Architectural photography. How to take pictures at home correctly. Features of architectural photography Photographers who photographed architecture in the 20th century

Vlast, together with Archcode Almaty, continues a series of educational lectures on architecture. Famous architectural photographer Yuri Palmin visited Almaty. At the request of Archcode Almaty and Vlasti, he met with photographers and subscribers of our site and gave a compressed course on architectural photography.

Video recording of the lecture:

Full transcript of the lecture:

I am happy to be here in your city and to be working on a large project dedicated to the architecture of Almaty, and specifically to the period of post-war Soviet modernism.

I am Yuri Palmin, an architectural photographer, I have been doing this for almost 30 years. It’s time to somehow change my occupation, I’ve been doing this too much already. In principle, this is the only thing I know how to do and therefore I will talk to you about it. I really hope that our meeting today can benefit us all. I'm thinking of organizing this evening like this: I'll make an introduction, which I'll try to make as short as possible. Please forgive me if it takes longer. In fact, this is a squeezed-out architectural photography course, which I teach only for three classes, and then I also take credit for it. Of course, today I will not torture you with either one or the other, I will try to make this introduction as short as possible, because I believe that this story - the history of history, is extremely important for the general understanding of what I do and what, I believe, can be done by a person who consciously photographs architecture today. The fact is that architectural photography, like architecture, is now going through difficult times. And photography in general.

Yuri Palmin - architectural photographer, teacher of the “Photography” program. Basic course" at the British Higher School of Design. Collaborates with such popular and professional publications as AD Magazine, Vogue, World Architecture, RIBA Journal, Icon Magazine, Domus, Abitare, Speech, EXIT, Mark Magazine, Project Russia

We live in an age overflowing with images. Images rain down on us from everywhere, we drown in them, sometimes we wish there were a little less of them. If earlier there were special people - photographers, who delivered visual information to the consumer of this information, now there is no such division, photographers are everyone. And I don’t think that after some time it will be possible to talk about professional and non-professional photographers; the situation will change. But we can talk about people who are engaged in obtaining and delivering such visual information consciously as professionals. Maybe they should be called non-photographers. Here is a short introduction about how the history of photography is connected with the history of architecture, and how the profession arose in general. Then I will show a couple of my projects. My photographs will not be in the first part; they did not go down in the history of architectural photography.

Architectural photography begins at the same time photography begins. Or rather, when photography ceases to be such a fairground trick, a miracle, and becomes a fairly ordinary human activity. This happens in the middle of the 19th century.

Architecture is a very tasty subject for photography, especially for early photography. It's clear why. Firstly, because the architecture does not move and we can shoot with long shutter speeds, so we do not need to hold a person in a special vice, as when taking portraits, so that he does not move during a four-minute shutter speed. Secondly, and very importantly, architecture is an undoubted value. That is, when photographing an architectural monument, we convey visual information about an obviously valuable object, this is very important. In addition, at the same time, changes are also beginning to occur in the architectural profession due to the fact that engineering is penetrating into architecture, they are beginning to connect. We know that the middle of the 19th century is the era of technically new architecture, and it is also the era of the beginning of conscious urbanism, which, of course, is associated primarily with the changes that the mayor of Paris, Baron Haussmann, has been making in Paris since the early 40s XIX century and beyond. And then the Paris Geographical Society was founded in Paris, this is the first team of architectural photographers who work under the leadership of Edouard Baldus - in fact, the founder of the profession. These people work on behalf of the city authorities, they record a city that is going through the most serious changes that have ever happened to a city in a short time in the history of urban studies. These are not gradual, not natural changes, but changes, one might say, forced. Therefore, firstly, the city needs to be recorded. Secondly, it is necessary to compile a list of city objects that constitute its absolute value.

Looking at these photographs, we see that a specific list of instructions was developed for photographing architecture. Firstly, the architecture must be removed - if possible, the facades should be removed from the front. Sunlight should fall on the facades in such a way as to bring out the textures and architectural details of the facades as much as possible, that is, as a rule, it is light that falls at an angle of approximately 45 degrees, and all geometric distortions - this is the most important thing in architectural photography, ever her story. This is such a small technical detail that says a lot about our profession. As you can see, in these photos all the vertical parallels are parallel.

Usually, when we walk around with a phone or a camera with a wide-angle lens, when we look up, you know that the vertical parallel ones collapse, and we are already accustomed to this in fact. Moreover, by tilting the camera, we get an image that does not correspond to how we see. While when we look at architecture with our eyes, or rather not only with our eyes, but also with our brain, we constantly adjust the vertical perspective based on the data we receive from our vestibular apparatus. We know how much we have bowed our heads, and we know how much we need to correct this distortion. Such correction in technical photography is done very simply. A camera from the mid-19th century has independent lens and film boards, so we can move the lens parallel to the film, as if lowering the horizon and maintaining parallelism to the vertical. This is what shift lenses do now. Back then all lenses were shift. And this is also one of the instructions: this maximum frontality and light, maximally emphasizing the details.

The most interesting thing is that at the same time, the same Eduard Baldus was developing a technique that is now used in the digital process simply everywhere. This is a gluing. It is impossible to photograph such an interior with the lenses of that time; they were not wide enough. Therefore, the photograph is taken in fragments. Then these fragments - negatives are cut out, glued together, all this is natural, done by hand, all this is done on glass plates and then a composite image is printed from them.

This digital technique was invented then, in the middle of the 19th century.

I immediately jump to the descendants of Baldus and French photographers - Marcus Brunetti, this German photographer who is famous for taking 42 photographs in 9 years and his entire product of nine years of extremely intense creativity is 42 photographs of the facades of Europe. These are the photographs.

We see that they are somehow similar to what the French took, but if we take a closer look at them, we will see that in fact it is impossible to take such a photograph. Because the angles from which specific details of the facades are visible are actually taken from different points. Our eye wants to see this way. In fact, looking at this facade, we, our brain, sees something like this, but we will never be able to photograph it like that. Only using a very complex technique that Marcus Brunetti uses, namely, this facade, this photograph, consists of about one and a half thousand pieces, taken with a very long lens from different points of the city and then corrected and glued together. This is approximately what Baldus did, only many times more complicated.

Shooting each picture can actually take several years, because we know that we come to Paris, and there at the Notre Dame Cathedral one tower will definitely be restored, the same with the Cologne Cathedral. Accordingly, Brunetti returns to the same place; naturally, he has everything written down. He comes back, makes the appropriate takes and then stitches the fruit of this many years of work into pictures like this. What is also remarkable here is that such a facade was not even seen by the architects of the buildings, because, as a rule, the creation of the facade of a Gothic or Renaissance cathedral took several generations. The architect could draw it, but he could not see it, because he was dying by the time half of the work was completed. Another of the unconditional disciples of this technical school of architectural photography are my very favorite respected artists, both unfortunately now deceased, Brand and Hila Becher, the founders of the Düsseldorf school of photography.

All this was filmed in cloudy weather. In one weather, with one lens, they are famous for a series of objects that have actually entered the treasury of modern art. That is, they transferred the same technical photography to modern art and founded the school of art photography in Düsseldorf. Among their students are the very famous Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruf, Andreas Gursky, the author of the most expensive photograph in the world, “Rhine II” for $4.5 million, the price of which is actually part of the work, but this is more complicated, this is part of a separate lecture.

