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How to shoot buildings creatively


Following on from how to shoot buildings in a conventional way, this guide offers you three ideas as to how to take a big leap forward with making architectural shots really creative.

Perfect proportion

In other words, get with the symmetrical. The principal is age-old: from Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man to a perfectly proportioned butterfly, a balanced feel creates a sense of harmony.

In photographing buildings the same idea is at work – our visual senses like the effect that is created with symmetry. Now it's not as easy as it sounds and you'll have to ensure that the vertical and horizontal framing is near-enough perfect, but it's well worth the effort.

Don't go with the obvious like a skyscraper and its abundance of windows – although that can look amazing. Spend time analysing certain facets of a building and pick up on any unusual repetition that you usually miss.

Change your perception

Most people have a tendency to take pictures from a traditional vantage: standing head on to a building. Keep that approach in your tricks bag, but start to think about how you can shift your body, angle and height when it comes to taking a snap.

Let's say you want to take a picture of a bridge. Get a hold of your camera and look up – what do you see? A certain aspect of the bridge you ordinarily wouldn't come across? Indeed.

It's all about inventiveness. You create an abstract atmosphere out of something that is fairly rudimentary. As humans we tend to see the world in much the same way – as a photographer, your duty is to wow people when they look through picture photobooks.

Stay static and shift the camera

This is something that might require post-production as well. Find some aspect of a building that is particularly captivating and then do away with convention. Twist your camera so that it is at an angle and snap away.

Now the product of that endeavour might be good enough for you to keep the picture as it is, or you might want to test out a few variations of how it will appear. Using some editing software – you can get cheap and free programmes that do the job well – start testing some shots by cropping your image in a number of ways.

The idea is to finish up with something that people look at and recognise but at the same time can't quite put a finger on it. You want the image to invoke questions more than answers.
 

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