Tony Seeley Photography

This is my last, very last, I have no more, image from Las Vegas, promise!  We were out shooting the strip late at night (the only time to take pictures in Las Vegas) and we arrived at the New York New York hotel.  This is the one with the replica Statue of Liberty outside and the roller coster on the roof.  As per usual in Vegas the traffic was terrible, as was the foot traffic, people everywhere.  So I decided to shoot up a little – above all the hussel and bussel.

Obviously the Statue is the most impressive thing outside the hotel but the warm lighting hitting the buildings give the statue a nice back drop.

I took this image from across the road using my tripod and caught the statue and buildings pretty well.  We did walk in the hotel (very briefly) and walked though a fake Coney Island amusement park selling New York Pizza and corn dogs with loads of people dressed up in bizarre outfits.  Needless to say we got out of there pretty quick.  I’ve been to New York a few times and don’t remember anything like that!

My only regret is when I did go to New York, I wasn’t into photography so didn’t capture the fantastic views there.  I’d love to go back with my camera for a few days, I’d get some great images.  Maybe next year.

Lisa is really into the craft thing right now and wanted a a new desk for her craft room.  So we went to Ikea to get one.  When we got home the Halo guys insisted in helping build the desk.

I thought tonight we’d go back to Las Vegas for another shot from the strip.  This time it’s the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino.

We were walking down the strip and came to the front of the Monte Carlo and they had this great fountain at the front and everything was beautifully lit.  However there were loads of people working past or coming down the stairs of the hotel.  So I decided to do something “sneaky”.

I set the camera up on a tripod and just stood there for 5 minutes taking LOADs of pictures.  I’d wait until the stairs on the right were empty and take a shot, then wait until the sidewalk to my left was clear and take a shot.  Eventually I captured enough pictures where I had overall bits of the entire image with nobody in it.

Then when I got home I started selecting different “bits” from different images and blended them all in together to create one image that has no people.

This is actually pretty easy to do in Photoshop so while it sounds complex it’s really not.  Having a tripod made it even easier as I didn’t have to line up the images.

I picked this composition so you see the Monte Carlo name at the top of the hotel tower on the right which makes sure you know what you are looking at.  I tried shooting a little further to the right but too many posters were in shot (I still have some here in the bottom left) and it didn’t help the picture.

Anyway the end result is pretty cool.  I love the fountain (that’s what caught my eye in the beginning) and the statues in each recess around the front of the hotel all lit up look great too.

Carter and Red helped Master Chief build a little glass house tonight.  I think they are running out of ideas for their daily picture – I know I am!

Tonight I thought I’d post another hotel from Las Vegas.  This time it’s Paris.  Now I should remind everyone before I write this that I am British (yes I’m American too, but I was born and brought up in England).  So it shouldn’t be a big surprise to anyone who’s reading this that I’m not a big fan of France.  Yes I love their wine and cheese and am quite jealous of their lovely weather, but that’s about it.

I’ve visited France many times and can honestly say it’s not my favorite place.  To some extent most French people (from my experience) are not huge fans of the Brits, so the “love to hate” relationship is mutual.  I won’t bore you with all the history details (that doesn’t go back as far as you’d think) but it is what it is.

So what better place for an English guy to enjoy the Eiffel Tower and French Cuisine that Las Vegas!  I mean it’s perfect.  Enjoy some great restaurants and still feel good about myself in the morning.

This picture was taken one night from outside the Bellagio, which is across the road from Paris.  The hotel looked amazing with the Eiffel Tower and big balloon and the gold lights on the hotel.  There was a lot of traffic so I had to shoot above the cars but I don’t think it hurt the image.  So while I’m not going back to Paris France, I might well stay here.

Carter paired his Windows Phone with a Jawbone Bluetooth speaker and then got down to some cool tunes!

I really wanted to post a Freemont Street picture from my trip to Las Vegas, but none of them turned out that great.  For example in this example I didn’t get the Freemont neon sign in the image at the top of the frame!  What was I thinking.

If you’ve ever been to Freemont in Vegas you probably understand the problem.  There are a lot of distractions here and I may not have been focused (mentally) on doing a great job.  But as it was such a funny evening I thought I’d post the image and tell you about it.

I think this was the Friday night after the conference and we wanted to go to Freemont to capture some cool neon lights.  So we jumped in a cab and off we set.  Now this is really down-town Las Vegas and not that far from the strip.  But on this Friday night the traffic was unbelievably bad.  We were sat in one lane on the freeway (I’ve no idea why we took the freeway) while everyone else went past.  When you are in a strange city you really have to trust your taxi driver, but this guy was taking liberties.  Eventually we got off the freeway and he then changed into the lane that had been driving past us for the last 5 minutes.  When we arrived at Freemont Street and the charge was $45!

Apparently the reason for the bad traffic was there was a Gay Rights Pride march through town and the place was packed with people.  You have NEVER seen anything like it, it was actually pretty funny.  Like the strip there were numerous people in costume waiting for you to ask them to pose for a picture, only this time the costumes were a little more “mature” in nature.  I won’t elaborate here but if you see me ask.  Needless to say I have lots of interesting pictures that I’ll never post here.

After an hour there all the lights went off and we were treated to a video rock concert on the ceiling.  Pretty fun but I kept checking my wallet as it was a pick pockets dream.  While we watched the show above we did encounter one baby in a stroller staring up and his face was a picture.  Pity I didn’t capture it.

Anyway I captured the shot below that does show the neon lights overhead pretty well.  The people in the image at the bottom of the picture were pretty clear and some weren’t “family friendly” so I blurred them deliberately.  This is however one time where I wish I was back there with my side angle lens.  I’d love to try and capture this street again.  Maybe next year.

The guys decided to have a walkie talkie conversation tonight, but they probably should have stood further apart.