These photographers also used such sets of instructions to create series and approached the shooting process technically, for example, this is Struth’s famous “Streets” series; they photographed deserted streets after dawn in different parts of the globe. And all his streets are like this, they are deserted, they lack scale, which is very important. And there is no person in them, and I will talk about the presence of a person in architectural photography a little later. This is one of the most radical architectural photographs that exist in the world. This is a photograph of the warehouse of the Ricola confectionery factory in Switzerland.

Herzog et de Meuron is one of the most famous architectural bureaus. You probably saw one of their latest projects - Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. This is one of the largest and most expensive works of architecture in recent times.

The second figure opposite to Baldus, who, as we see, founded a lot of things, is Eugene Atget - an extremely important figure in the history of art and culture in general.

He is also from Paris, he worked only in Paris, he photographed only Paris, he is one of those whom Baudelaire called flâneurs at the end of the 19th century. It is clear that the concept of “flaneur” later, through Walter Benjamin and later, through the Situationists of the 60s, became one of the fundamental concepts of the new left urban culture. A flâneur is a man who can get lost in his own city. A flâneur is a person who walks through the city without knowing where, and who is not interested in the goal, but is interested in the movement itself. The flâneur is like an arrow, a measuring device that measures the city with itself, with its subtle nerves, with its subtle feelings.

Haussmann's reforms led to the formation of the Paris Geographical Society. Eugene Atget lives in Paris and hates Haussmann, he simply cannot tolerate... For him, these urban reforms are an intrusion into the fabric of the city, which he subtly feels, and to which he relates very personally, intimately.

Walter Benjamin says that Atget's photographs are photographs from a crime scene, where you sometimes see people appear. But these people are not a scale, and not living characters, but an organic part of the very connection of the city with which Atget is connected by his nerves. Unfortunately, according to information that has already been verified, Atget did not move around the city like the needles of a measuring device, but drew the city into squares and planned his walks. And, unfortunately, it must be admitted, the history of art has removed this romantic flair from him. Then we move chronologically.

Atget's followers are romantic photographers, photographers for whom a work of architecture is not some object that needs to be recorded, but a part of some kind of their inner world, which they record by photographing the outside world. Then the 20th century begins. Interesting events begin to occur, partly related to technical changes taking place in photography itself. Photography is becoming completely mass-produced. You don’t need any special skills or abilities to produce high-quality prints.

Albert Renger-Patch is one of the leaders and founders of the New Substance movement in Germany in the 20s. And his main contribution to architectural photography is that it is Renger-Patch who introduces the everyday into everyday life and into the discourse of architectural photography. That is, he photographs both architectural monuments and city views as monuments.

In this case, this embankment seems to have been photographed in the correct light, it was certainly photographed in compliance with all the canons of architectural photography, but we cannot say what was photographed here: the bell tower, or the facades of the houses, or the fences that are in the foreground, because that everything is here. It’s like an urban environment that is not divided into separate objects for him.

He goes even further and begins to photograph industrial objects, showing the beauty of industrial objects, which for him is equal to the beauty of architectural monuments. For him, for example, Gothic arches are as significant as, for example, photographs of nature.

At the end of the 20s, he published a book that he wanted to call simply “Things”, but at the insistence of the publisher the title was changed to “The World is Beautiful” and the meaning of the book, the project, was that all the things seen by the camera are very important - they become beautiful. Here's the thing. When we look at the world, in general, when we look at something, we think about what we see, we constantly run this visual information through a huge number of filters. We have already said that we correct, for example, the convergence of vertical parallels absolutely unconsciously. But in addition to such simple physiological filters, we also have cultural filters - everyone has their own. We know that, for example, a five-story building from the 60s is a less valuable object than a Gothic cathedral, not to mention a nine-story building from the 70s. What do people who took a camera in these same 20s in Germany tell us? They say that photographic technology does not have such filters. Yes, she is soulless, but at the same time she is deprived of this constant comparison with the standards and criteria that culture has brought to us. And this wonderful property of technology opens up the world to us in a new way. That is, to look at the world more honestly than we see with our eyes and brain.

And, of course, then we have the Bauhaus (educational institution - note V) and one of the key figures of new photography of the 20-30s, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who was one of the founders of the Bauhaus, held very important positions there, and was also a theorist of photography of new visuality. What's going on here? An angle appears in photography, the camera begins to tilt up and down, it begins to squint, create a slant, simply rotate around its axis in such a way that our verticals become diagonals.

She begins to do things that the photographer simply could not afford before or that were a mistake. The camera moved off the tripod and took this shot. Why was this possible? In fact, there are several explanations here. The first explanation: the new materiality revealed this very new sincerity of photographic technique.

And secondly: cameras appeared that worked with narrow film. And in fact, a revolution took place, which I believe is more serious in photographic technology than the appearance of numbers. Because a person began to understand that each frame is not a photographic plate, which needs to be developed separately, bought there, loaded, carried with you a limited number of these same sheets, because it’s weight, a video appeared in which 36 frames, in principle you can shoot There are 10 of these rollers. Fill yourself with a case and shoot for your own pleasure and experiment. And with that, the tripod fell away. The tripod falling off is like a monkey's tail falling off, and it has led to enormous changes in photographic aesthetics. These are, for example, radical downward angles. You can't just put a tripod with a big camera. Interestingly, the love for angles and the craze for this new aesthetic has suddenly begun to give way to much stricter and new rules that are emerging in architectural photography. Now I'm skipping a whole stage and moving on to the man who shaped modern architectural photography in the second half of the 20th century. This is Lucien Herve.

This is Le Corbusier's personal photographer. It is known that Le Corbusier is the only architect who never took photographs. Actually this is not true. A book of photographs by Le Corbusier has now been published. Le Corbusier photographed from about 1907 to 1915, and he photographed everything, after which he wrote that I was one of those fools who bought a cheap Kodak camera and spent crazy money on film, and only 5 years later I realized that photography - a fruitless occupation and completely unnecessary for an architect, and then I threw away this camera and picked up a pencil. But somehow Le Corbusier still needed to fix his architecture, and this is where this tandem was developed. The best photographs of Le Corbusier were taken by Lucien Hervé. What's great about these photos? Look, architecture ceases to be a monument, ceases to be an object that has top/bottom, right/left, which needs to be framed and completely placed in the frame.

The value of the fragment in this case is not the same value as the capital or any other architectural detail in the old photograph when the fragments were taken. Architecture here becomes like some sort of object that can be explored, just as the world can be explored with a camera. It ceases to be an integral discrete object, and here Le Corbusier and Herve understand each other very well, and here it is necessary to give a separate lecture for many hours, because this is a very interesting topic. Nowadays they write dissertations about this. What is important is that it is in the photography of Lucien Hervé that something that architectural photographers now use all the time finally appears - photographers begin to use radically oblique light.

