I don't usually like to shoot famous spots. There's something about photographing an iconic location that feels almost too easy, like showing up to a party everyone already knows about. Every photographer who has ever driven Route 66 has a shot of Roy's Motel and Cafe, and for a long time that was exactly the reason I avoided it. But it had been sitting in the back of my mind for a while, and I finally decided to go see what all the fuss was about.
I live in Southern California. The 150 mile drive out through the Mojave is beautiful. Miles of open desert, abandoned buildings, and then that unmistakable red arrow comes into view. I understood immediately why photographers keep returning here. The vintage neon, the row of low white motel cabins stretching across the property, the quiet mountains holding down the horizon behind it all. Roy's has every ingredient of a classic American desert photograph. To capture the full sweep of the scene I shot a series of carefully overlapping frames from a fixed position, then stitched them together into a single wide panorama in post. About 20 shots are part of this photo. It was the only way to do the location justice without losing the sense of scale that makes this place so visually striking in person.
There was a problem. I had no idea a major Route 66 enthusiast event was scheduled for that same weekend on the day before. People were just starting to leave as I arrived early that morning. The gravel lot was packed with classic cars, motorcycles, and crowds of people wandering in every direction. I had to wait until they started clearing out. Every time I got ready to shoot my sequence, someone would stroll right through the frame. Stitching a panorama is an unforgiving process. Moving subjects between overlapping frames creates ghosting effects and alignment problems that can be nearly impossible to fix in editing. I had to shoot several duplicates of many frames so the software could remove the people.
Eventually after trying about four sequences, the foot traffic thinned just enough to give me a workable run through the full sequence of frames. Standing there reviewing the shots on the back of my camera, I knew I finally got it. The final compiled image is huge - well over twenty thousand pixels wide.
In the end the shot works for me. Some of the white chalk lines that were used to line up and park cars are still visible in the foreground. I decided to leave them in because they will remind me of this story each time I look at the photo.
The iconic spots earn their reputation. I will just check to make sure there are no events scheduled next time.
Roys Motel & Cafe in Amboy, California
| Tag Name | Data |
|---|---|
| Title | Roys Motel & Cafe |
| Image Description | Roys Motel & Cafe. This is a stitched panorama of 19 images. Had to use so many because people kept walking through the shot. |
| Keywords | 6x17, Cafe, Roys Motel & Cafe, amboy, dirt parking lot, gas station, motel, neon sign, panorama, sign |
| Copyright | Copyright ExpertPhoto.com All Rights Reserved |
| Artist | ExpertPhoto.com |
| Make | Canon |
| Camera Model Name | Canon EOS R |
| Lens Model | EF50mm f/1.2L USM |
| Focal Length | 50.00mm |
| Focal Length In 35mm Format | 17.00mm |
| Shutter Speed Value | 1/1000 second |
| Aperture Value | 8.00 |
| ISO | 125 |
| Date/Time Original | Sunday March 08, 2026 10:40am |
| City | Essex |
| State | California |
| Country | United States |
| Location | Amboy |
| GPS Altitude | 190 meters (623.4 feet) above sea level |
| GPS Latitude | 34.5585991183722 |
| GPS Longitude | -115.743000683389 |
| Map | Google Map Link |
