THE 5 MOST IMPORTANT RULES FOR ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHY
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 มิ.ย. 2024
- Whether you are photographing modest cottages or luxurious mansions, small offices or soaring high rises, here are my five most essential tips for producing successful, professional-quality architectural photographs.
Purchase my e-book "Architectural Photography and Composition" here
www.stevenbrookephotography.com/
A Complete Guide to the History, Practice and Techniques of Architectural Photography and Composition.
360 pages, over 300 photographs contained in this e-book.
Everything you need to start your own architectural photography practice or master your existing skillset.
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#architecturephotography #architecturalphotography #StevenBrooke - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
Pro photographer here: this is by far the BEST video for tips I've ever watched on architectural photography. THIS is the high level I like being taught, this is the stuff often missed out. I strive for perfection in my field of photography, but this feels like I'm assisting a master at his craft. And for being super demanding, it is extremely satisfactory. Will highly recommend. Very tasteful and extremely pleasing work. Thank you Steven !
Thank you for your kind comments, Manny. Much appreciated.
Have to agree, and backed up with really good images. @@stevenbrookephotography
Thank you very much or your note.
Finally someone who knows what they are talking about on this topic.
Thank you for that!
Just bought your book on Amazon, the price is legendary. Your video here is absolutely helpful. I'm just starting out in photography, but your tips are already helpful.
TOP💯
These are the 10 (even if they are just 5) Commandments, Steven. I always jump when I get a notification from you. Hope you're well my friend.
Biblical rains aside, we are all well here in the Tropics.
Fantastic! Thank you for this so much. Our photography Club has a 'Members Challenge' coming up on the subject of architectural photography. I will be passing the link to all our members.
Thank you very much for taking the time to share links to the videos. Much appreciated.
Haha what a perfectionist!! I love it!
Thank you for this very helpful video! @stevenbrookephotography
Another great recap of the fundamentals. Thanks.
Magnificent, thank you! The clear, simple and well demonstrated rules will help me a lot. I will check your other videos to see if there is more that can be of use to me. I live in and love a small European town, some parts medieval, other 18th and 19th century. Lessons from big cityscape photography do not quite apply here. Architectural phtography - sure for city halls, castles and churches here. Your presentation will put me on some new tracks, thinking about what photography really does.
There is a captivating quality to those small European towns that photography can certainly capture. The streetscapes, especially at dawn or twilight, are haunting in a way that big city streets are not. The surfaces of the Medieval-era buildings are made for black-and-white imagery. Good luck with your work! Happy to know that the videos are helpful.
This is the best explainatory video I've ever seen. Cheers Mr.Brook 👌🏻
Thank you for your note. Much appreciated.
Really honest and thoughtful tips for the profession. Really appreciate it. 🤝🏻
You're very welcome.
Many thanks Steven. I just finally got though the entirety of your PDF book. Such a valuable reference. It’s gone into my permanent library of resource materials.
Thank you, Libby.
Incredibly valuable video - thank you for posting this
You're very welcome. Hope it helps you with your work.
really great tips, thank you from hamburg, germany
Du bist herzlich Willkommen. S
Nice. Thanks.
A wonderful series, thanks for sharing.
You're very welcome, Steve
Thank you so much for sharing these rules
Thanks Steven!
GOLD!
Your channel is precisely what I have been searching for.
As a construction PM with a fascination for photography, I've searched TH-cam to learn and jmprove and have been lucky enough to stumble across your channel.
This video is outstanding. I cannot wait to dive into the rest of your content.
Thank you.
Thank you for your note. I hope the videos help you with your work.
As always, well done and Thankyou!
so so so good!
Every second worth watching!!!
I've bought your e-book «Acrchitectural Photography and Composition», just want to say that it's an amazingly structured 364 page book with wise comments and perfect pictures. Just can't believe that I've found treasure like that. Thank you very much, Steven!
You're very welcome. I hope it will help you with your work.
Thanks Steven, wonderfull recap!
great Professor
Thank you for this information
Thank you.
Excellent video! Nice and clean, no weird transitions or fades, no excess animation.
4:00 Really interesting that you waited so long for the perfect shot of that mansion, I would've been happy with one of the earlier ones.
Thank you for your sharing! Very very useful content!
Thank you!
Great video... thank you for sharing your knowledge.
AWESOME content sir. Thank you!
You are very welcome.
Really helpful video, many thanks
This is excellent. Thank you very much. Big help.
Very good video. A lot of value in such a short time!
❤ Mr. Brooke, I’m grateful for all your videos. They are extremely informative and packed with knowledge that you share with us. This one is not an exception.
