Spiral staircase

The last day I was in Iceland I photographed this very cool spiral staircase in the Hilton Hotel in Reykjavik. This is a hand held shot with a 16-35mm lens, and my settings were 1/80, f/9, 1600 ISO. I held the camera away from my body out over the staircase to get a better perspective and to get away from the railing immediately in front of me. Note that the windows are blown out -- totally overexposed -- but in this case that worked well because the parking lot seen through the windows wasn't very attractive. This just goes to show that even a cardinal rule in photography such as never blowing out highlights can and should be broken at times. Photography is an art, and the 'rules' are merely guidelines. They are not set in stone.