You see, here it is a concrete surface under a fur coat, you can cut yourself on it. This is due to the fact that the light passes through it obliquely. We see different textures of concrete and here these textures constitute the main subject of photography. This tactility that appears in photography, it didn’t exist before, because before photography was such a picture, here is a house somewhere, on some other continent, so we photographed it, moved it from America to Europe, showed it here and we seem to have a house, but we look at it. We have it somewhere in the future. Another of Baldus' rules was to shoot with as long a lens as possible, as far away as possible. That is, to make the most impersonal presentation of a work of architecture. The longer the lens, the closer the picture is to axonometry. There cannot be an axonometric picture in photography, because we will always have perspective distortions. But axonometry is such a view of God, it is a look of a completely detached observer. And here architecture begins to be presented to us as something absolutely tactile and tangible. And this is the great merit of Lucien Herve. Then begins the era of commercial architectural photography, which in America is associated primarily with the names of Erza Stoller and Julias Shulman.

Here is the Guggenheim Museum, all such iconic photographs of iconic buildings. Note that the car is in the foreground for a reason. It is not just parked here and cannot be removed, as often such situations haunt me here, it is placed here specifically because this white surface works with the shapes and curves of the Guggenheim.

And Julias Shulman, who becomes such a singer of post-war American modernism. Because there are political, social, economic changes in society, which change housing and land prices, people come from war, the demographic situation there changes. In short, this whole American home thing is changing. And such deliberately simple and minimalist European modernism, which was previously rejected by American society, is penetrating into America.

But photography is needed here in order to convey this new lifestyle and, in general, even somehow advertise it to people. Perhaps this is the most famous architectural photograph, this is an exemplary house, specially built for filming, actually above Mulholland Drive.

Shulman staged this photograph for a very long time with an assistant, he seated the girls. The point here is that for a person familiar with the culture of the American family home, this story is completely non-standard: girls hang above the city, in the night, in some kind of glass cube. We see that this unnatural situation is actually very beautiful. The city is separate, the house is separate. The lighting is not ideal by today's standards, but... Julius Shulman is the only architectural photographer about whom a full-length documentary was made called Visual Acoustics, with voiceover narration by Dustin Hoffman.

This is a very funny photograph of Shulman, in which you can see how much of an advertising character this is, how we now see how this frame was done and staged, especially when it is in color. That's it, let's move on to our time. Perhaps one of the most serious classical photographers who currently exists and lives and works actively is Ellen Binet.

I am happy to know her, for me she is simply a living classic, a person who greatly influenced me, but, unfortunately, now Ellen is overcome by very strong pessimistic feelings, sensations and general views on what is happening now with architectural photography.

Hélène Binet is a close friend of the architects with whom she worked, this is very important. She was a very close friend of Zaha Hadid and that's why I think Hélène Binet's photographs of Zaha Hadid's work are much better than Zaha's architecture. She was and is very friendly with Peter Zumthor, I don’t think there is... there is parity here, let’s put it that way.

This is the photograph taken by everyone who finds themselves in the small chapel of Brother Claus by the architect Peter Zumthor near Cologne. There is no public transport there. This is such a special place where you have to walk 6 kilometers from the nearest railway station, this is very important, part of such an architectural experience. And this is the photograph that everyone who goes there takes. Each person lifts the camera up and films this drop – the window. This chapel is designed in this way: Zumthor made formwork from dead wood found by his students in the surrounding forest, such a hut was built, then it was used as formwork for concrete, after which the trunks were set on fire and at a certain moment, when the concrete was just approaching, and the ashes mixed with the hardening concrete and formed an absolutely amazing, unique texture of the interior decoration. After which glass drops were also inserted there, which are like dew on this ashes. This is an amazingly subtle thing. Everyone takes such a photograph, this photograph can be shown on the screen, you can watch it on the Internet, but you will not see it. It is remarkable because it was shot on a large format and it looks only in print. Now I mostly work with digital and I understand perfectly well what I am losing by not working with film. Here Hélène Binet is one of the last true classical architectural photographers; she doesn’t even have a camera on her phone. It is very important for her that she does not have a digital device for recording information.

This photograph is the Columbus Museum, the Archbishopric Museum in Cologne, also by the architect Peter Zumthor, and this is a picture that you will never see with your eyes, because this is a reflection, these are glares on the ceiling, such a hair texture, glare from the sun reflecting from a puddle, which is on the street, behind this perforated wall. You will never see such a picture, because this is the result of a long exposure, again shooting on film. This is one of Zumthor's iconic photographs, one of his favorites.

Then comes an era of close connection between contemporary art and architectural photography. Hiroshi Sugimoto, the famous Japanese artist and photographer, shoots works of modern architecture with very low sharpness. Thus, he seems to imitate this state of relaxed attention. The state of being at the edge of the field of vision, such a side view of important architecture. On the one hand, this is important, but on the other hand, it is not harsh.

Such sharpness, unfortunately, only happens on large-format film, and you also need to watch it not on a small screen, but in a book or, even better, at an exhibition. And of course, the most important commercial figure in our profession now is Ivan Baan.

This is a Dutch architectural photographer who recently sold his last apartment and lives only on planes and hotels and travels all over the world and shoots everything starry and expensive that comes along. I say it's like he's baptizing. Until he christened the building, it seemed as if it did not exist. But Baan arrived, who flies around the world like an angel, and the building began to exist. This is a very important figure.

This is his photograph of New York after Hurricane Sandy in November 2012, when half the city was without power. Baan first thought about taking a car, but it was impossible to rent a car in New York these days; it was easier to rent a helicopter, cheaper than renting a car. I just remember because at that time I was lying in Brooklyn with a terrible headache, and at that time a real photographer was flying in a helicopter and photographing architecture. He then held an auction and sold, I think, 20 copies for a lot of money, which went to the Sandy relief fund. Ivan Baan is an interesting character.

Because in fact, I already said that it became common to film architecture in the 80-90s without people at all. This is deserted, dry, like a thing in itself, beautiful, with some kind of inner beauty, architecture that has no scale, that you can’t understand what it really is - jewelry or a sculpture. This picture took over the entire architectural press in the 80s and dominated it until the mid-2000s. And in fact, Ivan Baan was one of those people who, taking all these lifeless wonderful pictures - he knows how to do it very well, quite recently, somewhere in the mid-2000s, created a real revolution. I began not just to photograph people in architecture, but I began to force people into architecture.

As I was told, when Ivan Baan comes to Herzog & de Meuron to photograph new architecture, all the young architects are herded, they have to bring suits with them, several shifts, he has a people assistant who checks the clothes, does the casting, and then these young The architects portray everything from office workers to passers-by on Baan's set.

Yes, this is how Ivan Baan shoots without people, Fondation Louis Vuitton, this is a classic architectural photograph that does not need to be captioned. Basically, everyone shoots the same way now. You know there's a website called archdaily.com, the premier architecture media outlet, and you actually rarely see an interesting personality in architectural photography there. Basically, all the architecture there is also shot according to the canons.

But this is a project in Caracas. What it is?

