Wednesday, February 1, 2012

You want how much?

So, my wife and I stayed at the St. Regis Resort in Dana Point this past weekend. Beautiful hotel. No doubt. We've been fortunate to stay in some nice places over the years and this was one of the nicest. Not surprisingly when I stay at a nice place I like to take pictures of it. Not only to remember the place, but I enjoy making nice images of nice places.

On Saturday my wife planned some spa time right around sunset (I love that woman) and I went out to make some images. I shot for about an hour and made some images that I was really happy with. When the sun faded I went inside to shoot some interiors. After about 15 minutes a woman came up to me and asked, "Are you with a group?" I explained that no, I was a guest at the hotel and I was just taking some pictures for myself. She asked if had talked with the Public Relations person at the hotel and I said no. "Well sir, we don't allow pictures to be taken at our hotel unless you coordinate with the Public Relations office. I think the rate is $1700 an hour and we take you to places where you're allowed to photograph." Whawhawhawha?! Of course I said that I wasn't aware of those rules and I would stop shooting immediately.

Needless to say, I didn't pay $1700 so I don't feel right about posting those images. But, there seemed to be no problem with taking camera phone pictures, so I'll post a few of those.

St. Regis 1

St. Regis 2

St. Regis 3

St. Regis 4

4 comments:

Jeff said...

Are you kidding me? You can't take pictures of the inside unless you pay the hotel? I've never heard of that before.

Karen Joyce said...

I can understand their reluctance to let you take the towels but charging you for the privilege of preserving their image in pixels? Afraid of copycat hotelpreneurs? Pshhhh

Jeff said...

The more I think about this, I'm guessing you were using some pretty fancy photography equipment and they didn't buy your "I'm a guest" story. Still pretty ridiculous though.

A Red Sky Photo said...

man, i woulda posted the others just because i was able to get em before being a"cost"ed. thats nuts. too bad they have no idea how awesome you are yielding an itty bitty unsuspecting phone camera on their grand hotel. saw a sign in a "park" in some unused corner by the freeway in glendale the other day that had the same restrictions. i have to pay to shoot in the park that was full of construction anyway...whats really going on!