Washington (“Hinckley”) Hilton Hotel, Washington, DC, 2023.
All of the pixels, none of the assassination attempts, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/53007102796
#photography
This is a fairly conventional architectural composition, emphasizing the curved facade. To get a high resolution capture of the wide structure, this was made as a stitched composite of two captures with the Rodenstock 32mm/4.0 HR Digaron-W lens. The Phase One back was shifted left and right by about 12mm.
By using shift movements at a fixed perspective, the two captures can be stitched directly together into a panorama without needing to transform the frame geometry (as you would with panning).
The result here is about 170MP in 16x9 format, which is sufficient for very large prints that retain a great deal of detail (I’ve printed this at 6 feet wide).
Mid-Century Modernist architecture, and Brutalism in particular, is easy to dismiss as being superficially lifeless and uninteresting, but at its best (and with the right eye) these buildings can be seen as sculptures in the landscape. I don’t always appreciate them, but they’re often more interesting than they first seem.
The Washington Hilton, completed 1965, was designed by architect William Tabler. It’s notable not only for its distinctive exterior, but also for the prominent events hosted there. The hotel is or has been home to the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, the National Prayer Breakfast, the Shmoocon conference, and the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, among many other things.
It has extensive back-of-house facilities and security features to accommodate high profile VIPs.
Part of a forthcoming series on “Hiltons that have been the sites of prominent assassinations or assassination attempts”.
@mattblaze@federate.social
What about a series about political suicides that have taken place at The Four Seasons? :D
@mattblaze@federate.social snorts
@mattblaze@federate.social lol, I was thinking about exactly this last night. Please actually do it :)
@mattblaze@federate.social
@mattblaze@federate.social That’d make a good coffee table book and I know of at least 2 customers for it
@mattblaze@federate.social
My wife went to college at George Washington in DC and apparently they all referred to it as the Hinckley Hilton.@ian Yeah. You can get in a taxi and ask to be taken there and they’ll know which Hilton you mean.
@mattblaze@federate.social @ian
I remember the Washington Star newspaper, a competitor to The Post, printed The President’s Daily Schedule every day. I seem to recall Hinkley referred to that schedule to find out where and when Reagan would be on the fateful day, and that that’s how Hinkley wound up outside the Hilton. (The Star discontinued printing the daily schedule after the shooting.)
@mattblaze@federate.social I’m guessing that you own dozens of houses to fit all your prints on the walls.
@mattblaze@federate.social Beautiful image. I especially love the wisps of lit clouds in the background.
