viva las vegas

This portrait was taken Oct. 23, 2020, of the Eiffel Tower replica on the Las Vegas strip by Lexi Goodman. The photos here features the Paris experience that has altered by covid-19, emphasized by the lighting situation. 

I was out of town in Las Vegas, Nevada this last weekend where I took this low-light portrait of the Paris Eiffel Tower one the Vegas Strip. It was wanted to take these photos that would not only demonstrate what I have learned during the past several weeks of this course, but also demonstrate the impact of covid on our country as a whole. Sadly, the Eiffel tower is not fully lit since its such a high attraction spot for people and tourists to gather around, and thus, keeping it faded out makes prevention methods easier in the strip where other areas can stay open and properly practice social distancing. I wanted to take portraits of this in low lighting. Utilizing what I have learned thus far was such a fun way to explore my creative side and also take a fun photoshoot with such a powerful replica in place. This assignment was definitely my favorite to perform because it has been the most fun as I was on vacation and had a great excuse to bring my camera and walk the strip to capture gorgeous moments and portraits. Also, it was the best way to practice and portray what I have actually learned in this course. I didn’t realize the amount of work we have done in this course and the amount of knowledge of photography techniques I have learned. I cannot believe how much easier and better it has been in taking photographs with the immense practice we have put in with every assignment.

I took this photo on Friday night on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada of the mimicked Paris Eiffel Tower restaurant and experience in Vegas which is currently closed due to covid-19. This is truly an iconic place for the city skyline, with a high-altitude attraction almost 50 stories up as a replica of the famously known Paris, France Eiffel Tower. Since this is such a high attraction spot of a sense of France in Vegas experience, it is not fully lit right now to keep covid-case numbers still at a minimum to keep prevention protocols in place. That being said, since the restaurant and hotel reopening, there has been  increased safety protocols to minimize the risk of spreading COVID-19 among workers and customers which includes keeping attraction sights like this one to a minimum. Masks are required and social distancing measures are implemented throughout.

This low-lighting portrait was taken Oct. 23, 2020, of the Eiffel Tower replica on the Las Vegas strip by Lexi Goodman. The photos here features the Paris experience that has been significantly impacted by covid-19 as emphasized by the lighting situation. Goodman is a journalism major at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. (Lexi Goodman/SMU).

I had a lot of fun trying to shoot this assignment because I have never shot in low lighting so late at night outside before and this truly represents the new normal in society and how many drastic changes that have occurred in our world since the rise in covid case numbers. Especially without the flash, it was pretty tricky to take these photos without the Eiffel Tower being as lit up as it normally is in such a late night walk across the Vegas strip. I had to test this out a ton of times by adjusting and fixing the manual settings to make it vibrant and clear enough to capture this moment. I found myself struggling to figure out what settings and adjustments needed to be made in the aspects of aperture, iso, and shutter speed, plus there was so many people walking in front of me it was hard to capture this at the right time. Once I finally got it to where I liked how it was turning out, it was so much fun shooting in such a dark environment trying to capture the light fixture I set up of such a beautiful place, despite the lights not being fully lit due to covid-19. This has been my favorite assignment so far since I took this of a tower, rather than a person or animal in such dark lighting situations. I liked that from just even the slightest change in angle that I held the camera, the photograph seemed to be brighter just by which ways the light was hitting and reflecting with each camera shot taken. These photos demonstrate the low lighting since they were taken of the Eiffel Tower in Vegas outside, and as you can see it is not very lit, in comparison to normal times without the Pandemic taking place, in a very dark sky late at night which causes it to be extremely faded out.

manual settings

iso: 6400

shutter speed: 1/200

aperture: f/4.5