Architectural Photography

Architectural Photography can be a challenge at times due to many uncontrollable forces like the weather or direction of the sun, in other words, controlling the light. Ever since William Henry Fox Talbot starting photographing buildings like Lacock Abbey in the early 1830’s, two styles of Architectural Photography have emerged: The Elevation Approach and The Perspective Approach. I am not going to decipher those styles here, what I will say is that photography has been accepted as a reliable tool for architecture in terms of its ability to create the exact visual record of a building. Imagemaster Photography’s approach to Architectural Photography is quite simple, I look at the building for what it is and try to capture its unique personality whether it’s a residential home, commercial property or a 20+ story building in a city. I look at the property during different times of the day to see how the highlights and shadows fall so that I can develop a plan and use that plan to my advantage when capturing image(s) my client will like and accept. When looking at my architectural images on this page I hope you can see aspects of both styles that I talked about above, this is done subconsciously and without much forethought. There are many different influences that will alter the final product: the architect’s intentions with the building and what it’s actually being used for, my intentions as a photographer with the composition and the honesty of each individual image development and editing. In terms of editing, I always strive for minimal editing so I always make sure the room or building is clean and presentable; I believe the proper terminology is called staging.

As for the technical aspects and in full transparent disclosure, I always capture my images with a full frame camera on a tripod using a 14mm F2.8 lens and shooting in HDR mode.

“The camera sees the world differently than the human eye and those differences can make a photograph more powerful than what you actually observed.”

LARRY WELLS   •   PHOTOGRAPHER