Real professional many thinks sir !!!❤
Dear Steve, thank you for such enlightenment. Very challenging subject for me as my subjects are always required a minimum of shutter speed 1\500! Venturing into architectural photography and apparently (over here to the newbie) very technical. Well, came acros your channel, on search as many others do and I am so glad. Subscribed and all the works, including the purchase of your book. Looking forward! Cheers. Carlos
Hi, Carlos. Yes, Architectural Photography employs the opposite set of conditions: small f/stops for depth of field; low ISO for noise-free images; and, of course, the correspondingly longer shutter speeds. With a tripod, the shutter speeds are not an issue.
Dear Steve, thank you for the feedback and apologies for my late reply. It has been kind of hectic to get it all together before project presentation!!! Your book was a life saver for me. Just awesome. Cheers@@stevenbrookephotography
THANK YOU ...SIR...SHARE the valuable information .......
This is high quality information.
Brilliant video! Thank you!
Thank you for you kind comments.
I am considering doing architectural photography on a professional level and find this to be a great compendium of essential visual principles, clearly explained and well illustrated. I look forward to viewing the other videos in this series -and to buying the book. Thank You ...
Thank you. I hope the videos and the book will help you with your work.
Great stuff Steven, thank you! You're e-book is great, I enjoyed it and it's a great resource
Thank you, Mark.
This is first I've seen of your channel and I have to say that I very much appreciate your direct and to-the-point style, with clear and concise information that is actually immediately useful. As a mobile-only photographer, I usually watch channels that are less about the technical aspects of photography (since they tend to be very gear-centric) but what you've presented here is truly useful even for those of us who don't use traditional equipment. Subbed and liked, I'll be catching up on the rest of your content in the very near future, and look forward to your next postings. Cheers!
Thank you and welcome to our community. I hope the videos will assist you with your work.
Thank you very much, ive learned a lot. good explanatio!
I'm pleased that this has been helpful to you.
Dear Steven, Thank you. Thank you so much for being such a bright and consistent guiding light for so many of us in this exciting field. Shalom!
Thank you!
Happy to see a new video Steven! Thanks for the reminders, with these 5 points one will vastly improve their photographs. Just the perfect well of information
Thank you Armin. Trying to hit the target center!
@@stevenbrookephotography you always do, I am sure you would be a good archer too :)
Thank you again for all the great educational materials! I would love to see one or more videos on how you handle difficult-to-shoot exteriors or interiors. For example, shooting (from the ground) a large exterior that is severely blocked by other structures, tress, etc.
This is a very good suggestion and I will consider a separate video on this topic. But for starters: I first find what I consider the best photograph, on axis, irrespective of what might be in the way. If I have to move, I try to find a spot where I can at least see the entrance (very important) and the ends of the roofline (necessary for a proper sense of scale). I also plan ahead to see what I might be able to remove in post-production. If none of this is possible, I take the original photograph with structures in the way, and follow up with details of what is being blocked. Not ideal, I grant you; but sometimes this is all you can do. Time of day is also important. For situations like these, direct sun with the unwanted structures casting deep shadows and dramatically increasing the overall contrast can make this even more difficult.
Confidence and straight to the point way of teaching much appreciated!
Thanks for your note.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. I bought your book and I'm getting a lot of valuable info from it and all of the videos on your channel.
Thank you. I hope the book will help you in your work.
Thank you for this quick video, Steven! I've been shooting real estate photography for years and employ most of your rules. But, most of the time, I don't have any control over what time of day I have to shoot so that makes things challenging. I want to start attracting higher end, serious work so I'll be getting your book for sure.
On occasion, I am faced with the same problem: forced to photograph at times not to my choosing. In those instances, making a very wide bracket can save you. Having dark enough exposures for the sky so that you can layer those with lighter exposures for the building can help, especially if you are forced to shoot into the sun (try to control any halation due to flare). The new AI Generative Fill tools can also help with a bad sky. Control of the color temperature both in-camera and in post-production can compensate for flat, cool lighting if your elevations are not sunlit. Using the highlight dodge to add snap to a flat image can also help. Do these techniques work perfectly all the time? Alas, not. If you are on good terms with your client, do your best to convince them of the necessity to be photographing at what you know to be the correct time of day.
Wonderful teaching..❤ Subscribed
Thanks and welcome to our community.
Brilliant. The best architectural tuition. I shall buy the book. Thank you Mr, Brooke . Best wishes. Elizabeth
Thank you, Elizabeth. Please let me know of your progress.
