Photographer and author, LaNola Stone, shares with us thoughts on being behind the lens while photographing children with this celebration of mothers of all kinds.
This is an example-based tutorial on photographing buildings.
Your Pictures Need Not Be Pretty
Architectural photography at its best will convey the experience of
being in and around a built environment. In the case of
the Dachau Concentration Camp, this won't
result in comforting attractive images.
Below is a parking garage in Kyoto. The
colors and industrial appearance of the structure are remarkable in the
middle of a city known for its ancient temples and gardens. The purpose
of the image is to capture the feeling of walking by the structure, not
to delight or decorate.
A supermarket exterior is a subject that will probably never make a
wall-worthy image by itself. However, the image below (from the Hawaii flowers
collection) captures the spirit of being in the parking lot at
night:
Give Old Buildings Some Space
In general, the older the structure, the more environmental context is
required.
Using your hands or your mind, crop the preceding images to include just
the structures and see if they would still work. Also, compare them to
a few modern buildings where hardly any context is required:
(The Big Boy pictures are also a good example of coming back repeatedly
to a building in order to capture it in different lights and weather.)
Farms are a good example of where the structures don't make any sense
removed from their context:
Even a Bit of Space Helps
If you're not capturing an entire village or farm, it still makes sense
to think about the space around your subject. Even a little bit of
context helps anchor the image. For example, the image at right, from
the sunset district of San Francisco,
presents a straightforward view of a house. We could use it as a real estate
advertisement. The fragment of the house to the left, however, isn't
wasted space. It tells us how tightly packed the neighborhood is.
In the image below, the sidewalk, the fragment of street, the
pedestrian, and the little open market to the left of the shop help
establish the Guatemalan context:
Step Back and Use a Telephoto Lens
Back up from an work of architecture and use a telephoto lens to
compress the perspective. This often brings out an interesting pattern.
The images below, from Provincetown, Cape
Cod, show the increased abstraction of a telephoto perspective. The
picture on the right was taken with a much longer lens than the one on
the left.
Include the Fence
A fence can be an important image element. In the left-hand photo
below (from Gotland, Sweden), the fence works
with the trees to frame the barn. It helps that the fence is not
brightly lit and is a bit out of focus. The viewer's eye will therefore
naturally be drawn to the main subject of the photo, i.e., the barn. In
the right-hand photo, from Cape Cod,
the fence immediately clues a viewer into the exclusive nature of the
beach club.
Straight on Till Morning
Sometimes a direct approach is all that you need:
Watch the Shadows
Before color, Hollywood directors and cinematographers worked carefully
to cast interesting shadows into scenes. Here are some examples of
images where shadows set the mood.
Watch the Weather
What's the best weather for photographing buildings? Consider the
following photo, from Travels with
Samantha:
The sunlight adds punch to the fire hydrant and makes urban life seem
more appealing. However, if you were trying to show people details in
the buildings, a high overcast day would have been much better. For
example, here is an image from Visby, Sweden:
The Drama of the Staircase
It would seem that staircases are inherently dramatic.
Lead the Eye by Leading the Person
If your composition includes a visible footpath into the scene, it
should naturally draw the viewer.
Natural Frames
It is a contrived and hackneyed idea, but it does work to use natural
frames. If you're working without a tripod, you probably won't be able
to stop down the aperture enough to get everything into focus. But it
is okay to have a soft frame and a sharp subject.
Private Courtyards
Public Squares
The left-hand image, from Rome, has a
classical composition leading the eye into the center of the frame. But
the overview image to its right conveys a truer feeling for the Spanish
Steps.
Michelangelo designed the
Campidoglio (left) to be viewed from above. The photo at right is
from
Burano.
Here is a Soviet-built memorial to the Second World War in
Berlin:
People
Include people in an architecture photo if they give
unexpected information about how a building is being used.
Don't Forget the Sculpture
Swimming Pools
Occasionally, a swimming pool is a work of art by itself, as in the
image at left (Hearst Castle, from the photo.net
California guide). But most of the time, a pool is best used as an
abstract element in a composition from above, as at right (Israel).
Fountains
Narrow Streets
The narrow streets of Europe are always interesting to American eyes.
We're accustomed to structures built on an inhuman scale (cf. the Mall
in Washington, D.C.). To get a better-than-average picture of a narrow
European street, start by looking for an arch:
Both of the above images could have been better. In the left-hand
image, the subject (woman on moped) could be more interesting and more
engaged either with the camera or another subject. In the right-hand
image, some of the black shadow should be cropped out.
If you can't find an arch, try filling the foreground with an
interesting subject of some sort, e.g., this old Citroen:
Another effective technique is to use a long lens to compress the
perspective:
"Streets flooded. Please advise."
