As I've mentioned previously, one of my favourite artists is Edward Hopper. Most of his mature work features us as viewers looking inwards, never outwards. Think of Nighthawks, Rooms for Tourists, House by the Railroad, Early Sunday Morning and of course, the painting whose title I have borrowed here, Night Windows. Even the ones where we appear to be looking outward (Office at Night or Automat) are still looking in at the subjects with the outside world merely forming part of the background.

I was sent down to Melbourne to conduct some training on our budgeting system. The hotel that I was put up in the night before is The Vibe (or Vibe Savoy). Although fully refurbished and quite comfortable it does have a retro feel to it. It was the hotel of choice for people like Frank Sinatra or Nat King Cole back in their days, and it set out to retain a lot of the ambience of that period.

This was of course a decade or so after most of Hopper's best work, but nonetheless I did feel something of an opportunity to capture the vibe, no pun about the hotel name intended.

Consequently I set up a single point of light focused over the old style furniture with the night-time lights of Melbourne in the background beyond the windows. (Specifically, the hotel is located across the road from the Southern Cross railway station, and that's what you see in the background.)

Of course to be a genuine Hopper I'd need a lone figure in there and I was the only one available. And I don't get in front of a camera. Consequently I leave it to your mind to fill in the blank.
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Update 23 Aug 2024, over 10 years into the future: The Vibe Savoy still exists, though after a refurbishment in 2018 (which dumped the 1950s "vibe"), it became known as The Savoy Hotel on Little Collins Melbourne. The down side to that is that I'll never again have a Hopper-like opportunity like this again.

Further Update, 07 Dec 2024. Here's a tale pointing out the fragility of memory vs the objectiveness of photography. I remembered staying at the Vibe. Had you asked me earlier this morning I would have sworn I stayed there only once, and that would have been when I went down to construct a training session in 2004. I remember clearly that a new CEO started the very week that I was down there.

I didn't. Apparently I stayed at the Vibe twice, both for employer funded training trips, once in 2005 (not 2004), and once in 2014. The latter trip, I can find no records of. From my photos I know that I arrived at Tullamarine just before 21:00 on the night I took this shot. That would have been a Qantas flight (the company only used Qantas) but I have no record of which one it was. I know that I was in Melbourne the following day. I presume that I flew back that night. I do recall (for what that's worth) that I flew back from Melbourne (solo, meaning that it was probably for work) one time after I moved to the Illawarra, and that the plane was diverted to Canberra for refuelling after being in a holding pattern for a couple of hours due to weather over Sydney Airport. I presume that the flight in question was from this trip. But as I said... for what that memory is worth.

Still Further Update, April 2025: I liked my little EP-1, I was truly fond of it. But 1/50th of a second at -1.3 compensation and ISO 1000... it wasn't the best in challenging lighting conditions. At full size this image looks like it was shot through a bag of rice.