Most of my Architecture photo’s start out as Black and white visions. My camera is set up to view black and white (JPEG taken in black and white, raw taken in color). I was taught to be good in black and white photography you need to visualize in black and white and the way to do that is see your photo’s in black and white in the camera after you take them. That is the short answer to why my camera is set up the way it is. I have also found that if I take a good exposed black and white photo my color photo’s come out so much better…anyway.
The original intention of when I saw this building was to shoot the interior from the outside. You know that lit interior through the outside glass thing. This has a really cool stairway inside and would make for what I think will be a good shot. But at this time of day the reflections where to strong to overcome. So the next best thing was to shoot the reflections in the windows. I walked up to the windows and looked up to take the shot. My usual shooting style is a long exposure but in this case I knew the security guard wouldn’t give me that long this close to the building so a few hand held shots was all time allotted for. This was all with the intention of a black and white finish.
Post processing had a different idea. Like I mentioned previously when I take my photo’s they show up in the view on the back of the camera in black and white so you really don’t know what they look like in color besides what you are looking at. When I got these back to the computer and started to work on this particular photo there was no doubt that color was going to be the way to go. Post processing was simple and relatively easy once I processed for the reflection. Sometimes you have a vision of what your photo is suppose to be and you see the finished product while shooting. But sometimes when it is all said and done…Color can rule the day.
Color rules the day
Most of my Architecture photo’s start out as Black and white visions. My camera is set up to view black and white (JPEG taken in black and white, raw taken in color). I was taught to be good in black and white photography you need to visualize in black and white and the way to do that is see your photo’s in black and white in the camera after you take them. That is the short answer to why my camera is set up the way it is. I have also found that if I take a good exposed black and white photo my color photo’s come out so much better…anyway.
The original intention of when I saw this building was to shoot the interior from the outside. You know that lit interior through the outside glass thing. This has a really cool stairway inside and would make for what I think will be a good shot. But at this time of day the reflections where to strong to overcome. So the next best thing was to shoot the reflections in the windows. I walked up to the windows and looked up to take the shot. My usual shooting style is a long exposure but in this case I knew the security guard wouldn’t give me that long this close to the building so a few hand held shots was all time allotted for. This was all with the intention of a black and white finish.
Post processing had a different idea. Like I mentioned previously when I take my photo’s they show up in the view on the back of the camera in black and white so you really don’t know what they look like in color besides what you are looking at. When I got these back to the computer and started to work on this particular photo there was no doubt that color was going to be the way to go. Post processing was simple and relatively easy once I processed for the reflection. Sometimes you have a vision of what your photo is suppose to be and you see the finished product while shooting. But sometimes when it is all said and done…Color can rule the day.
Great post, Tony. Sometimes you can have one look in mind and then go a different direction once you get into the darkroom. The photo speaks, if we listen.