-- Robert Benchley (telegram to his editor upon arrival in Venice)
Bridges
The three pictures below show increasingly less literal views of
the Golden Gate Bridge in San
Francisco. My favorite is the one on the right. It isn't a very
good view of the bridge--one can hardly see that there are two
towers--but it shows tourists gawking at the bridge's construction and
an avid cyclist using the bridge.
For the next bridge, the story behind it is more important than the
structure. This is the Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick, a subisland of
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts (almost part of Cape Cod). In 1969, Ted Kennedy drove off the
side of this bridge into the water. He abandoned his passenger, Mary Jo
Kopechne, to her death by drowning. Kennedy did not report the incident
to the police until the following morning and was found guilty of
leaving the scene of an accident. The bridge fell into disrepair and
was subsequently rebuilt to absurdly heavy duty standards. The
photographs below therefore concentrate on the super-strong guard rails
and the heavy metal gate that is used to close the bridge every night.
The next example is that most tired of photographic subjects: the
covered bridge. For starters, here is the Chamber of Commerce view:
One approach is to get inside the bridge:
Another is to wait for darkness or gloomy weather:
Here are a couple of early morning Brooklyn Bridge photographs. This is
one of the best bridges because of the unusual cabling pattern and also
the backdrop of the Manhattan skyline.
San Francisco's Bay Bridge is a poor stepchild to the Golden Gate in
terms of photographic coverage. However, if you get off in the middle
of the bridge, at Treasure Island, and are willing to do a little bit of
creative parking, you can get a good picture of the bridge as it is used:
Below we return at different times of day and from different vantage
points to capture the multiple moods of the Ponte Vecchio, in
Florence:
The stone bridges of Europe are spectacular:
Bridges, this time from a Helicopter
A two-seat helicopter can be rented from any flight
school for about $250/hour. (See my
helicopter training
page if you want to add one more challenge to your life, but it is best not to try to
fly the helicopter and take the pictures at the same time.)
Doors and Windows
Details
A good architect is a fanatic for detail and some of the most beautiful
parts of a structure are best captured in isolation.
Night
A lot of buildings become more interesting at night:
With digital cameras, the main problem is noise from the sensor, which
is best controlled by using a tripod and keeping the ISO set to 400 or
less. In general, physically larger sensors will produce less noise
than smaller sensors, which is why digital SLRs perform so much better
in low light than point and shoot digicams.
Modern 35mm single-lens reflex cameras have such good metering systems
that the suggested exposure for a picture like the ones above is almost
always within 1 f-stop of the best exposure. With slide film, it is
probably best to take 5 bracketed exposures at 1/2 f-stop intervals.
With color negative film, take four pictures: one at 1 f-stop less
exposure than recommended, one at the camera's recommended exposure, one
1 f-stop over, and one 2 f-stops over.
Industrial
The world of industrial architectural is the world of the large but
simultaneously extremely detailed. You will want the highest
resolution digital camera that you can rent, with the largest physical
sensor (see the
digital camera chapter of Making Photographs). If
you're using a film camera, use a tripod, sharp lenses, and slow
fine-grained film, as with these photos of the Glen Canyon Dam on 35mm ISO
32 Kodak Panatomic-X film:
A good perspective on a ruin is some rubble in the foreground and the
standing structure in the background:
For ruins in the American Southwest, the best images almost always show
quite a bit of context (these are from New Mexico):
Perspective Correction
The average building is taller than the average photographer. This is
the source of 99% of the distortion in the world's architectural photos.
Distortion isn't always bad. Note the converging vertical lines in the
following image, the Cathedral of San Giovanni in Laterno in Rome:
This is an extreme example and it comes from cozying up to the facade of
the building, mounting a wide-angle lens (14mm) to the camera and
tilting the camera body back so that the entire facade fits in the
frame. This has the effect of projecting a flat surface (the front of
the building) onto an angled surface (the film). Hence the distortion.
Is it bad? The photo isn't very descriptive or accurate. It won't be
bought by any guidebook publishers. However, it expresses the idea of
the enormous cathedral looming over mankind better than a
perspective-corrected image.