In a nutshell: this is a gigantic office building with 40-odd floors that was unfinished. They began to build it during the boom of the Venezuelan economy, which was in the late 90s, then it was abandoned, and then a terrible economic crisis began in Venezuela and the building was taken over by the homeless. And this is a gigantic squat, which gradually formed its own economy, its own sociology. For example, they somehow transmitted electricity from the neighboring lighting match, but they did not have an elevator, but they had a ramp that went up to the 22nd floor and there were special in-house taxi elevators that carried people. Baan studied it from top to bottom, including some oddities, for example, the grandmother who was lifted to the 34th floor. She is paralyzed and everyone knows that grandma will never come down from the 34th floor, that she will live and die there. They have their own shops and cafes there. Then Ivan Baan films this series in 2012, receives his Golden Lion, he and the group... This is such a theoretical architectural research group, well, in general, close to the Almaty Archcode, working all over the world, they receive their Golden Lion, it becomes public knowledge, after which in 2014 this building becomes world famous, because Brody from the TV series is hiding there. Motherland." He gets there, it seems in the third season, the whole world learns about the building, after which the corrupt Venezuelan police find out about it, after which a terrible purge takes place using the army and everyone is kicked out of there. And that’s it, now this skeleton stands alone, behind barbed wire, and no one lives there and there is no life there. This is a strange story, in fact, the catalyst for this whole story was architectural photography.

I bring this to the point that now, at the present time, architectural photography is in an unclear place. On the one hand, it is made according to the orders of architects and is as close as possible to renderings - what does the architect want? The architect wants to show the public that the rendering he sold to the client can actually be photographed and actually exists as a fact. This is a custom photo. Historical architecture photography certainly remains in its niche. This is what I prefer to do for the most part now. But in reality there is no critical photography - neither as a school, nor as an aesthetics. And whether there is a place for a photographer, whether there is a place for aesthetics, whether there is a place for a new language, is unknown. Therefore, this is where we started and where we ended, only in a different way. This was my introduction, forgive me for some confusion, into the history of architectural photography.

Now I will show my project. This is the first work that I did not at the request of architects, but partly on my own initiative. This is a series from Chertanovo, 1999, which was made for the exhibition of a series of exhibitions curated by the architect, artist Yuri Avvakumov, one of the founders of the paper architecture movement of the 80s. It was a series of exhibitions called "24". There is still site 24. Photo, it has been preserved. By the way, Avvakumov and I did the design. This was Avvakumov’s idea, a series of twenty-four exhibitions that opened every second Thursday of every month. Each exhibition had 24 photographs, and they had to be by either a photographer who photographs architecture or an architect who photographs or an artist who also works with photography and architecture. And each of the invited authors was free to choose their own topic.

And just at that time I moved to Chertanovo, but not to Severnoye, this is an experimental area, an exemplary residential area, which was designed in the 70s in the workshop of Mikhail Posokin Sr. One of these quite important objects of post-war modernism for Moscow. It took a very long time and was built poorly, and it was built only in the early 80s. But all the same, some basic architectural ideas embedded in it are there. In particular, one of these ideas is that it looks very close to the English brutalism of the 60s. There ideas of the Smithsons in general are quite guilty even in this photograph. For example, the fact that artificial relief is being introduced into this area.

For example, this hill, under which construction waste is buried. But this is the favorite slide of local children. Duplex apartments, artists' studios upstairs; by the way, artist-architects still work there. In general, this is a district that was planned as an exemplary communist one; by that time it was clear that the communism promised by Khrushchev in the 80s would not happen, and each family would not be given a separate apartment either. And in general there are small problems with socialism. But the idea was that it was possible to build separate areas that would be exemplary, such as enclaves of a new way of life. In particular, in northern Chertanovo, a vacuum waste disposal system made by the Swedes still operates. In general, everything is serious there. But it was still more serious. For example, the halls on the first floors of all buildings are non-residential. According to the initial projects, which were developed by sociologists together with architects, there should have been refrigerators in the halls, in which one could leave a list of groceries to the concierge, the groceries would be purchased, and by the evening they would be in the refrigerator on the resident’s shelf. But in fact, all this was built quite poorly, the structure of separating the flow of traffic and people, close to what Le Corbusier and Siam advocated, this horizontal stratification, had already stopped working at the construction stage. That is, part of the traffic flow was allowed above the ground instead of all underground, so now it is impossible to park there, it is impossible to bring anything to the entrance, everything is crowded with cars and there is no way to fight this, because the underground road communications are blocked. But I was amazed by what I finally saw in this architecture... if it previously represented to me everything that I did not like in this past life, gray, Soviet, very wretched, and limited. And architecture for me was like a sign of that life. Then I began to travel around the world, began to look at what was happening in Europe in the 50s and 60s, and I suddenly began to understand that there is this connection and that it is necessary to talk about it. And it so happened that it was in the early 2000s that the architectural community and journalists first began to talk about post-war modernism, and this topic suddenly seemed to come into play.

Nikolai Malinin, my co-author on the book, attributes this to me. Actually this is not true. I was in the right place at the right time and did the right thing. And so I made a series about the existence of this area, unadorned, but at the same time somewhat romanticized or something. Curator Avvakumov then wrote in the text for the exhibition that Brodsky said that if a neutron bomb is dropped on Leningrad, which destroys all living things, leaving all infrastructure behind, then St. Petersburg will remain. But Palmin proved that if a neutron bomb is dropped on Severnoye Chertanovo, then Severnoye Chertanovo will remain. This is what I wrote about such a heavenly Chertanovo, devoid of inhabitants, such a failed paradise. In fact, this work is extremely important to me. And it was this work that pushed me to what I am doing now here, what I am trying to do in Moscow with architecture, which seems to be deprived of public attention. I am very interested in the topic of consciously directing the flow of one’s attention, one’s vision, and not only one’s, but through oneself and other people, to what is deprived of this attention.

The culture of various peoples and countries is expressed in the architecture and art objects of their cities. For thousands of years, builders, architects and artists created a unique image of each city. Conveying their efforts in photographs is the topic of this lesson.

Photographing landmarks and architecture

A city is a single entity that includes street architecture, monuments, temples, parks, embankments, people and animals. Of course, every city, and especially cities with a rich
historical past, have their own unique character and a certain “melody”. The cities of the East are characterized by one rhythm, small European towns - another,
huge megacities - the third... In fact, people and buildings are a single living organism, but in order to get good “city photographs”, first of all you need to capture the Mood of the City.

For some, it’s easier to spot something interesting in an unfamiliar place as soon as they drop their suitcase at a hotel, while others need to take a closer look at the life of a metropolis or small town for some, perhaps a long, time.

Of course, first it is advisable to get to know the place where you are going in person. To do this, in addition to obtaining general information about those places, you can look at photographs of the city in advance and decide on “points” that might be of interest to you. This does not mean that you need to “trace” someone’s photos, but still, you should not forget: most cities have attractions - and there are their traditional advantageous angles, which, of course, there is no need to ignore.

It is imperative to take into account climatic features, since, for example, in many Asian cities it can be very hot and dusty during the day, in addition, so many people can gather on the streets that this will make filming very difficult. As a rule, the best information about local features is provided in guidebooks for independent travelers (Lonely Planet and other similar publications).

Light

As in any other photography, the main thing in urban photography is light. Lighting features can make the most ordinary place extraordinary, especially if you find yourself there at an unusual time.

I know from personal experience: the best time for city photography, especially in Asia, is the very early morning. Not only is lighting during regular hours (some time before sunrise and a couple of hours after it) interesting in itself - at this time, as a rule, there are very few people on city streets, that is, the space is at your complete disposal! Even if it’s hellishly hot during the day, the streets are usually quite cool in the morning; only rare people are busy with their own affairs. In Europe, residents do not always respond well to filming, so you will not disturb them, and they will not disturb you. Although, one cannot help but notice, the presence of a small number of people in the frame greatly enlivens the picture: we are talking about “history”, the uniqueness of the moment...

