Rain or sun, colour or black and white

click photo to enlarge

One section of the bookshelves in my study consists entirely of volumes about the history of architecture. As you would expect, most of these are illustrated with photographs. Interestingly, the majority of these photographs were taken when the sun was shining, and it's not hard to work out why this should be so. Sunlight can be used by photographers to model a building in such a way that the overall massing and the details are accentuated by the contrast between the lit areas and the shadows. The smooth, shiny modern buildings of today and the old, sculpturally ornamented buildings of the past benefit from this effect.

But, whilst sunlight is good for revealing the structure of a building it doesn't do so well when it comes to the building's character. Some architectural photographs can resemble those portraits that are taken with a camera-mounted flash directed straight at the subject that makes them look like a rabbit caught in a car's headlights. Such shots show us details, but often much more than is usually apparent. Photographs taken on overcast days rely much more on colour, tone and line for their effect. In regions where sunshine doesn't represent the prevailing weather an image of this sort can be much more representative of a building.

I recently visited the ruined country house of Kirby Hall in Northamptonshire on two successive mornings. On the first day there was light drizzle, and the main photograph is one of the shots I took at that time. On the second morning the sun was shining, enabling me to take different kinds of images that, for example, allowed me to use the shadows that were cast on the lawns. When I came to review my photographs it seemed to me that the fact they were taken under very different skies meant they collectively told more of the story of the building. For example, the sunlit shots say more about Inigo Jones' borrowings from Italian Renaissance architecture than does the shot taken in drizzle: and that one prompts in me thoughts about how much more suited to our climes is the Gothic style with its steeply pitched roofs.

The other interesting thing about books of architectural photographs is the way that they are now largely (though not entirely) books with colour photographs. Only if they are a cheaper production or have an "artistic" bent do they lean more heavily towards black and white. The merits of black and white versus colour in architectural photography will have to wait for another blog post, but as several of my previous images, and the conversion shown above suggest, I think it still has its place.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

(Main photo)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 55mm (110mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Clean shots, obstructions and compromises

click photo to enlarge

I'm interested in architecture, and so I take photographs of buildings and structures of all kinds and all periods. In a country with a lot of history, such as England, it isn't difficult to find interesting and attractive subjects for the camera. Large, famous or important buildings such as churches, country houses, office blocks and the like are often sited with open space around them: they are designed to be seen, to impress, and to say something about the person who had them built. Consequently, securing a "clean" shot that includes the whole of the structure is usually relatively easy. In fact you can often take a number of such photographs that show different facades and illustrate the context in different ways. However, when you go down the scale to smaller houses, town churches, and other buildings in built-up areas, it is often very difficult to get that unimpeded shot.

There isn't a single overriding obstruction that impinges on photography in towns: there are many. And if one doesn't get you then another one surely will. Motor vehicles are omnipresent. There simply isn't enough space on our small island to provide off-street parking for everyone who would like it, therefore streets are littered with cars, and you have to accept them in your images. Frequently I'll be lining up a shot in a road that has signs forbidding parking, a situation where you can get a shot that doesn't include parked vehicles. But all too often a large delivery van will draw up in front of the chosen building and begin unloading. Ten minutes is the maximum allowed for this in no parking areas, and I tell you, that can feel like an hour when you're waiting for it to move on. Then there's street lights. These are spaced according to the needs of the pedestrian, which is fair enough, but I sometimes wish that they'd take account of the streetscape and the photographer! Traffic and other signs are also a problem. It's not only their obtruding physical presence, it's the bright colours - red, blue, white, etc, that are designed to be seen, and consequently glow like beacons in your images. And don't get me started on telegraph poles and overhead wires. Trees can be bothersome too when they screen the subject that you'd like to photograph.

