Towering buildings, old forts, walls of steel and glass . . . man-made structures of our modern world stun in real life — and can in photographs, too, if you take a few steps when setting your camera before taking architectural shots in B&W.
1. Set your camera.
Figure 9-3:B&W was the start of photography.
•Av mode:This is aperture priority. Set the aperture to f/16 or higher.
•A-DEP:The automatic depth of field mode is on the knob of the Creative Zone on a number
of SLR and dSLR cameras (see Chapter 11). The A-DEP setting allows you to use multiple focusing points within the frame to keep everything in focus.
It uses a very fast shutter speed on the order of the inverse of several thou-sand seconds (1⁄2000–1⁄4000) and wide aperture open-ings (f/4 to f/6).
2. Set your lens or zoom factor so that your frame contains what you want and no more.
For example, if you want to show a towering building like in Figure 9-4, either use a short lens (a lens whose focal length is shorter than the diagonal length of your camera’s sensor) or a fish-eyelens that captures the entire structure (and possi-bly some framing by other structures nearby), or set an adjustable lens to a wide angle setting. For details about how different lenses are calibrated according to the size of your sensor, see Chapter 2.
The wide angle on an adjustable lens
is when you “zoom out” so that the lens is set to the smallest focal length.
Shooting things of an architectural nature don’t always mean filming tall buildings. Just train your eye to look for structural details in all sorts of situations. To get your creative juices started, peruse the database at www.archinform.netto see literally thousands of images of international architecture, originally emerging from records of interesting buildings and their details from past to present.
Figure 9-4:Modern skyscrapers become art in B&W.
To see how different the same piece of architecture looks in color compared with B&W, see the juxtaposition in Figure 9-5 of a color and a B&W image (converted to grayscale in Photoshop, in this instance, for the sake of com-parison) of the same architectural shot. (Nice juxtaposition, too, of old and modern architectural styles.) Both give a different effect and feeling.
Figure 9-5:The same shot looks very different in color versus B&W.
The color photo reveals the warm hues of sepia along with the creation of finer detail in the art scenes on the walls. You’re more likely, in this picture, to focus on the content of the murals.
The B&W image is less distracting and gives greater focus to the archi-tecture — especially to the melding of the shade and light (from the huge skylight) from the bottom to the top of the picture.
When shooting architecture, with its strong straight lines, watch out for vignetting and line distortion — unless, of course, you want to exploit those effects for an artsy twist to a shot. These effects are caused by the
curvature and structure of your lens that can either be prevented or elimi-nated (or welcomed):
Vignetting:Some lenses create vignetting,whereby the sides of the shot are darker than the interior, like a fading vignette-matte effect of an old-time photo. Some, um, less-expensive lenses have this problem. You can switch to a lens with better optics (say, from the lens that came with your SLR or dSLR camera as part of a package to one of Canon’s L series lenses).
Vignetting is an easy fix in Photoshop CS2. Shoot in Raw format (see Chapter 18) and fix the vignetting with a slider bar when your Raw image is opened. And to research lenses with vignetting problems, search online for equipment reviews and specs.
Line distortion:Line distortionis the subtle curvature of a line that should be straight. You can get shift lenses for your SLR or dSLR cameras (about
$1,300) that straighten out lines caused by lens curvature. Photoshop CS2 also has a cure for this ill — the Lens Distortion filter, which repairs quite a few kinds of distortions.
When shooting a building, first study it in a variety of ways. Shoot so that everything in the photo moves to one vanishing point or to one direction as the viewer looks across the frame.
Shooting architecture as architecture is often best done at dusk and dawn when the light is softer and the shadows are less harsh. (For dramatic art photos, on the other hand, you might want to shoot architectural details with harsh shadows.) The time of day in which you shoot architecture changes, which in turn affects the look of your B&W photograph. A picture taken in the noon sun can provide more detail. In contrast, a picture taken at dusk can have more shadow — providing more contrast perhaps but also a little less detail in any small objects in the shot. Finding the perfect time of day for shooting in B&W is an experiment in light and shadow. You’ll know when you get it right, and the results might surprise you.
Photographing at dusk when the sun is still above the horizon can be a dis-aster, especially when long shadows from nearby trees are cast over your architectural subjects. Figure 9-6 shows how late afternoon shadows can distract from the subject in a B&W architectural photograph.
Although the weather and the time of day (not to mention the time of year) can affect how your picture comes out, adding to and/or taking away from the focus of your structural subject, your perspective also involves some calculation.
Figure 9-6:Shooting late in the day can create undesirable shadows.
Figure 9-7 shows a picture that is divided about a third of the way so that every-thing moves to two vanishing points — one to the left, and one to the right.
From these two points, you can tilt your camera in any direction so that the vanishing points move up or down into the corner and/or top of the frame.
For more on composing a shot using the vanishing point, see Chapter 1.
Figure 9-7:Shoot from different perspectives.
You can tilt the canvas of your B&W and color images with minimal loss of sharpness in your photo by choosing the Image➪Rotate Canvas option in Photoshop. This is a great help when you are cropping your photos. See Chapter 12.
The picture in Figure 9-8 was taken at night. The shutter was set to stay open for one-half second using the Tv mode (shutter priority) of a digi-tal camera. The aperture of the camera was set automatically using the light available to determine how wide it would be for the half-second it was open. The picture didn’t blur because the camera was set on a minitripod on top of a newspaper stand. For more about night photo-graphy, see Chapter 10.
Photoshop has a feature for turning
an image into a pen and ink style, like architecture drawings. You can read about this technique in Chapter 15.
You’ve probably heard the old “stop and smell the roses” expression. I like to apply this to architecture, especially the little stuff that comes attached to a fence, gate, or door, or the bigger stuff that forms patterns like that found in iron work. So when you’re looking for subjects to shoot in B&W, don’t forget archi-tectural ornamentation — and get up close to capture all the detail.