Also, one of the most interesting lighting options for urban photography is night photography and evening turning into night. During this magical time, European cities and megalopolises are beautifully illuminated, so they present a completely different spectacle at night than during the day. The best time here comes at the moment when the lights are already turned on, but the night has not yet completely “descended” on the city.

In Asia, the nights are very dark and start quite early. The main attractions are usually not illuminated, so shooting has certain peculiarities - in the evening it is better to switch to shooting illuminated details.

Often, when darkness falls in cities - for example, in Kathmandu - dim lights turn on in numerous small shops or workshops. Despite the lack of full evening lighting, the city turns into a kind of “Tale of 1001 Nights” - wherever you look, everywhere, in small arches, shops, street cafes, there is some kind of life going on that looks very attractive: it seems to “shine up” from the darkness small lamps...

But, I must say, for such shooting you need a fast telephoto lens and a modern camera that allows you to shoot at high sensitivity (ISO) in order to get a fairly short shutter speed (to avoid blur) for moving objects in dim light.

During the day, in bright sunlight, modern office buildings look good in the photo. Contrasting sunlight only emphasizes the sharp edges of modern design. If the building is glass, then its many windows can reflect very interesting scenes.

At this time, you can also take interesting photographs inside, in the interiors of temples or other old buildings, where bright sunlight breaks through the few windows on the walls.

Of course, unusual weather phenomena are also interesting for city photography - for example, a full moon, a pre-storm sky, pre-dawn haze or thick fog, which can make photographs of the most popular tourist places unusual.

As for the technical side of city photography, since the contrast when shooting is usually high, you need to set the exposure for the important details that you focus on. If it is necessary to convey the details of an object in the shadows, the exposure is set according to the shadow areas. At the same time, keep an eye out for possible knockouts in the light (overexposed areas). Perhaps they will appear, but if they are small and not in the main storylines, then it is not so scary.

Rule of thirds

For a balanced composition of a cityscape, as in a regular landscape, use shutter speed related to the rule of the “golden ratio” - the “rule of thirds”, placing important compositional elements at the intersections of lines drawn at a distance of a third from the edges of the frame.

Using a tripod and available tools

For daytime photography and night photography, you will definitely need a tripod. The need to carry it with you, of course, somewhat complicates moving around the city, but eliminates possible blurring during long exposures. By the way, if your lens is equipped with a stabilizer, then it is better to turn it off when shooting from a tripod, since it will not be able to help you in this type of shooting, but it can easily hinder you...

With a tripod, the shutter speed practically doesn’t matter to you (in the city, 30 seconds is usually enough for night photography: you don’t need a special remote control) - you can apply interesting effects. For example, you can tighten the aperture to 11-14: the light sources in the photo will turn into small stars with rays.

Also, at a long shutter speed, shooting road traffic will give traces of beautiful tracks from car headlights. To use this technique, it is better to choose a higher shooting point.

You can also get very interesting photos from a tripod when shooting fountains. If the shutter speed is short, the water drops will freeze; if it is long (2-3 seconds), the fountain will turn into long matte jets. The fountains are very beautifully illuminated in the evenings - you will most likely need a tripod here too. Try experimenting by filming the entire fountain, separately, and its parts.

When shooting from a tripod, always put a lens hood on the lens so as not to catch the so-called “hares”: these are side lights from other light sources, of which there are usually a lot in the city. As with night photography of any other landscape, you must use the automatic timer to release the shutter (unless you are using a special remote control or cable), otherwise moving your finger on the shutter button will blur the image.

Sometimes the camera's autofocus may not focus on the point you want. Then either switch the camera to manual focus mode and focus manually, or use a flashlight to illuminate the subject to help the autofocus focus. If there is not enough light for handheld photography, and you don’t have a tripod with you, use the means at hand: you can put the camera on a fence, lean it against a tree trunk or embankment fence; A bag of cereal can serve as a good improvised tripod.

When shooting interiors in dark buildings without a tripod (like this Buddhist monastery, for example), you can use the ability of wide-angle lenses to capture
maximum space. That is, you can place the camera on the floor or a very low shooting point, slightly lift the lens up (this can be achieved by, for example, removing the lens hood and placing it under the lens) and shoot with a delayed shutter release, as when shooting at night. Not a bad option for When shooting in a dark room without a tripod, the trick is to shoot in series - several frames from a long series may well turn out to be sharp.

Fragments of architecture

Photographing the city will be incomplete if you do not photograph the architectural details - they can be very interesting. Here, of course, the key rule will be to look around carefully: you need to turn into a kind of radar, since some elements are not so easy to notice. The ability to find and isolate unusual details from the overall picture develops well with experience in shooting.

Of interest may be ancient lanterns, balconies, elements of embankments, temples, shop signs, arches, temple domes, unexpectedly encountered small monuments in unusual places - and even elements of city communications! Often the handles on the doors of ancient buildings, ancient doors and windows look very unusual.

The combination of old and new looks interesting - for example, the reflection of an image of an old church in the glass walls of an office building.

Sometimes an expressive fragment of a building can say more about it than the general plan. In ancient buildings, for example, there are often interesting stone carvings or small sculptures on the facades. In addition to observation, the ability to remove unnecessary details from such a frame, leaving the main thing, will be very important.

Although, of course, to complete a photo report about the place you visited, you need both fragments and general plans.

When photographing fragments, close the aperture to get greater depth of field.

Rhythmic frame pattern

Having found elements that are similar in color, texture and shape, you can catch the graphic rhythm by arranging these elements so that they repeat. This is a very popular technique in urban photography. Such elements can be lanterns on the embankment, windows in a building, elements of grilles, temple arches, trees, pillars or cars in the parking lot (and the shadows from them).

A telephoto lens is best for photographing rhythmic patterns, given its ability to “compress” distance. At the same time, the graphic rhythm is well emphasized when shooting not from the front, but from the side. Such photos look very interesting in black and white.

Excursions Taking photographs on excursions, you can take many interesting photos. True, there is also a not very pleasant moment in such a shooting: since you are most likely not alone on it (two are almost an ideal option), other members of the group will interfere with you. You can avoid this if you overtake the guide a little and take the best point first. Or vice versa: wait until the main part of the group takes a photo of what they wanted and moves on.

You shouldn’t overuse pictures like “Me and the fountain”, “Me and the temple”, “Me and the statue”: these pictures, as a rule, will end up in the hands of most of your group... and what meaning do they carry? Show that you were really there? Or is the goal to definitely post the photo on a social network? If you really want to be photographed against a beautiful background in an interesting place, take several such photos, but do not turn it into a boring endless series. Remember: the main goal of artistic photography (if you want to get a truly artistic photo) is to take photos that are interesting not only to you or those who know you, but to interest those who do not know the backstory that connects you to this place.

If your goal is to show in the photo that you “were in this place,” it is better to take a photo or photograph your loved ones in front of a sign with the name of a famous street or some popular attraction.

Optics and geometric distortions

When shooting with wide-angle lenses, geometric distortions such as buildings “falling” towards the center of the frame are not uncommon. If this really bothers you, these distortions can now be corrected quite well when post-processing photos using Photoshop or any popular RAW converter. Although the best option would be to artistically play these distortions to your advantage.