I had that problem when I was framing this late eighteenth century house in Louth a few days ago.It's a distinguished building on a fine street that features buildings from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The twin curved steps up to the main entrance on the piano nobile are reasonably common on such houses in large cities and towns, but less usual in a small place like Louth. However, I could not find a position on the pavement outside the house to compose the shot I wanted because the trees got in the way. In such circumstances you simply have to accept the compromise shot that is available. I settled on this one that uses the trees as contrast, offers framing of sorts, and which contextualises the building.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

750th post

click photos to enlarge
I just noticed that yesterday's post was a small milestone - the 750th PhotoReflect post. Add the 60 posts under the PhotoQuoto heading and that makes 810 posts since December 2005. All of which begs the question, "How many more posts will I make?" Recently I've had the feeling that I may be drawing to a conclusion with the present format, or that perhaps I need a new direction. Well, we'll see.

Today's pair of photographs show a couple of contrasting buildings with slightly different photographic approaches. The first is a piece of Victorian showmanship from 1856 by the Lincoln architects, Bellamy & Hardy. Corn Exchanges in England are often wilfully odd and awkward looking buildings that take enormous liberties with the Classical vocabulary. Hull's is relatively sedate in comparison with many, and, its original purpose long past, is now part of a museum. For this image I stood in the narrow High Street, positioned myself at the centre of the building, pointed the camera up, and took this symmetrical shot which echoes the symmetry of the structure.

The second photograph is a detail of the corner of the north facade of Grimsthorpe Castle, Lincolnshire, a work of the 1720s by Sir John Vanbrugh. It is also a strictly symmetrical design, and in my earlier photograph of a detail of the centre of the building I acknowledged this. However, in this image I was looking for balanced asymmetry, and so placed the pair of heavy columns slightly off-centre (though with one in the centre anchoring the composition), and included the angular cornice-line and sky, as well as the differing windows, as elements of imbalance.

Perhaps it's because of my interest in painting, architecture and architectural drawing (see yesterday's post), but representing buildings with strongly converging verticals doesn't come naturally to me. It's always seemed to me to be a convention exclusive to photography - which I suppose it is! When I'm photographing architecture I find myself aiming for shots that keep the verticals properly upright, and only after I've done that do I look for shots of this sort.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Image 1 (Image 2)
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (11) (32mm (22mm)/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1 (5.6)
Shutter Speed: 1/320 (1/500)
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 (-1.3) EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Terrorism and architectural photography

click photo to enlarge
I photograph quite a bit of archit- ecture, though less than I used to do. My move from a coast near a cluster of urban centres to a more rural setting means fewer buildings, and a narrower range of building types at which to point my camera.

Of all the types of photography that you can engage in architectural photography should be one of the least stressful. Photographing wildlife requires planning, stealth, and then frustration when your subject "legs it". Motorsports and aviation photography must be pretty fraught too - all that noise and a subject that is frequently moving very fast. People, of course, present problems too many to enumerate, which is why I don't often point my camera their way. But architectural photography? The subject stands perfectly still for you, you can travel a long way to your chosen building knowing that it's invariably going to be there when you arrrive, and it doesn't complain or sulk if it has to be shot during inclement weather. Yes, buildings have a lot going for them as subjects for the camera.

Or so I thought until I read of the Austrian tourists who were made to stop photographing Vauxhall bus station in London, and compelled to erase their memory cards, by officious police over-stepping the bounds of their authority. But what made me wonder even more was reading this tale about an architectural photographer plying his trade in London a couple of weeks ago, and his brush with police hyped up on anti-terrorism legislation and training (or the lack of it). It made me recall the photography that I've done over the years in the capital city, and that which I'll be undertaking there again quite soon. Will I eventually come up against an authority figure who takes exception to me snapping shots of architecture? I've only been queried once about why I was doing photography of this sort - it was outside Queen's Terrace, Fleetwood - and my interrogator was an elderly inhabitant of one of the flats in the building. She was satisfied by my response that I wanted an image of this architecturally significant building, and she was interested to discover that in the UK anyone has the right to photograph virtually anything from a public place.

Today's photograph presented no such problems. To photograph inside Peterborough Cathedral requires the payment of a small fee (a mere £2.00), and it can then be done with the blessing (!) of its owners. On my recent visit I wanted to capture something of the mystery of the building so I took several shots of the darker sanctuary - a contrast to the other images that I've posted of this building (here, here and here).

NOTE: Any UK photographer concerned about restrictions being placed on photography in our country should sign this petition.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/44mm equiv.)
F No: f2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/50 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On