Beauty is in the eye of the beholder they say and that applies to photography as well. If you have one photo and ask five people about what they see or how they see that photo, you most likely will get five different answers, or six. When it comes to architecture, you have high chances to get different answers, especially if among those five you are asking, there's one or more professional photographers. Some can only see the building, while others look for lining up horizontal and vertical lines.
A couple of days ago I got a nice comment from @castleberry, who I respect a lot. He's the curator of the Photography Lovers community and he's not a newbie in photographic field with a cheap plastic camera in his hand, so his professional comment and advice meant a lot to me. I studied the post that he linked me in his comment and can say it is like gold as it gives you a lot to think about. Check it out as you may learn something too.
He doesn't know yet, but I've been struggling with lining things lately. I love architecture and love taking photos of buildings, however, that doesn't mean I'm good at it. Quite many times it happens to look into the camera, see how to line the lines, take the perfect shot, then when I get home I see that what I did can be qualified as total crap, because the camera did not see what I saw or saw it differently. Obviously with the 21st century technique, you can straighten a photo, which can make it a bit better, but can also make more damage to it, as straightening a photo means losing in size here and there.
Lately I've been trying to find the best point where to stand to take a decent photo of a building and not just snap a photo. The truth is, I need to find time and go do a proper photo shoot, experiment and learn to be prepared. Prepared for what you may ask. Prepared to take 1k photo of the same building, to see the difference and see which photo is the best and why. Otherwise I will never learn anything and will stay at this level or even worth.
Today I decided to give you a few examples of photos I have taken and have missed to line things, for various reasons.
Churches, especially orthodox cathedrals are very good for this purpose as the architecture can be spectacular. I took these photos in June and have never posted them as have been waiting to have more. Now it's a good occasion to show you what I meant at the beginning of the post.
I took several shots and none of them was what I wanted. If you look at the bottom, you can see each photo is leaning right. Every single one of them and not just them, but I suppose always.
When I took these photos, I was already thinking of making them black and white as that way we focus more on details. So when I got home, I saw the building was leaning right, so I tried to straighten it, but it was still not right as it wasn't symmetrical.
Now comes the question, how perfect you want your photos to be? I think photographing is similar to creating art, paining or sculpture as you never know when it is finished, you always find something, a little detail, that could be better. The difference is, a painting can be adjusted, a sculpture as well, a photograph can't, as you have to take it again as editors can work only to some extent.
My biggest problem as I see it is holding my camera (my phone as I'm using my phone camera) straight. Meaning the distance between the object I'm photographing and both sides of my phone should be the same. Obviously there's no way to measure that on site and as I'm not using a tripod either, so ... 😇 it's not that easy.
However, life is funny sometimes and no matter how hard you try, there are things you can't change. There is this photo I tool at the Bethlen-Haller castle and I love how it turned out after applying filters and all the stuff we do when editing photos, but there is something that is bothering me.
See what I mean? But unless I go back and have another look at it, take a bunch of new photos, I will never know if the architects got sloppy or I did a crappy job. However, architects are professionals, so this is on me :)
This is the original photo, to show you from where the whole editing started. (Not to find excuses, but under those circumstances, I'm glad I could take this half decent shot as was in a hurry, not to be left behind by the group.) The railing was something I had to decide upon, how much to cut out and how much to leave in. I decided to go with what you see on the monochrome photo and I don't regret it. I think it's the perfect size.
So there's definitely room for improvement and if you don't want this kind of headaches, stick to flowers or sunset photos 😂 I'm going to try to improve my skills, maybe looks for tutorials online, after reading all the posts from @castleberry, then go out and practice, when the rain stops.
If you're a newbie, you may want to check out these guides:
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You are far too kind. However, i do want you to cut yourself a little slack.
I added that red line at the bottom to show you that after editing... you got it as good as it could get. That bottom left of the line i put on the rail... you can see, if adjusted would have made the part you dislike even more off. I think it is the building material (stone) not lining up with the wood railing. It could also be that the camera would need to hover further out to get it lined up... but you'd be shooting dark. And if it's your phone... i wouldn't recommend taking that chance! hahaha
Honestly, i think it's the OCD in us when we see architecture and symmetry that we feel it must all line up properly. The irony is that with round lenses the foreshortening and angles never truly line up when you are shooting something that tall from ground level. You will drive yourself insane if you don't know the limitations of what is possible.
Excellent post! I'm super happy you are getting into this! Keep up the amazing work and most importantly... HAVE FUN!
Thank you for the nice words and the help given with this as it really helps. That was my impression too, but you never know. No worries, I'm not that obsessed with lines yet and I know where to stop. When I see I can't get more out of it, then I know it's time to let it go, so I won't go crazy :) At this point however I feel like there's a lot to learn and I'd like to give it a try.It's also like a puzzle for me as I need to find the solution 😀
Thank you again for the help and kindness and I'm looking forward to reading your posts and learn :)
I have always considered that architectural photography is special and when we apply edits such as removing saturation and making them black and white they become even more attractive.
