Architectural Photography Composition Transforming Decadence into Miraculousness

How can youarchitectural photography

Is the work more brilliant? Don’t just think about focusing, exposure, HDR, post tinting and so on. Start with the most basic composition. The proper composition can transform the decay into magic, and make the original buildings become tall and eye-catching!

Today, I would like to introduce five kinds of buildings that transform decay into magicPhotographic compositionLet’s have a look!

1. Guide line

The human eye is very sensitive to lines. Using directional lines to guide the line of sight and attract the audience’s attention to the subject or the depth of the picture is a very common and effective composition method.

In terms of architectural photography, as an artificial creation, buildings always have a regular shape, and you can easily find many guide lines.

For example, the most typical stairs and escalators. The straight edge lines of stairs and escalators form multiple groups of visual guide lines with the same direction, and the eye-catching effect is excellent:

The guide line can also be in multiple directions or even in the opposite direction, leading the line of sight to different places. Such a picture is interesting:

The wall root and the floor tile edge form a multiple guide line, and the effect is multiplied

As there are straight lines everywhere in the building, it can be said that the visual guide lines are also everywhere. Make good use of them~

2. Look up/down

I don’t think there is anything to take pictures of the surrounding scenery? Most likely, it’s just because you look at it from a common angle. Why not try looking up or down?

Looking up at the world, you can see a completely different scene.

For example, in many Western and Chinese ancient buildings, you can see the magnificent or exquisite structure of the dome, which has condensed countless efforts of the designer:

Even if there is no magnificent and complicated dome, you can also go to the patio and take a shot of it, which is cut into various shapes by the edge of the building, forming a “blank” sky:

When shooting “tall and thin” buildings, such as towers and high-rise buildings, the perspective effect of “near large and far small” will make the buildings look taller and more magnificent, and the effect will be more significant when shooting with a wide angle head;

In addition, this shooting angle can help you avoid the clutter on the ground and a large number of tourists, and eliminate interference.

When shooting down, you can often get interesting pictures.

In addition to learning to climb the building and taking a panoramic view of the roof, it is also a very popular way to take the spiral stairs down:

Even the most common spiral stairs can make you feel different.

3. Line intersection

Different from the traditional architecture that pays attention to symmetry, simplicity and aesthetics, modern architecture emphasizes more complexity and contradiction, and its appearance may be more diversified.

Under the complex architectural shape, you can often find the intersection of many lines by adjusting the viewing angle. Many straight lines and curves of different sizes and shapes converge here, making it naturally attractive.

4. Negative space

In architecture, “negative space” refers to the space between buildings. They are similar to the “left blank” in traditional Chinese painting. Their role is to highlight some interesting structures, and they are excellent photographic materials.

A large area of blank can be used to set off the characteristics of a detail:

It can also be done in the opposite way, using large entities to highlight gaps:

Uniform walls make the holes in doors and windows stand out

Negative space needs to be discovered or created by ourselves. The originally ordinary area, after zooming in and keeping the field of vision within a certain range, may have the negative space we want.

5. Frame

In fact, it is a composition method that uses the foreground scenery to create a sense of occlusion and focus the audience’s attention on the unobstructed part.

As shown in the following figure, the picture shot through the narrow window frame has a “peeping sense”, which is more likely to arouse the curiosity of the audience and lead the audience’s attention to the depth of the picture.

The frame is not necessarily the structure of the building itself, but also some other beautiful scenery (such as flowers and branches of trees) can be found as a shelter to put in the foreground.

You can also consider whether you need to blur the foreground, which will bring a different feeling to your architectural photos.

I seem to hear the audience murmur, “Why is there no symmetry~