Suppose we have a humbler building, like this wood-framed house in
Cambridge that contains a few condominiums:
The above left image was taken with a 24mm wide-angle lens held parallel
to the ground. The vertical lines in the subject do not converge. All
is well with the photograph except the composition. The bottom
third of the frame contains the snow drift on the city sidewalk. We're
trying to get a picture of the house. In the middle photo, we've tilted
the camera back. The snow drift is out of the frame but notice that the
vertical lines are converging. The house appears to be falling
backward. In the right-most photo above, we've kept the camera level,
with its film plane parallel to the building facade. To change the
composition, we've shifted the lens up. This is only possible
with a view camera or a special perspective correction lens on a 35mm
camera. In this example, the lens was the Canon 24mm tilt-shift (TS)
lens. Perspective correction lenses cast a larger image circle than
necessary to cover the 24x36mm frame of a 35mm camera. However, it is
possible to exceed the limits of the lens, in which case the corners of
the frame will perceptibly darken:
The above left photo, of the same house in Cambridge as above, is taken
with the camera level to the ground. The composition contains far too
much of the street and the roof of the house is cut off. The center
photo is shifted up enough to center the house. The right-most photo
above shows that the Canon 24mm TS lens can be shifted beyond the limits
of its image circle--note the dark corners at the top. Below is an example from Sweden:
a 17mm lens with the camera back tilted up:
a 24mm PC lens shifted up:
A cheaper method that yields much higher image quality, is to use
a view
camera:
Click on the photo above to view a larger version and note the detail in
the church. This photo was taken with Kodak Tri-X film (ISO 400) in
1981. The camera was on a tripod at about the same height as the very
bottom of the church steps. Raising the lens eliminated the
uninteresting green lawn in front of the church and included the steeple
in the composition. See "Choosing a Large Format Camera"
if you're interested in joining the view camera club. If you hope to do
architectural photography commercially, the view camera is an essential
tool. Clients will expect you to use one, though of course in the 21st Century
they will expect to see a digital back instead of a film holder.
Whether you use a view camera or a tilt-shift lens on a rigid camera
body, you'll need a tripod.
(See
"Using Tilt-Shift Lenses" for more
on the topic of achieving correct perspective with a Digital SLR system.
You can also correct these kinds of distortions on a computer in post-processing.)
Hardware
Buildings don't move. Ergo, only a lazy photographer would use a high
ISO setting or a handheld camera to take a picture of a building. The
professional approach is to start with the camera's lowest ISO (e.g.,
100) for lowest noise. Generally a large depth of field is desirable
in architectural photography. The viewer should have the choice to
look at any part of the structure and find it in adequately sharp
focus. Large depth of field implies a small aperture. A small
aperture plus slow film implies a long shutter speed, too long for
steady hand holding. Consequently, any serious architectural
photographer will carry a tripod.
As noted in the perspective correction section, a professional
architectural photographer will always have some means of controlling
perspective, generally with a view camera.
For capturing the sweep of a courtyard or exaggerating the lines of
a modern building, wide angle lenses are useful. With a full-frame
digital SLR, a 16-35mm professional zoom is adequate 99% of the time.
For showing a building and its environment in natural perspective,
carry a 50mm lens. For compressing perspective and isolating
inaccessible details, carry a telephoto lens of at least 200mm in
length.
Great photography and great technique notes as always, but just
one little quibble: you note that in general, older buildings will
require more environmental context. This may well be true in
the countryside, but in most cities, if you want the building to
look old you'll probably want to crop out the McDonalds next to it.
(Unless you specifically want the contrast, that is...)
Two weeks back, I walked around Tokyo with a camera in tow, trying
to capture what the city would have looked like before the war --
if you've ever been to Tokyo, you'll know that this is a very
difficult task indeed! Due to the profusion of pachinko
parlors and whatnot, I had to frame my pictures very
carefully to avoid breaking the illusion... but I think a few of the pictures succeeded quite nicely, partly because I didn't even try to
squeeze the whole building on film, just an evocative part of it.
But don't take my word for it, see for yourself:
About context and older buildings: I wonder if the rule is really about old/new? It seems to me that all the buildings that benefit from context relate to their environment. Newer buildings are often designed without consideration of their surroundings, but this is a design choice (or failing, if this choice never even occurred to the 'architect') rather than an inherent property of new buildings. Older buildings generally were designed to function as part of a larger fabric, so they lose something when shown in isolation.
I think there are missing "feature" of this guide. Many people that are new to photography do not have the kind of lenses, or a view camera to correct the perspective.
If you are using a digital camera, or scan your pictures or dia you can easily correct for perspective "errors" in programs like Adobe Photoshop. Probably also in most other image editing software.
The drawback with this technique ("Free Transform" in Photoshop) is that you will most likely loose contrast or detail.
re: Perspective - yes it's true, the casual user will not have the smarts (why would they?) to have a tilt-shift lens for their 35mm SLR (film or digital). You can rent them and I can say at least Canon's will integrate with the D1 series. I can only say this having seen the pins on the lens body. It's not hard to correct in Photoshop if you use a specific app-plug in such as Image Align PRO which is geared to architectural photographers. If you do the correction before resizing, loss of detail, etc isn't an issue.
i am a new photographer and would like to know some tips that would help me. i am just starting out with architectural photography and have a VERY small budget. is there anything i can do to start off right?
my e-mail address is bezahle_ein_dolla@hotmail.com
if you have any tips, please send them to me. thank you
Jonathan,
There is a forum association that deals just with Architectural Photography. http://www.iaap.us and http://www.iaap.co.uk There are over 200 professional photographers on that site that are more than willing to help you on any variety of issues. The forum is $35.00 a year, or $2.99 per month. If you join the forum you have 30 days of free access. There are no fees to just browse the site.