The longer the focal length, the smaller these distortions, that is, when shooting buildings, people or streets in the distance with a telephoto lens, they will not fall into the center of the frame.

The ideal option would be to shoot with two cameras, one with a wide-angle lens and the other with a telephoto lens: this will give you greater efficiency. If this option does not suit your budget, then a universal zoom lens with a large range of focal lengths and an optical stabilizer will be very convenient for city photography.

Panoramas

For large views, use panoramic photography. At the same time, as in a natural landscape, it is better to shoot such scenes from the highest possible shooting point.

Examples of photos on the topic of the lesson

As in any other photography, the main thing in urban photography is light. Features of lighting can make the most banal place extraordinary, especially if you find yourself in it in
non-standard time.

This photo of Prague was taken on a partly cloudy day. The city looked gray under a veil of clouds, but after waiting fifteen minutes, an interesting strip of light appeared that brought the photo to life. Prague. Czech Republic.

The presence of even a small number of people in the frame greatly enlivens it, giving it some history, the uniqueness of the moment. Without people this street would be too empty. Czech krumlov.

One of the most interesting lighting options for city photography is shooting at night and evening turning into night. During this magical time, European cities and megalopolises are beautifully illuminated and at night they present a completely different spectacle than during the day. The best time here comes when the city lights are already turned on, but the sky is not yet black, night has not yet completely descended on the city.

»

Inside temples or other old buildings, you can take interesting photographs during the day, when bright sunlight breaks through the few windows on the walls. Prague. Czech Republic.

With a tripod, you are practically unlimited in shutter speed (in the city, 30 seconds for night photography is usually enough and you don’t need a special remote control) and you can apply interesting effects. For example, you can tighten the aperture to 11-14 and the light sources in the photo will turn into small stars with rays. Moscow. Russia.

Just like when photographing any other landscapes at night, you must use an automatic timer to release the shutter (if you are not using a special remote control or cable). Otherwise, moving your finger on the shutter button can blur the image. Moscow. Russia.

When shooting interiors without a tripod in dark buildings, such as this Buddhist monastery, you can take advantage of the ability of wide-angle lenses to capture
maximum space. That is, you can place the camera on the floor or a very low shooting point, slightly lift the lens up (this can be achieved by removing, for example, the lens hood from
lens and placing it under the lens) and shoot with a shutter delay, as when shooting at night. This is exactly how this photo was taken, using a lens hood placed under the lens. Tyangboche Monastery. Nepal

Photographing a city will be incomplete without photographing architectural details - they can be very interesting. Here, of course, the key rule will be to carefully look around, turning into a kind of radar, because some elements are not so easy to notice. The ability to find and isolate unusual details from the overall picture develops well with experience in photography. Prague. Czech Republic.

Of interest may be ancient lanterns, balconies, elements of embankments, temples, shop signs, arches, temple domes, unexpectedly encountered small monuments in unusual places, and even elements of city communications. Often the handles on the doors of ancient buildings, ancient doors and windows look very unusual.

Prague. District "Prague Castle". Czech Republic.

»

Sometimes, an expressive fragment of a building or sculpture can say more about it than the general plan. In addition to observation, the ability to remove unnecessary details from such a frame, leaving the main thing, will be very important. Close-up of the head of the statue of one of the incarnations of Shiva - “Black Bairab” in Durbar Square -
square in Kathmandu, Nepal.

»

Although, of course, for a full-fledged photo report about the place you visited, you need both fragments and general plans. General view of the statue of one of the incarnations of Shiva - “Black Bayrab” on
Durbar Square in Kathmandu, Nepal.

»

Having found elements that are similar in color, texture and shape, you can catch the graphic rhythm by arranging these elements so that they repeat. This is a very popular technique in urban photography. Such elements can be lanterns on the embankment, windows in a building, elements of grilles, temple arches, trees, even pillars or cars in the parking lot or shadows from them. Here the rhythm is created by the repetition of the shapes of the arches inside the Catholic church. Kutna Hora. Czech Republic.

»

The longer the focal length, the less geometric distortion. That is, when shooting buildings, people or streets in the distance with a telephoto lens, they will not fall into the center of the frame. Prague. Czech Republic.

s"

For large views, use panoramic photography. At the same time, as in a natural landscape, it is better to shoot such scenes from the highest possible shooting point.
Panorama of two horizontal frames. Czech krumlov. Czech Republic.

»

Light is critical to taking a good photograph. It makes the moment unique, non-repetitive. The photo shows a brief moment of a short winter sunset on a frosty evening. Moscow. Russia

Lesson assignments

Learning to shoot architecture Well, it's time to practice shooting architecture. Try to find interesting scenes for shooting in the city and send two of the best photos taken at different times of the day.

Photo by Bruno Abarca

Architecture is the milestones that history places along the path of its development. Buildings and structures, which have long become the background of our daily life, are the most accessible subjects for photography. Architectural styles with all their distinctive features, illustrating bygone eras, life and life of past years, can become for a photographer an endless field for activity and expression of his creative ideas.

A convenient target for first-time photographers

It was architecture that attracted the first photographers with its stillness, photogenicity, and plastic volumes. Not much time has passed since the invention of the daguerreotype, and the first photographers were already traveling to different countries of the world and photographing architectural landmarks. At the dawn of its history, this genre attracted many talented people who determined its further development.

Such a man was Emerson, who in 1892, with other amateurs, organized the Linked Ring, a group of artists devoted to the art of photography. This community included Frederick G. Evans. His works largely determined the development of photography for several years to come, and contemporaries spoke of Evans’ photographs as the most elegant reproduction of architecture.

Another famous photographer of the early last century, Charles Schiller, admiring the clear forms of architectural structures, with the skill of a true artist, conveyed on photographic film the poetics of farm buildings located around the house where he lived, African sculptures, and the majesty of urban landscapes.

Richard Pair

Among the photographic masters of our time, Richard Paire, who is also involved in the publication of books on the history of photography, can be especially highlighted. Paire took many photographs in Russia, photographing monuments of Russian constructivism in the realities of the former Soviet state. The author himself says that he was inspired to depict such a theme by the works of the famous Soviet architect, designer and artist Tatlin.

Key Aspects

Speaking about what photography of architecture should be like, we can dwell on several of its aspects: first, when a photograph of architecture is an independent work of art, then second, when an architectural structure plays the role of a participant in an urban, industrial or other landscape, acting as scenery, and, finally, third, when photographing an architectural object is a document or a memorable photograph.

Completely moving away from the task of simply capturing this or that architectural work, the photographer gives free rein to his imagination. This is how photographs are born, where architecture is a way of conveying the author’s feelings, his mood and worldview. Through the artistic images of buildings and houses recreated in the photograph, the artist penetrates into the era when the building was erected. The photographer, it seems, becomes an architect himself, experiences the past together with his creation, and through it reveals new aspects of the present. The aesthetic impact on the viewer and the ability to achieve resonance with his audience depend on the talent of the photographer and his way of seeing the world. The author's photographs are full of symbolism. Pushing the viewer to think, these photographs find a special, individual response in the soul of everyone who peers at them.

