Anyone reading this who spends their life on plane enduring delays, cancellations, airport terminal transfers, late night arrivals and early morning departures, understands that travel in the pursuit of business is not at all glamorous. However, once in a while you end up in a destination which seems to make all the pain and suffering melt into the background.
The choice of the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi for our Government Leaders Forum Arabia this week is one of those locations 
When I checked into my room the image was too irresistible not to record. Amenities like this (You cannot see the 50" plasma TV on the wall) combined with a butler on every floor would seem to warrant the hotel's "Six" star designation. All I can say is I'm glad we're on the corporate block booking room rate...
The original images were shot with a tripod mounted Canon 1ds Mark III on a Really Right Stuff pano head.The jpeg image above is taken from a composite High Dynamic Range (HDR) panorama. It's a stitch of three panels with each panel shot at eight different exposure levels and then combined into an HDR panorama using PTGui Pro and tone mapped using Photomatix Pro 2.5.
If all of this means nothing to you then you can join me, at least prior to my flight down here. I recently picked up a copy of The HDRI Handbook and grabbed it off my book shelf to read on the flight down. Without doubt this is the best introduction and practitioners guide to High Dynamic Range Imaging available today. If you're a photographer looking to expand your creative repertoire the book is highly recommends.