This was good stuff, all points made are exceptional. Suprise to me, 1,2 and 5 are things I have been doing with similar photos "naturally". Especially 5 - I hate clutter. I use Fireworks and have shot 1000s of drag race photos and many time I clean junk out of the pictures. I've also used it a lot in may architecture photos.. Also 3 to some extent, but in those photos it has been more "right place, right time" rather than purposeful timing. #4 was the "buy that man's book" epiphany. I see SO MUCH of that distortion, especially in real estate sales photos. Make me crazy because you can see instantly how the sense of the space is completely lost, especially when you actually go to an open house that has featured photos with that distortion. So, I'll spend a bunch of time playing with that to see how to improve photos I take of buildings and spaces. Thanks for the good, concise and instructional video. Subscribed, and purchased.
Thank you for your note, Chris. And for subscribing and purchasing. I am certain that the book will help you with your work.
Excellent video. I must understand what lenses you incorporate in your photography.
I try to keep this as simple as I can. I have 24mm, 17mm, and 45mm perspective control lenses and a 24-105 zoom that I use for details and landscape. That's it.
Priceless 10 minutes. I'm in.
Thank you.
Me too !
Excellent tips Steven. I’m a little embarrassed to admit I don’t try and fix wide angle distortion in photoshop more often. I do try and avoid it in camera but I’ll have to try “de-stretching” images more often!
Colin. Surprising that even a 5% change can be enough to reduce that wide-angle curse.
Amazing content! Is there a physical edition of this book?
As I've mentioned, it would have been prohibitive to produce a 360-page book in print form. That said, we are working on a print edition this year. In the mean time, any/all parts of the book are printable.
at 7:00, you say the portrait image is heavily distorted and need to be corrected, showing the little image corrected at the bottem, but look at the pool how curvy it is and weird it looks after you "corrected" it...
Yes, there is some curvature which could (should) be further corrected. But it is far preferable to the wide-angle distortion without correction.
Hi Steven. Great channel. Great work and thank you for share your kownlage. I'v been working in photography almost for ever, now I'm retired. Architectural Photography were my favourite point. May I ask you a central question I allways made my self?
Taking care about verticals, why higher building use to looks "bobbleheads" . I mean the aspect wider on top than batton although verticals are exactly vertical to the edge of the image and allways you take the photo from positional low lebel. Did you see this point? You use to do some kind of correction?
Thank you for your kind and enlightening comment.
Hi, Daniel. If I understand your question correctly, you are referring to the "prowing" of the tops of tall buildings, even when using a perspective-control lens. This is an artifact of wide-angle lenses in general because of their pronounced curvature. When this happens I carefully make the correction using EDIT>TRANSFORM>WARP. One way to avoid this artifact is, if possible, to back up farther and use a tighter lens, like a 35 or 45. This will reduce that 'bobblehead' (LOL) look.
@@stevenbrookephotography Many thanks Steve. Yes I meant that. As you said before "back up farther a zoom it". This solution solves a lot of troubles. Than you for your intensive Guide, it's fantastic.
Thank you I'm learning allot from you. I'm a woodland photographer but I use 24mmPC,45mmPC and 85mmPC lenses. I not sure if I shall get a 19mmPC or just a 15mm Wide lens.
Thomas. Thanks for your note. If you are comfortable with your PC lenses and appreciate the compositional control you have with them, then, if you are thinking of a wider lens , I would consider a 17mm PC rather than a 15mm ultra-wide. The latter, without the convenience of shifting, would often give you excessive foreground you might not want and have to crop out, or force you make to post-production corrections of any verticals that appear in your landscapes.
@@stevenbrookephotography Nikon have a 19mmPC and not a 17mm lens, I think Canon have that. The lens is a little more expensive than the Zeiss Milvus 15mm lens, both use the 150mm filter system for ND grad filters. I have the 24mmPC lens but I use the 45mm PC lens the most, especially on Woodland and fine art Photo. I will try to take panorama with the PC lenses, shift 3 pictures, this year. If the 24mm is not wide enough then I will get the 19mm PC. Thank you for your input. I have looked on my old pictures and they need post production correction at 24mm. So I will use my PC lenses more.
how did you get rid of the pole in 7:39? even using generative fill on photoshop produces weird results
Brilliant work, as ever, but I'm stuck on the eye height suggestion. As a tripod user my camera height seems to be drifting upwards. Perhaps at some point you could expand on this.