The city with its population, buildings, squares and parks acts as a single whole. Architectural structures are an integral part of our everyday life; they, as silent witnesses of human life, organically fit into the urban picture and are included by the photographer in landscape photography or become participants in a photo sketch. In order for a photograph of an architectural landscape to become alive, the photographer can skillfully take advantage of everything that reality itself provides him. Trees around the building you are photographing will create the mood and emphasize the perspective. In such photographs there are people and animals, which makes the architectural structure a part of human life and humanizes it. Here everything is in the hands of the photographer himself, who is able to turn gray reality into something extraordinary.

Practical goals

Architectural photography can serve its applied purpose: photographing drawings, objects under construction, architectural ensembles. In fact, this is most often work to order. The photographer is within the strict limits set by the customer.

In this case, photographs must clearly and accurately convey the proportions of the building, its dimensions, color scheme, and finishing details. Such photographs are not works of art, they are only a favorable image of an architectural object. Such a purely technical task also requires certain skills and abilities from the photographer. Many architectural ensembles have the status of monuments and constitute the historical heritage of an entire nation, a clear illustration of its history and development. Compiling booklets and albums can also be classified as an applied application of architectural photography. The desire to preserve stone beauties in people’s memories, to skillfully convey to the viewer the architectural value of a particular building is the noble goal of a photographer.

Well, you will learn how to photograph architecture correctly by reading articles about evening St. Petersburg, features of night photography of buildings and photos of night city landscapes, as well as by studying other materials on our site.

Wherever in the city we shoot, one or another piece of architecture almost always gets into the frame. It could be a building, a monument, a fountain or an ordinary residential building.

As a rule, in order to most successfully present such objects in a photo, you need some knowledge about photographing architecture.

What exactly gets into the lens is not so important, because you can end up with a masterpiece photo even if you are photographing the most ordinary stall.

Photographing architecture, both classical and modern, is far from easy. The main thing is to try until you succeed. There are a lot of factors that will affect the photo, and we have selected recommendations that will help you quickly catch the most successful shot.

1. Always have a camera on hand, always prepare for a location visit



The principle of following this rule is quite simple - any walk should become a photo walk. You should have your camera ready most of the time because you never know exactly where or when you'll come across something worth photographing.

In principle, any professional photographer will tell you that the right shot is a very elusive thing, so it is best to follow the principle of seeing and photographing. The frame depends on the light, on the position, on the presence of characters, on the mood, time of day and many small elements that can only come together once. Therefore, if the camera is always with you, you will definitely not miss the right moment.

If you have found your architectural model and are going for the specific purpose of filming, be sure to make sure that filming is allowed at the location. If this is private territory, negotiate with the owner. If the building is an office building, check the opening hours.

And of course, be sure to pay attention to the weather forecast. After all, the mood of the final frame will depend on the weather.



2. Choose equipment depending on the genre



Having the right photographic equipment for each type of shoot is a fundamentally important consideration. Thus, for almost any genre there is the most suitable technique. For architecture, the most advantageous lenses are the same ones as for landscapes - wide-angle, fisheye or ultra-wide-angle.

It is these lenses that allow you to get the most successful composition, while providing the opportunity to place the entire building in one frame. This, however, does not apply to every building and not every idea.

For rare cases, when even wide-angle glass is not enough, cameras with panoramic shooting capabilities come to the rescue. These can be DSLRs, mirrorless cameras and regular digital cameras. What can I say, today even smartphones allow you to create panoramas.



3. Take your time



Oddly enough, most professionals agree on one general recommendation - never rush when photographing architecture. Sometimes creating the perfect shot takes not just a few hours, but several days or more. The advantage of architectural structures in this regard is obvious - they will not go anywhere and only the weather conditions around them change. However, you need to thoroughly research the subject you are shooting. This is necessary in order not just to take the first frame that comes along, but to choose the most successful angle, wait for the right light and capture the building so that the photograph has a mood, emotion and character.

Additionally, it is important that important architectural elements of the building are captured on camera, thereby retelling the style and era.



4. Shoot in different weather



Architectural photography stands out precisely because it perceives light in a very special way. For example, sunny and clear weather, just like the “golden watch”, does not guarantee an excellent result. On the contrary, experience shows that storm clouds and the sun shining through them produce interesting results. Likewise, rain, rainbows and other weather miracles are good for architectural photography. Of course, you won’t be able to accurately predict such effects, but you can at least rely on the forecasts and monitor them to choose the most suitable weather for your shot.

You can return to the same subject in different weather and shoot in different conditions, since only through experience will you be able to understand what will work best.



5. Take advantage of light and shadow



Light is the most important element in photography, everyone knows this, regardless of experience and the number of successful photos. Buildings, as we can confidently say, based at least on our own visual perception, tend to change significantly depending on the lighting. Direct sunlight and the sun peeking out from behind clouds give different effects, and buildings with night lighting look completely different. The way the environment changes is also completely natural: everything around can be either illuminated or, on the contrary, darkened. The building itself may even change color.

The position of the light source and direction can create amazing effects, such as the silhouette of a building at sunset. To do this, you just need to shoot from the point where the sun is hidden behind the building. Of course, this should be used for buildings that have an interesting shape.

Light is especially important for modern glass-covered skyscrapers: reflections and reflexes can be used when photographing them.



6. Points of view must be different



A photographer should never freeze in one place, he should be dynamic in searching for the best angle. And sometimes the best angle can be completely unexpected. Removing a building from its façade is a rather lazy approach. Walk around it, look closely at the details and angles, bends and turns, look through the lens.

One amazing technique is shooting from below. And not just from the center, but from the walls. The view that a fly or spider gets from the wall is our goal. This way, you capture not only the direct view, such as the dome of a building, but also the walls, columns and architectural elements, which ultimately give a much greater understanding of the building.

The opposite effect is also interesting - shooting from afar and from above. If you have the opportunity to choose a location from which you can capture the entire building in the frame, use it.



7. Pay special attention to the lines



Lines and curves are what an architectural structure is made of. Therefore, a successful photographer needs to learn to look at a building through the eyes of an architect - that is, to see silhouettes and outlines, essentially in the form of a sketch. Distinguish details and parts from the whole.

This way you will be able to see the unique shapes that distinguish the subject of your photography from the rest of the environment and it is these that should be emphasized in the photograph.

For example, square buildings benefit from perspective - up or forward, from a distance or close up. You can reflect either the monumentality and squatness of the structure, or its upward striving.

It is much more fun to work with buildings of original forms; fortunately, modern architecture often relies on broken or soft forms. They create a special effect, so you don’t have to catch them entirely in the photo. Sometimes one corner of a building against the sky or surroundings creates enough mood for the whole photo.



8. Follow the rules of composition



Composition is important in any type of photography, and architectural photography is no exception. It is errors in the compositional structure of the frame that can have the greatest impact on the result. For example, an incorrect shooting position can result in a building being distorted. Often, buildings collapse if the composition is not designed correctly.

Therefore, a photographer needs to follow rules such as the rule of thirds or its more complex version - the golden ratio. Modern cameras, as a rule, help with this - on many devices, the viewfinder has a built-in grid that divides the screen into 9 parts. With its help, it is very easy to understand exactly where to place an object so that the image turns out smooth.

It is also necessary to take into account the natural distortion that results from using a wide-angle lens.

