The Czech Republic-based real estate photographer Jiri Lizler has been shooting hotels and resorts for five years now. Most of his clients reside in the hospitality sector, which has taken quite a hit this year. But when the Marriott hotel renovated their lobby, they needed a photographer who could follow stringent guidelines and go above on beyond. Jiri was their guy.
I was thrilled to learn that, even during this difficult year, I was able to reach a new client. Through the initial approach, the pitch, and the shoot, the project was finished in a matter of months.
This was Jiri’s first paid project for the Marriott, but he has plenty of experience shooting hotels. Jiri did a test shoot for the client before the bar had been finished, where the photographer could get the lay of the land and discuss future projects as well. Jiri’s images of the finished product would then live on the Marriott’s website beside all the other shots of different areas of the hotel taken by various photographers. This meant that the guidelines for the photos were relatively strict.
The client took care of all styling and preferred natural light over artificial, leaving Jiri, who was scheduled to shoot on what would turn out to be a rainy and overcast day, in a bit of a predicament.
I had to improvise with the lighting because there was no possibility to reschedule. Images with a view were quite a challenge to balance because the interior lighting couldn’t be precisely controlled; it only flicked on or off. The road wasn’t easy, and I had to pull out almost all of my tricks.
Luckily, Jiri’s tricks did the job, and they pulled off the entire shoot — including the experimentation with the lighting — in one day. There was another issue with images that featured street-level windows because the actual view was one of a construction site. Having that noisy, temporary background didn’t exactly go with the client’s aesthetic, so in post-production, Jiri had to change the view of the street.
In the end, I used a background plate that was taken about five meters to the right of the hotel, so the views remained pretty original. Color-correction also had to be done to balance the inside and outside lighting and preserve the dynamic range our eyes are used to.
Ultimately, Jiri accomplished the task at hand even with the comprehensive guidelines and unforeseen complications. Usually, Jiri gets broad direction and the opportunity to put his twist on the shoots. In this case, though, his images had to seamlessly fall in line with all previously taken shots of the hotel Much of his focus was on the reception and dining areas, which felt especially ironic to Jiri during a time when dining was impossible.
Here in Czechia, the restaurants were closed, and you could only get take away. Imagining myself shooting a 5-star hotel and eating in the parking lot in my car was both upsetting and hilarious at the same time.
A sentiment that seems to sum up living and working in 2020 quite well.
See more of Jiri’s work at jirilizler.com.
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