 |
Shooting Architectural Photography
By Craig Davis
I began my photographic life as a marine photographer, as well as shooting some other sports. During a period of time when
I was living in the south of France, I shifted from shooting sailing yachts to capturing large private yachts for editorial
and commercial purposes. Much of this work was done in large and medium format on yachts that were from 100 to 240 feet in
length. In essence this was architectural photography, although you had to deal with very different lighting and motion than
a typical house or commercial building.
A return to the United States removed me from much of the yacht market, but it was an easy shift to the architectural market,
with the substantial residential and commercial real estate in the New England area. A local architect requested that I
shoot a number of his projects digitally, so this pushed me rapidly into digital photography at the end of 2001. While a
number of marine photographers I knew felt that it was sufficient to shoot large JPEGs for their editorial or commercial
assignments, I think my large format work made me shoot in RAW almost from the beginning. The large JPEGs were good even
for the glossy magazines, but I felt my work needed the quality and creativity that the RAW format provided.
The advantages that RAW gave in terms of being able to adjust color temperature, as well as contrast, brightness and other
attributes, created problems in terms of the programs and the time that was necessary to process the images. But the
advantages of shooting RAW far outweighed the use of JPEGs or the longer processing time.
The processing of the RAW images was addressed by the camera manufacturers, as well as people like Adobe, and outside
vendors like Phase One. This was very critical, especially for architectural photography, because the detail of the
image is so critical. Having started my photographic life shooting on the water, shooting at 1/500 to 1/1000 sec, with
long zooms and fixed lenses and maybe 500 to 1,000 or more images. I was very attentive to the working differences,
precise detail and focusing, lighting, 14 to 24 mm lenses and very long exposures, for perhaps the 50-100 images that
might be shot during the day, or night. Each specialty requires its own precision. With on-the-water or sports
photography, you took a lot of images and tried to predict where a great action moment might happen or take place.
With architecture you are controlling much of the shooting environment, particularly with lighting, but also the angle
of the shot and decoration.
Architectural photography is a meticulous and lengthy process. In one day you might be able to shoot five to seven different
set-ups in a house or commercial property or on a yacht. Shooting with film required setting up and styling each shoot.
Then you would set up the lighting that was needed and then finally position the camera. You would then shoot various
Polaroid's to make sure that the lighting and decoration were correct. Because of the mix of lighting, you would never
get a real feel for what impact the lighting had on the color recorded by the film, you had to rely more on your own eye.
Digital photography has introduced many changes and has simplified the process. Whatever format you might be using, whether
digital SLR or a large format scanning back, being able to shoot tethered is a dramatic change. Seeing a computer-sized
image of the scene, with accurate color and being able to view different color temperatures and brightness, really
simplifies the capture process. If the client or architect is on site, then you may discuss with them how they want
the image of their work to be projected. With tethered shooting you are able to vary the lighting and see immediately
how it affects the image and make adjustments, seeing the results before you break down the equipment for the next shot.
It is such a benefit to make sure that you have the shot that you want before you leave, rather than waiting for the film
to come back.
Because of the end use, I shoot for a lot of clients with a digital SLR. I use Canon, principally because they have a couple
cameras that capture with a full size chip, which enables me to shoot with more traditional architectural lenses like the
24mmPC, using the shifts and tilts and not require as much computer work. Once you have captured the images, Capture One
enables you to group together images that you want to process and convert with similar settings. With the digital images
you are also able to process the same image separately, balancing for the different lighting and then layer the images
together.
The advent of digital photography has changed most aspects of photography. Image capture has certainly changed, but the
processing of images has undergone perhaps even a bigger change, in terms of what we can do with the images once they are
captured. The ability to view out captures immediately and make adjustments, has increased our efficiency. The ability to
process the RAW images and beginning the process with the same high quality image time after time is invaluable.
Craig Davis Bio
|
|
|
|
