Photographing a building is quite different from taking pictures of people and nature. While the latter are organic, the former is structural with sharp angles and edges. The best way to enhance architectural photography is to do it in black and white, allowing you to concentrate on this structure and form without the distraction of color, while creating a beautifully contrasted image.
Here are a few tips to help you hone your architectural photography skills and produce some stellar images:
Go wide
While there are very few rules when it comes to gear in photography, there is one piece of equipment that proves very useful for architectural shots, and that is a wide-angle lens. These are ideal for this kind of photography as they have a shorter focal length and can provide a wider field of view, bringing in all elements in a given scene without you having to move much further away.
Another plus point is that they provide an elongated perspective ideal to create a feeling of depth for certain architectural shots.
Show scale, depth and perspective
Buildings are all about size and perspective, and the best architectural photos can bring this across. Show depth and perspective by choosing certain angles and looking through arches, doorways and windows. The worst thing you can do is let your photograph fall flat, or not give a proper feel of the massive building in front of you.
Get inside
When shooting architecture, don’t just stick to the outside, as certain buildings can be even more beautiful from the inside. If you can get permission to visit the inside of a building, you will be able to get some amazing shots to go with the exterior.
Choose unusual angles
To make your photographs stand out, you need to give the viewer something unique and different to look at. We all look at buildings every day, so give them a unique way of looking at it, something that almost turns it into something abstract, so they will want to look again and wonder.
Explore light
Light plays an important role in any kind of photography, but with architecture you can get some interesting play with the various elements of the building, such as light streaming through a window, or shadows in an alcove, and these will be different depending on the time of day and weather. Be sure to visit a couple of times in different conditions, and even visit at night to see the building lit up against a dark sky.
Create contrast
In both blackandwhite and architectural photography, contrast is your best friend. You can create a lot of interest with it and enhance the various structures and forms and sharp edges of the building by using it correctly. Try to look for shots with the most contrast and your pictures will surely turn out beautiful.
Go into detail
If you’re doing a series on a building, it will make your body of work much stronger to interlace your shots with certain more detailed photographs. You can get some very interesting shots and can even capture some nice textures this way to add to your collection.
Keeping these few tips in mind you can improve your architectural photography and make it look extra-ordinary in black and white. As a photographer you need to have that eye that sees what others don’t, you’ll also have to capture it in the perfect light so that it’s ready to show to the world.
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