Behind The Scenes: Photographing the Mystery Hotel
The latest hotel project by VarroDesign
We have been commissioned by Zoltán Varró (http://varrodesign.hu) to take images of the brand-new Mystery Hotel interiors. When entering the lobby of Mystery Hotel, we can immediately feel that we have entered a unique world. We photographed the interior of the hotel for two days commissioned by Zoltán Varró, where the themes were among others inspired by the life and work of Freemasons, the Harry Potter series the novel Da Vinci Code.
On the first day, I started my work by shooting the public spaces of the hotel, beginning from the Great Hall located on the fourth floor. Guests can have breakfast here, and they can any time return here for dinner, a drink, a cake, or a salad. This room was before the Egyptian-style secret room of the Freemasons.
Dominant elements of the room are the enormous chandelier, the columns, the heavy curtains, and the two iron spiral staircases leading to the Lodge in the gallery.
Photographing the hotel’s rooms
On the second day, I went on to the hotel rooms. Three different types of rooms can be found in the hotel which bears the names of the Greek column orders, that is Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian. These three types of ancient Greek columns have a significant role in the themes of the hotel. Let me highlight two of my favorites. The first is the Atelier suite, which depicts the loft studio of a painter. The other one is the Ionic glass suite (glassroom) on floor 7 that I captured in the blue hour.
I had never seen anything even similar to the room opening from the hanging corridor. To be able to take two photos in the blue hour I left one of the cameras outside in the corridor with a set timer and with an instruction that this camera should take one photo per minute. In the meantime, I was taking photos from inside the room outwards, as I also intended to show the natural lights filtering through the ceiling of the room.
Capturing the Hotel's Wellness Oasis - Behind the Lens
As opposed to the other hotel, here is the spa and wellness, where the atmosphere is given by the wallpaper with yellow and green palm leaves open from the lobby. At the end of the second day, I was taking photos here as well in the blue hour so that the warm subdued light could also appear in the pictures.
As the hotel was not receiving guests due to a smaller reconstruction at that time, I didn’t have to take care of the privacy of the guests. I knew that it was worth taking a bottom-up picture of the hanging corridors at sunset in the mixture of blue and yellow lights, and finally, this has become my favorite shot of the series.
Owing to the early March date I was not able to take an outside and drone photo, therefore I am going to return in June for a third day to finalize this issue. Above all, the hotel has a rooftop terrace which is opened for the shooting for us to take a few images.
