Vegas Window Silhouette

I am very happy with this one; an attempt to capture the feeling of the intensity of the bright lights in Las Vegas. This was taken from the ~50th floor of the Vdara hotel, facing south. We had just gotten back from the Penn and Teller show (which was very good). You can see the Luxor’s Sky Beam in the background, supposedly the strongest man-made light in the world.

I had to take a bulb exposure to achieve the desired effect, but we hadn’t brought a tripod or shutter release cable. I ended up standing on the hotel bed, using the ironing board as a makeshift “tripod”, and holding the shutter open for probably two full seconds. This was the best of ~5 attempts. I’m amazed this came out at all, especially considering I’d had several drinks at this point, and we later discovered that the camera’s shutter had been sticking, completely ruining about 50% of the shots on the roll.