Trump Towering over Vancouver

Photographing urban landscapes and highrise architecture is a good part of our portfolio. We’ve photographed many cities from all over and some of our favourite shots are from right here in Vancouver.

With the Jan 20th, 2017’s inauguration of the United States 45th President Donald J. Trump now official the city of Vancouver is about to welcome the most unique high-rise structure to its skyline, ‘The Vancouver Trump International Hotel & Tower’. The building broke ground in 2013 at 1161 West Georgia Street, it’s the second tallest building in the city and is soon to announce the grand opening in the coming months.

The opening would have happened sooner but the election campaign along with resolving President Trump from business operations and over to his children Donald Jr and Eric was a very lengthy process. With all the legal details transferred and now settled we’re hopeful the President will have time in his extremely busy schedule (putting it mildly) to attend.

We choose to photograph Trump Tower Vancouver, because there’s no other design like it in the city. Also no one can deny President Trump is in essence is as unique as the building itself.

Back in October of 2016 the developer of Trump Tower – Holborn opened a photo contest to the public, October has 31 days and 28 of those for that year were rain. To say it rains a lot in Vancouver is an understatement. We had our camera bag packed for 2 weeks and could not use it because of the poor weather conditions. That’s not to say we won’t work in less than ideal weather conditions but for a chance to have an image place in a contest like this required clear skies. No marketing department would select or promote anything less than a picturesque image with complimentary weather.

Click to view larger images.

Using the Sun Surveyor App to figure out the best position of the low horizon sun during fall season and knew we could get something special if the rain could just break. Trump Tower Vancouver is only 3 km from where we live. Driving would not have given us enough time.  The traffic was backed-up on the bridge because of  construction. We walked downtown and made it in 40 – 45 mins.

The shot below was the one that got us into the finals and a spot to the grand opening night. This photo was taken at 5:05 pm. We had our position preplanned so all we had to do was arrive and set up. The beauty of how this shot unfolded was seeing the sunlight circle around the south-west side as it came to and lit the balconies. The intensity of the sunlight in this position peaked before setting, the reflection of the golden balconies became the specular divide between the vibrant blue sea glass of the windows. A fine example of the ‘The right place at the right time’, indeed.

This was the only photo posted by the Instagram account of Vancouver Trump International Hotel & Tower and it was on the last day of the contest. We didn’t think any of our shots had a chance to be noticed. Luckily we just got in with the over 500 plus submissions. The traction and engagement the photo received was very positive. The cool part of this story was when we returned later in the day to review the final tally. What we discovered was one of the greatest highlights to our work as photographers, we had found that Donald Trump Jr. liked the photo and commented in support of the shot. This was a very proud moment for us and thank you Donald Jr. for noticing our work.

Canon 5D SR
Mode: Manual / Mirror Up
F-Stop: ƒ/9 @ 32mm
Lens: EF 17 -40mm ƒ/4L Series USM
Shutter: 1/40th sec
ISO: 250
Shot on Tripod with Timer Remote Controller 80TC-N3

The other shots are part of our creative style when it comes to urban landscapes and highrise architecture. We’re pleased with what we produced and we’re so looking forward to attending the grand opening. It would be cool though to meet the Trump family.

View Hi-Res The Trump Tower Vancouver Photo Gallery Here

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