As an old view camera user I was glad to learn how to simulate rising front standard effects in Photoshop.
It is a pretty simple process using the trim tool and checking the perspective box in the options bar.
You still need to shoot a little wide and have all but the vertical axis right on the original image but you would do this with a view camera also.
You do not need a plug in for this. The tutorial in help lays it out more elegantly than I could in this forum.
Hope this helps.
The only problem I encountered was the Photoshop 7 will not do this with an NEF file. I had to use JPEGS with that version of Photohop. Perhaps a CS3 is better this way.
This tutorial explains briefly the basic techniques of photographing architecture. It is just what i needed. I am now going to apply these techniques while photographing for my SOK (Systems of Knowledge) school project. Thanks
If you want to really learn architectural photography you need to buy yourself a large format camera. You can correct some converging lines (keystoning) in Photoshop but it always distorts the image to a certain extent. It is easy in that the subject doesn't move, but you have to really know composition and perspective. --Andrew
There has been much discussion about large format cameras and specific tilt-shift lenses, but since its publication, a few other options have hit the market. Take a look at the links below.
The Hasselblad Arcbody and Fuji GX680 are medium format film options - though a large format camera is probably cheaper/comparable in price and produces higher quality results.
In case anyone wanted some quick, practical tips - I've included a page on my website with some great tips that anyone would find handy (especially architects looking to photograph their OWN work). You can find it at:
If you ever get a chance to go to Barcelona, Spain, my tip, take all the memory you can carry. The buildings, old and new are just wonderful, a photographers paradise.
This section has grown to be a really excellent summary on the subject. I had the privilege of going out and photographing buildings shoulder to shoulder with a famous architectural historian. I found that there is no single right way to do it. Each architect has his preferences. This one liked an "axiometric view", i.e. two sides of the building shown at an angle which conveys depth. View Camera Technique illustrates this approach well. Another architectural historian didn't like those angles and preferred the facade to be photographed straight on, which does make it easier to make the necessary perspective corrections. If you are really into photographing buildings, then I would suggest getting a copy of
Ezera Stoller's biography which contains a fabulous treatise in the preface by the retired dean of architecture at Harvard. In it he noted that Stoller conveyed "...what a building strives to be." I think that pretty much sums it up. What is the architect/builder wanting to accomplish here?
I am not too sure about the idea of a mandatory use of tripod in architecture pics. Often while travelling using a tripod is too slow and I feel that as using a tripod often hampers your movements this resticts somehow the way you compose the pictures. So since with a WA lens such as a 28mm in 35mm shooting hand held at 1/500th is pretty sharp I prefer to do without tripod .
I often shoot without a tripod for my personal work. It has a different feel to it and I use a rangefinder camera with 24mm lens. I consider it more as fine art work.
My professional work absolutely requires a tripod because it gets more technical such as combining multiple images for better exposure latitude.
After 25 years as an architectural photographer I think I can identify a few rules of thumb for successful (the client and the photographer are happy) architectural exteriors:
1. Make the primary view a 3/4 view where both the front elevation and a portion of a side elevation are visible. This type of view conveys depth and dimension.
2. Put your camera on a tripod and use an aperture that is adequate to render the entire building sharp. Architectural photography is a more deliberate specialty and lends itself to a slower pace and a refined composition.
3. Level out your camera for correct perspective and use a tilt/shift lens if you can afford one. If not, tilt your camera with care. You may also be able to find a higher vantage point (adjacent building) that will allow you to shoot without perspective distortion. If you must tilt up, you can approximate a normal perspective in Photoshop by transforming perspective.
4. Choose your time of day carefully. Direct light is rarely interesting. Oblique light enhances contrast. Dawn and dusk light are beautiful times of day. Many buildings lend themselves to twilight or night views if there is adequate interior and exterior lighting.
You may also visit ProPhotoResource for my articles discussing architectural photography: http://www.prophotoresource.com.
If you're a professional considering a specialty in architectural photography, you may want to consider membership in The Association of Independent Architectural Photographers (AIAP) http://www.aiap.net
One often fun way to deal with the perspective issue for buildings that are not too tall (say up to 6 stories) is to bring a step ladder in your car and/or go to a building across the street and ask if you can go to their 3rd or 4th floor to take pictures. You can offer them pictures of their building. Both approaches bring you closer to your subject in a way that a tilt lens doesn't (but of course they don't always work).
, November 27, 2000; 08:15 A.M. 