I was particularly fascinated by your photos and the one of the stairs in particular was the one I liked the most. The photographer will always be learning things and that is the beauty of photography. Greetings 😊
We agree on that as I feel the same way. And yes, the stairs were very cool. Thanks for the nice comment and have a nice evening :)
Have a nice evening too :)
You are a very keen lover of photography. Your posts and images says it all.
While as you were describing the image I was trying to find what was actually missing and what alignment has gone wrong. But only after the next image it came into mind. I suppose when you look closely it fits there lol. The situation is quite similar to the fact where you see a puzzle and once it is solved than you get to place everything together hahaha.
All the best and honestly need to work on my skills a as well and keep my eyes more stable and look for everything to sort them out.
This is why I told you that each person sees things differently. Some are charmed by the stairs, myself included when I saw it, while a professional is looking at the details as well.
Thank you for the nice words and good luck to you too, I hope you will be able to find some gems 🙂
This is very important for photography beginners and I'm very grateful that the article helped me a lot. I love photographing buildings but I often have trouble with shooting angles. maybe because I was too careless.
That mans we both have some practice to do, don't you think? 😃
Of course. sometimes I feel silly for only focusing on an object but forgetting the shot settings. 🤣🤣
I agree with you when we do photos for us, we capture the moments and we do not care much about how the photo looks like. Because looking at it we recall the event and our memories with it. But when the professional photogrpaher does it he looks with another eye and of course, there are many little changes that he would add to make the photo perfect. Looking at hte church I was impressed with architecture and hte stars I did not pay attention to the shadow but my attention was concentrated on the beautyf of the rails.
This is why I said each of us see different things. When you first see the stairs, it charms you and you see nothing else, but the beauty. If you're a photographer, you immediately look for details on the photo and how things are lined up :)
buildings, especially tall buildings are pretty hard to photograph. one solution is if you can get far enough to get the whole building and some can be the best way. also then you can use some tools to straighten it up. every time you shoot up on a building it is really hard to get what you want :)
also there is a reason why people that photograph buildings for living often use tilt shift lenses
Not that is makes me be a better photographer knowing this, but it makes me feel a little better as it's not entirely my fault 😂
Getting far enough can be a problem, especially in old, medieval cities, where streets are narrow and buildings are tall 😧
Thanks for the tips, it means a lot as you're professional ❤️
You left a comment mentioning you have links for newbies at the end of every post. I ended up here as this was your post and read it.
I agree with you. Photography is similar to creating arts, sketches etc. In my opinion it's even more complex than creating art for the obvious reason you mentioned. You also wrote down about editing pictures, which is another skill and has to be learned apart from photography.
Looking at your pictures, I'm guessing you took it from your cell phone. There's an option in all phones to activate the gridlines. I love to take pictures but always had the issue of aligning the pictures straight. The gridlines have helped me a lot. You can try that.
I am glad to find this amazing community. I have a lot of architectural pictures to share as well and this post has just given me a much needed boost to show the world my amateur skills.
I hope you were able to find the links I mentioned, those are at the bottom of this post as well.
Thanks for the suggestion, I remember having the grid on one of my phones, but not on this one. I need to find the option and set it up. It's a good suggestion, so thanks again :)
I'm glad you like the community. There's also an architecture community, called Architecture+Design, but that is more than just photography, there are some other requirements there, so please read the rules first.
Yess I did and they were of much help. Thank you
I love your details about photography and it only means you are very passionate about it. I am interested in photography too, but I only have mobile phones that is why the quality of my photos are not really good.
I'm using my mobile phone as well, because my camera is not as performant as my phone's camera, so no worries.
Oh I think your phone is expensive? Or you have knowledge about the settings on how to look like high definition because your pictures are clear. Mine is a low budget phone only.
Mine isn't high end either as it's a Samsung Galaxy F62 :)
Oh, but still the picture is good quality!! It's beautiful.
Thank you! I haven't checked yours, but if you're not satisfied, try to adjust settings, maybe you can get a better quality. Sometimes auto settings are not the best.
I'm looking into it now. Thanks for giving me tips!
I liked the black and white photographs. I recently received an update on my smartphone, which incorporated a level option in the camera. It has been very useful when taking pictures, normally I tend to forget the horizon line when taking pictures, something that I am slowly improving with practice. Photos of flowers or sunsets are the safe zone 😅.
We're all learning, so no worries. I am making the same mistakes, when I don't focus, but hopefully we learn in time :)
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Won't thank you for this. I just carelessly take photos for documentation purposes only. I don't give much attention to it. Now that you've shared this, I figured out I need to step up too.
You don't need to, you just do what's right for you.
Wow stunning man😍❤
Thank you.