The story behind the shot - Hotel Belvedere at night

The Hotel Belvedere is a must-see photo opportunity for any trip on Switzerland’s Grand Tour, but it can be difficult to photograph due to the proximity of the road, the traffic and - depending on the time of year - the tourists stopping to photograph the hotel and visit the nearby ice grotto inside the Rhone glacier.

Yes it’s an Instagram magnet and yes it’s probably been shot thousands of times from every angle. But that was a great reason to head up there just to see if I could do something different. So, on a cold late autumn night, I headed down from the Grimselpass after the golden hour failed to materialise and then up the Furkapass road to the unmistakable hairpin bend that is dominated by the long-abandoned Belvedere Hotel.

A cold autumn night is actually one of the best times to photograph this hotel. Night falls early and nobody is around (there was just a German-registered motorhome on the car park when I arrived). If you’re using a wide-angle lens, you can stand right by the side of the road opposite the Hotel Belvedere and frame your shot low. But there is a risk that the lights from the car park behind you might cast a shadow in front and spoil your composition.

The shot I had in mind was a straight on shot with the camera low to the ground (something like this) but the light from the car park was indeed a problem, casting a shadow of me right in the middle of the shot. Nevertheless, with some tripod adjustment and some careful cropping, I managed to get a decent shot of the Hotel Belvedere against the backdrop of a cloudless starry sky.

Attempt no. 1: Straight on, low down, nice starry sky in the background.

Having just posted the photo in here and looked at it again, it doesn’t look too bad. The noise reduction in Lightroom might be a bit much and you can see the reflection of the light from the carpark on the front door and the first floor boarded-up windows (although this does make it look a bit like there is a light on in a bedroom).

By this time I had had a few chances to work on settings to get the light trails right. I could see and hear the cars coming from a long way away, which gave me plenty of time to prepare. After a few attempts where either the ISO or shutter speed were too high, blowing out the highlights, I got it more or less right.

Then I changed my position to the left-hand side of the hotel. I knew I wouldn’t get any leading lines, as the road moves up and away from the hotel, but the 14mm lens could get all of the side of the hotel in and all of the road sweeping around. Unfortunately, I had a lot less warning about traffic coming down the hill, so an unexpected late-night postbus caught me by surprise.

Attempt no. 2: The postbus passing. Blown out highlights on the left, impossible to vertically align and a halo above the Hotel Belvedere (corrected here slightly).

It’s not the first time I’ve tried to get light trails from a bus on a hairpin bend, but it’s not an easy shot. The two layers of light trails can be nice, but the bus is travelling slower than other traffic and its bigger headlights can blow out the higlights. My tripod was quite low to the ground so that accentuates this and the framing of the shot at this point meant that it’s impossible to correct the vertical alignment without losing the light trails on the left.

But, after some tweaking and the time to prepare for a car coming up the hill, I managed to get something at least a little less formulaic. This more unusual shot of the Hotel Belvedere allowed me to capture the full length of the hotel and the full hairpin bend of the road, meaning that the light trails transition nicely from the headlights to the tail lights.

Attempt no. 3: The full hotel and the full hairpin bend visible (cropped as a square shot).

I find that nightscapes work well on aluminium dibond. This photograph of the Hotel Belvedere at night with light trails is available in a range of sizes in my shop.