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Three ways to shoot buildings conventionally


Buildings come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and colours so why not add to your architectural photobook portfolio with three tips on the more conventional approach to shooting those wonderful manmade constructions.

Have a little patience

One of the greatest skills a photographer has is patience – the ability to know that what he is doing is the product of staying power.

A photographer wanting to get something special out of a building may start the day before dawn has even cracked and stay on till the wee small hours of the morning, but he will return with a variety of images from seminal points in the day.

There will be, for example, the classic golden hour as the sun rises and sets, and even if the big ball of sunshine is hidden behind fat clouds, all sorts of weather have their photographic bonuses.

Also, look at how dramatically a city shifts in its image from day to night. In the morning, natural light dominates but come the evening, a city shimmers in a variety of colours, given you an abundance of colour to work with.

What kind of lens do you want to use

As any keen amateur or professional photographer will know, there are a variety of camera lenses out there with their own unique way of capturing a vision of the world. As such, switching a lens can have just as dramatic effect to the shot you are composing as your keen sense of composition.

For example, a wide angle lens possesses the ability to do something the human eye simply cannot – focus on the background and foreground all at once. It especially lends itself to landscapes, but can bring be used creatively to bring a variety of ingenuous representations of buildings.

A fisheye meanwhile, while popular with skateboarders, can add a suitably curved appearance that throws off any preconceived ideas we might have about shooting buildings.

What point of view works

Humans have a natural point of view that informs how they look at things. As such, when we deliver points of view in photography that are, to all intents, unnatural, we tantalise the eye sensors.

As such, to shoot a building from an angle higher that its summit, well, the brain registers that aesthetic as being original. It becomes dramatic and moving.

Equally, to shoot a building from the base upwards, though natural – because as children we physically look up to adults and the world – it is still a powerful shot. The building looks powerful, imposing even.
 

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