Theater The Pier St Petersburg Landmarks at twilight
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 at 5:11PM Jason Collin 
Vinoy Renaissance Hotel east view - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/11 ISO 200 3-exposure HDR handheld
Through my DSLR Photography teaching I am often out with students around various St. Petersburg landmarks. Each of the three photographs in this post were made on different days while out on a lesson in the evening time.
The HDR image above is of the Vinoy Renaissance Hotel & Resort looking at it from the east along 5th Ave North. At this time the setting sun was sidelighting the hotel and the tall palm trees in front of it. The lighting is what made me stop and suggest to the student I was with that she photograph it from this angle. I made my own shot of the hotel. I knew HDR would produce the best results so even though I did not have my tripod with me I steadied my shooting position and fired off a 3-bracket exposure.
Mahaffey Theater east view - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 7-exposure HDR tripod mountedThe Mahaffey Theater was not the primary subject matter during this particular photography lesson, the new Dali Museum was, but I had always liked the architecture of the Mahaffey even when it had this area all to itself. The sky was a fantastic purple that evening.
The Pier at twilight south view - Nikon D300 Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D @ f/8 ISO 200 1/80th handheldThe Pier is by far the most well known landmark of St. Petersburg, and perhaps the one with the least amount of life left as three new designs to replace the inverted pyramid have just been finalized by the city. This landmark is most often photographed from the north and west, so I was glad to have a unique chance to photograph it from the south from a restricted access point at a marina I was able to get access to thanks to the photography student's mom having a boat docked there.
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