Adina Hotel Geneva
Location Geneva, Switzerland Architect Group H Completion 2023
This hotel shooting begins in an unusual location, on a hot spring day in Geneva's industrial area in Switzerland. Equipped with a suitcase full of cameras, lenses, tripods, and flashes, I stand in front of an inconspicuous warehouse. One entrance further, a tanned sailor is painting his sailboat, singing along to French songs from the radio. Doubting whether the taxi dropped me off at the wrong place, I turn around and discover an A4 sheet on a door with the inscription "Adina". Luckily!
Photographing sample rooms
Inside the warehouse, two fully furnished sample rooms of the first Adina Apartment Hotel in Switzerland, which is scheduled to open in a year, await me. After a short meeting with the Adina interior designer and the project management, I have the entire warehouse to myself. Over the next 12 hours, I will take as many pictures as possible in the rooms held together by plasterboard so that the hotel can be marketed months before its completion. Sample room shootings take place at almost all hotel openings and always present exciting challenges. In each room, there are open cable outlets, the butt joints of the wallpaper are not flush, some lights are not connected, the red carpet is actually supposed to be blue, and, of course, there are no views from the windows. What does not interfere with the assessment of the sense of space is a no-go for marketable images. Through skillful compositions, artificial lighting with my beloved mobile flashes, and a good dose of Photoshop, the rooms in a warehouse are ultimately transformed into a convincing, very chic hotel room. The room views were taken the next day from the shell of the hotel, adjusting the angles of view to match the later visual axes of the rooms exactly. In this way, hotel guests can get an excellent impression of their future room even before the hotel is completed.
Day 1: The Scouting
We fast forward almost exactly one year. The new Adina Hotel is almost fully booked in the first month (not least because of the great pictures ;-)
My assistant and I manage to snag the last three rooms in the hotel with the Marketing Manager of Adina Europe. After a twelve-hour drive, three turbulent days lie ahead of us. Except for snow, the weather forecast predicts all the variations imaginable. Above all, clouds and lots of rain. We start shooting the next morning with a scouting tour where we determine all the images for the shooting. Using my iPad, I create a shot list, mark objects to be removed from the picture, and make notes on the position of the sun and the lighting. Almost 60 images are planned at the end of the tour. Since the sun does not show itself all day, we start with the room images. A uniform light is advantageous for these, as it gives us a homogeneous illumination of the entire room and we only set individual accents with flash light. After eight hours of shooting, some doors being unhinged and re-hinged, a few light bulbs being changed, and a short dinner, we go outside. During the blue hour, the thick clouds no longer stand out negatively and we create an emergency set of exterior shots until it starts raining again at 9:00 pm. A basic set of exterior shots is in the can. This is followed by image transfer, cataloging, and data backup.
Day 2: The clouds break up
After a night that was far too short, we're in the breakfast area the next morning at 5:30 a.m. Today, the kitchen team arrived an hour early to prepare the entire buffet for the photo shoot before the guests arrive for breakfast. On an empty stomach, we move tables, sofas, yogurt jars, bread baskets, and cucumber slices. The breakfast area is compact, but it should showcase all its advantages in just a few pictures. By 6:30 a.m., when the first hungry guests are circling the buffet, we're done with the shoot. I'm just sitting down at the breakfast table with my first coffee and a delicious poached egg when the clouds break and the sun shines in my face. True to my motto, 'When in doubt, for the picture,' I abandon breakfast and run outside. Due to the building's north-facing orientation, we only have two hours each day when sunlight shines on the hotel entrance. We had already determined all the important compositions during scouting. This allowed me to quickly go through all the relevant shooting angles within a quarter of an hour and get everything out of the short window of light.
With coffee cup in hand, we head straight to the sauna. Luckily, for a change, it wasn't turned on, and we can photograph the wellness area without any problems.
This is followed by two more room categories with shots of bedrooms, living rooms, bathrooms, and kitchens. We also stage the special equipment in the hotel rooms and show the kitchen in the 'exploded view' (all doors open), the ironing board, and the vegan shower gel from Australia. As a well-coordinated team, we fly through the shots. My assistant smooths the blankets, tightens the curtains with metal clips, and gives the pillows a skillful ninja chop, while I carefully distribute tripod, camera, and laptop around the room like dominoes. Before each picture, Adina's marketing manager takes one last critical look at the test photo on the laptop and gives the final 'Go'.
At 6:00 p.m., today's shot list is in the can. However, our production team still has one goal in mind: an original Swiss cheese fondue at the insider tip 'Buvette des Bains' on Lake Geneva. Right on the pier, we enjoy the bubbling cheese with crispy baguette at long tables with over a hundred other guests. Of course, my camera is with me, and not for Insta-food-porn selfies. When I photograph a hotel, I like to create a small photo series about the location. The hotel can use the pictures for merchandise (postcards, writing pads, T-shirts, etc.) or as photo art prints for interior design.
Day 3: Reaching for the sky
Sleep is for beginners. After some back and forth with the tower at Geneva Airport, my drone finally starts at 7:00 a.m. and captures the first rays of sunlight on the hotel in photos and videos. At the same time, a time-lapse recording is running on the ground, recording the sunrise in fast motion.
Through the site manager, we gain access to the roof of a neighboring building and can photograph the Adina Hotel against the panorama of the Swiss mountains. From the hotel's own roof, we then create some shots that show the view from the hotel.
Afterward, we go to the lobby. Check-out is just over, and we have a clear run for our interior shots in warm, glowing sunlight. Meanwhile, a team of craftsmen is moving through the fitness area to make repairs to the windows there. In quick succession, we then photograph the fitness area.
We are finished in the early afternoon. Only a few exterior shots and a picture of the lobby at blue hour await us. But we know how to bridge the time well. Through my sponsorship agreements with companies from the imaging sector, I regularly receive new products for testing. This time, a gimbal and a very high-quality 3-axis motion control system from Manfrotto are in my luggage, with which we film some test tracks for future hotel video productions.
With over 1,000 pictures, we happily return to Germany the next day. Despite the poor weather forecast, with a lot of effort, flexibility, and long shooting days, we were able to implement all the pictures on our shot list in beautiful light, and with the photo series about Geneva and the drone and time-lapse videos, we even created additional material that our client can use in the future to market his first hotel in Switzerland.
Many thanks to Sylvi and Mathias. Every shoot with you is a pleasure!
Equipment
Camera
1st Lens
2nd Lens
3rd Lens
Tripod
Drone
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