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Digital Camera World
Digital Camera World
Mike Harris

I stopped the car and leaned out of the window with my camera to capture this jaw-dropping building

Artisans hand-place 144,000 tiles to the exterior of the Universal Stella Nova Resort in Orlando, Florida.

This extremely unusual – and no-less stunning – architectural photograph was captured by Shannon Rose O'Shea. Shannon spends most of her time photographing wildlife, but when she was driving past the Universal Stella Nova Resort, she couldn't resist the photographic opportunity. She told me: "When I saw the amazing colors of the tiles, the spaceship-styled windows, the artisans working on the scaffolding and the leading lines, I knew I had to take the photo."

The problem was, Shannon was driving past in her car. Not wanting to miss the ideal light, she said: "I stopped on a very busy street with a lot of traffic and construction vehicles and shot from the open car window." Armed with her trusty Canon EOS 90D and Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM, she managed to capture the moment.

The image depicts workers adding tiles to the Universal Stella Nova Resort. Remarkably, this huge building is covered in 144,000 acid-washed tiles, each painstakingly installed by hand.

A key factor in the success of this image was Shannon's decision to use Adobe Photoshop to tweak the perspective and square everything up. The result is an image that looks like it was captured from the building opposite.

Given the circumstances, Shannon doesn't think she'd do anything different, were she put in the same situation. But, she did tell me, "They're working on a second building that I will go back and photograph next month when I am in Florida."

"I stopped on a very busy street with a lot of traffic and construction vehicles and shot from the open car window."

Shannon's top tips for architectural photography…

"Try shooting during different times of the day and in different weather conditions. Experiment with different angles and try both color and black-and-white imagery." Shannon also suggests that you include people in your architectural photos. This is a great suggestion because a human element can add a sense of scale, especially when photographing abstract buildings like the Universal Stella Nova Resort.

To see more of Shannon's work, visit her Flickr.

Check out previous Photo of the Day images, and the stories behind them. If you have an image you'd like us to consider for Photo of the Day, email it to us at digitalcameraworld@futurenet.com

Interested in architectural photography? Check out the best tripods for photography and the best photo editing software.

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