Thanks for your note, Jeff. This is a very common issue, particularly for taller photographers. My approach is this:
WITHOUT MY TRIPOD AND CAMERA! I squat down much lower than I need to be. I slowly raise my eye height until I see just the separation of elements in the room that I want. Then, like tuning a string, I go a bit higher to know that what I just had was correct. Then I drop back down to the slightly lower position. Now, this is important: I line up two or three items as a guide. Then, I place my tripod and camera at this height, checking again to be sure that it hasn't "drifted" upward. I take a single shot to double check my position. (Starting at a higher position and slowly squatting down has never worked for me.) For exteriors, it's very tempting to just shoot at eye level; but, usually that's too high, especially when there are patterns or objects in the foreground that can easily be distorted with a wide-angle lens. My starting tripod/camera height for exteriors is rarely more than about 4 feet. I hope this helps.
@@stevenbrookephotography Great advice and thank you so much for taking the time to reply. On reflection, I think I've been proceeding in the reverse way - camera on tripod first, then find a location. Never again.
May I add a rule #6 - seek (a correct) sunlight if the building is of simple forms, and avoid sunlight if a building is complex, as shadows will make the mess of a final result.
Thank you for your note. But I disagree. Even with a complex building, in my experience I have found that there is always one exact time of day when correctly placed shadows contribute to the overall understanding of the building.
@@stevenbrookephotography If you can spend a whole day waiting for that moment, then yes. Unfortunately, I cannot, but then I am not a professional photographer.
As a professional architectural photographer, that is exactly what my clients expect me to do: anticipate and then capture that precise moment.
I loved your workflow and composition for Architecture, Can you give us a composition guide for shooting interior architecture photographs? as we tend to shoot 2 exterior max possible for property or hotel and the remaining is interior shoots. Hope this can shorten our learning curve like your memorizing your shape for the architecture video. All your videos are very informative and make us think as an artist who designs them.
This is a great question and I will address it soon. Thank you.
@@stevenbrookephotography Thank you 😊, waiting for your next video.
Thank you for your note. I will certainly consider a separate video on interior photography. I do cover interior photography extensively in my e-book, complete with very clear workflows for handling viewpoint, selecting time(s) of day, light control, focus planes, exposure considerations, arranging accessories. I think you would find the information to be of real value to you. You can access it here: stevenbrookephotography.com
Hopefully you have seen the video on Interiors.
@@stevenbrookephotography Thank you for keeping me in my mind. Definitely will check it now
You are as articulate as your highly defined shadows.
Thank you, Juan! Appreciated.
5:22 how did you shoot at a low camera height, while showing more of the sky while keeping the verticals straight?
That shot is impossible because if you shoot at a low camera height while keeping the verticals aligned, it will show more ground than sky
Not impossible at all. Perspective control lens will allow a low camera height while shifting the lens to include more sky than ground. Any additional unwanted foreground can be cropped out. This can also be done with an iPhone: low angle, wide view, correct verticals in post-production, crop out excess foreground.
@@stevenbrookephotography Thanks for the tip!
the verticals are parallel to the picture plane??? does this mean the lens axis is horizontal? a funny way of saying it. now what in the world does the horizontals parallel to the picture plane mean? if the picture plane is the plane of the image sensor (or film) then the only way to have that parallel to the horizontals is to point the lens straight up. please straighten this out. if you mean having the picture plane parallel to the front face of the building so it looks rectangular instead of trapazoidal (which may require moving left or right for framing) then say so.
Verticals of the building, in camera or post -production, parallel to the sides of the actual 2-dimensional image you are creating. Horizontals, in camera or post-production , parallel to the top and bottom of the 2-dimensional image you are creating. Got it?
Painters know what 3 point perspective is, hardly any photographers do. They "straighten" high rise building so that the upper floor is as wide as the lowest. Silly, because it makes the building look like it was getting wider at the top. Straightening (or shifting the lens) a bit is ok, but ending up with parallel sides is simply wrong.
With the camera dead level (NOT pointing upwards to create a 3rd perspective point), wide-angle shift lenses, shifted to their extreme, will often make the top of a building look like it’s splayed out, i.e., wider than the base. (This was true even back in the 4x5 film days.) That is an optical artifact; it is not how the building is actually constructed. The goal of architectural photography is to show, as much as possible, the actual proportion and shape of the architecture. To that end, any such optical artifacts should be corrected. If the sides of the building are parallel to each other -- which they most often are! -- they should be rendered as such. That said, pointing the camera up, creating a 3rd perspective point, is clearly a different compositional situation. Under these conditions, straightening the verticals to be parallel to each other will no doubt create something unnatural looking.
@@stevenbrookephotography Thanks for taking your time to reply. Very much appreciated!
You're very welcome. Perhaps photographing in 3-point perspective is a topic I should examine in depth for this channel. There are times when it's unavoidable; and there are proper ways to do it to maintain compositional integrity and order.
This is incredible information. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise and insights.