Either way, the photographer's main goal is to carefully capture what is in the viewfinder. This can be done both in advance and directly during shooting. The main thing is not to be afraid to try and take photos until the desired result is achieved.



9. Don't be shy about black and white shots



Forms, as you know, do not require color. Therefore, sometimes an abundance of flowers only distracts from a perfectly constructed composition. If you encounter a situation where there is too much color in the frame, do not rush to move to another location or change the subject. Try converting the photo to monochrome. This immediately brings out light and shadow, focusing the viewer's attention on the composition and lines that are present in the photo.

However, when deciding to convert a photo to black and white, there are two important points to consider. The first is how important is color in photography? Sometimes color is one of the most important elements of an architectural structure, so its loss can have a negative impact. The second is how important shape is. If form dominates color, then black and white photography is appropriate.

In any case, you can decide with one hundred percent certainty only after you try both options.



10. Don't forget about post-processing



Modern photographers don't like to show off the fact that many of them use post-processing tools. However, there is nothing wrong with this. On the contrary, sometimes special software and corresponding applications help achieve results that cannot be achieved manually using a camera alone. Of course, to maximize post-processing options, you should always shoot in RAW format. Later, this will give you the option to tighten up the exposure, correct minor flaws, and so on. You shouldn’t be shy about framing, because often during the filming process a frame is created that is not as good as a whole as it is in detail.

Here we have the opportunity to correct distortion caused by the lens, chromatic aberration and vignetting.

Traditionally, our main advice is to shoot, shoot and shoot again. After all, only through practice can you achieve perfection.

There is a common belief that photographing architecture is a fairly simple genre of photography. At first glance, this is so - there is nothing easier than photographing a stationary object (a house, a temple, an architectural ensemble); this can simply be done in auto mode! However, to photograph an architectural structure Beautiful, you often have to strain your brain very hard. Moreover, it’s not a matter of camera settings, but the choice of shooting point, as well as the equipment itself...

When an amateur photographer chooses a camera or lens to photograph architecture and asks this question on Internet forums, for some reason “photography gurus” recommend using ultra-wide-angle optics to photograph architecture. This is the main catch - a good wide-angle lens is quite expensive (at least an autofocus one), but the image it produces does not always satisfy the requirements of the photographer (or customer).

Perspective

The effect of linear perspective, which most often does not bother us when photographing nature, when photographing architecture has a huge impact on the final result. When choosing a shooting point, preference is often given to the one that is most convenient for the photographer (no need to walk or climb anywhere) and at the same time the entire building fits into the frame (a wide-angle lens helps). Alas, such shooting points are very rarely optimal and the result does not look so good - buildings look tilted in the photographs.

Let me give you a couple of examples:

Naturally, for an amateur “tourist” photo this is acceptable (it’s better than nothing), but if you’re aiming for “the big league”, you need to get rid of the habit of photographing architecture in this way.

Falling walls - who is to blame?

Often the reason for the appearance of “falling walls” is unfairly blamed on the lens, saying “it pulls the corners.” In fact, the lens almost always has nothing to do with it; we have ourselves to blame. Have you noticed how sometimes people take photographs of the cityscape?

Photo from the Internet

Such photographers operate according to the following rules:

1. Take photos from where you stand. If the building fits in the frame, why change anything?
2. If even at the “minimum zoom” the building does not fit into the frame, you need to sit down (or lie down), whatever you want - just don’t step back.

After this, the shutter button is pressed and you get another photo with littered walls! Funny? And many do just that!

Regarding the second point - shooting from a low point really helps to “shove” more into the frame - thanks to the perspective effect, the upper part is slightly flattened vertically and horizontally, but because of this, the facade of a rectangular building looks like a trapezoid.

Distortion

Even at a wide angle, all zoom lenses without exception have such a phenomenon as distortion. In Russian, it is a distortion that makes the picture look not flat, but slightly convex or concave. This causes straight lines at the edges of the frame to appear curved.

Distortion is noticeable when shooting architecture and interiors

To reduce distortion, most often it is enough to slightly extend the zoom when shooting.

In fact, distortion is not so bad - it can be easily corrected during processing. For example, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom “knows” how most lenses bend the image. Just check the appropriate box and the distortion will be removed (). Surely there is a similar opportunity in other more or less serious photo processing programs.

What if you shoot from afar?

Now let's look at a few more photographs of architectural objects:

Have you noticed that the buildings on them are level? These photographs have several common features:

1. All of them were shot with a focal length of at least 50 mm. To be precise, the first photo was taken with a focal length of 100 mm, the second and third - at 50 mm (full frame).
2. In all photographs, the horizon runs through the middle of the frame.

Conclusion - if you don't want falling walls in your photo, move further away and shoot with a longer focal length. Place the horizon closer to the middle of the frame. I’ll say right away that finding such a shooting point can be very difficult - this is the main difficulty of photographing architecture.

"Aggressive Perspective"

On the other hand, there are situations when the emphasized "aggressive" perspective is part of the artistic design.

This photo was taken with a 16mm Zenithar fisheye lens, which noticeably rounds out the edges of the image. It can be seen that the wall of the Nizhny Novgorod Kremlin fits quite effectively into the composition, but the photograph is perceived very unusually.

This photo was taken using another ultra-wide angle lens - Samyang 14mm. It, unlike Zenitar-16, does not round off anything, but still gives a picture that is sharply different from what we are used to seeing with our own eyes.

In other words, when using ultra-wide-angle optics, perspective must be treated like salt and pepper: too little is bad, too much is even worse. Photos that inappropriately use an “aggressive” perspective instead of an interesting one may be off-putting.

The principle is simple - The more the lens is tilted up or down, the stronger the perspective distortion will be..

By the way...

There is a way to programmatically correct perspective using Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom. Although it is not a panacea for all ills, nevertheless, a small blockage in the walls can be corrected with its help. However, if you overdo it, it is easy to distort the shape of objects.

Make the building part of the landscape composition

This almost always benefits photography - the landscape looks more interesting than just a point-blank photograph of a building. Some architectural structures look much more interesting as part of the entire ensemble than alone. The scale of large objects is conveyed much better if there are some objects “for comparison” - people, trees, other buildings.

Surely there is a beautiful park around the remarkable building, perhaps the building is beautifully reflected in the water. Look for interesting angles! Try not to take “photo trash” into the frame - poles, wires, billboards. Of course, a significant part of success here depends on what objects surround the buildings, but that’s what you’re a photographer for, to notice such details and angles that everyone passes by and doesn’t pay attention to.

Choose the optimal time for filming

If we are not talking about shooting during a tourist trip, you almost always have the opportunity to visit the same attraction several times - at different times of the year, in different weather, at different times of day. Let me give you a small example:

Buildings whose design is dominated by light colors (for example, the Winter Palace) usually look good both day and night. However, buildings made of dark stone look more interesting at night (Kazan Cathedral).

By the way...

A big problem when shooting at night is often setting the white balance - street lights, as a rule, give off a very warm yellow light and all illuminated objects fall into yellowness. Manually setting white balance does not always help, since many cameras do not have a preset that can compensate for such deep yellowness.

The easiest way out of this difficult situation is to shoot in RAW and correct the white balance in the editor. When shooting, you can safely set the WB setting to “Auto” - even if it turns out bad, you can still fix it painlessly later.