What is exterior photography?
Exterior photography is the photography of architectural buildings and all exteriors. Exterior photography can be photographing company buildings, famous bridges, and new builds from building developers.
How do you photograph building exteriors?
This is one type of photography where you have very little control over the weather conditions, It is always wise to keep checking weather forecasts and have a contingency plan, should the weather not be good on the day of the shoot. Another very important factor to consider with exterior photography is the time of the day as you want to show the building in its best light, this may be very specific, depending on the exterior you plan to shoot.
When planning your architectural photography it is essential to ascertain natural light, for example, you may find that the exterior may look better in soft hazy sun, which will give soft shadows, but the light still has some direction, or maybe full sun shining across the front of the exterior to give really strong shadows which can look very dramatic. I normally look on Google Earth when planning architectural photography as you need to know what direction the building is facing, which will give you a good indication of the best time of day to shoot.
What camera angle is used in exterior photography?
Exterior photography normally requires a wide-angle lens especially if it’s a large building, as it can otherwise be difficult to get far enough away from the building and background without any obstructions to get the whole building in.
What is abstract architectural photography?
Abstract exterior photography is very popular with many modern buildings, where it is possible to create interesting photos by shooting sections and special features of the building at different angles which can make an interesting composition.
What are the trends in exterior Photography?
Nowadays, drones are being used more and more in Exterior photography as they give you a
birdseye viewpoint which is very popular. You have more control over exterior photography and fewer obstacles.
How can you make a boring building look more interesting?
Exterior photography is always challenging when you have to photograph a building that is fairly unattractive. In my many years of experience with exterior photography, I have found that is best to photograph the building just before dusk. External photography can look stunning using the building’s interior and exterior lights, plus this is the time of day when the streetlights come on.
I normally use a tripod with exterior photography for stability and take a range of shots as it gets darker, to get a range of different looks.
If it’s a dull overcast day on the day of your exterior photography, you will find that the sky gets darker, therefore,
you have to increase the exposure time, as you tend to find that the sky goes blue due to the long exposure.
This exterior photography hack intensifies the building image with the warmth of the lights inside and around the building. The correct lighting and time of day can make an interesting and attractive exterior photography.
What can you do if the weather is just really dull?
The weather does play an important role in architectural photography. If you have no option other than to shoot in dull grey conditions, there are post-production hacks you can apply with Photoshop. You will probably find that your exterior photography ends up with a rather unflattering dull shot that has a blank white sky. Architectural photography images can be dramatically improved by replacing that blank white sky, with a sky that has clouds and patches of blue in it.
I have a comprehensive library of interesting skies images, which are a valuable tool when I do an exterior photography shoot. In post-editing I will use if the cloudy parts of the sky have some definition, this will add texture. You can’t just drop a blue sky in as you have no shadows on the building so would not look realistic.
Another tip when post editing exterior photography is to play around with the contrast and saturation of the building itself, with a view to brightening the image up slightly.
What retouching is required in architectural photography?
One of the main difficulties with architectural photography are to make sure all the verticals in the shot are vertical and not converging, this happens when you tilt the camera off level although this is sometimes difficult to avoid You will be able to correct this to a certain extent with the camera itself, especially when using a wide angle lenses, especially when you tilt the camera up to get the top of the building.
In the past, many architectural photographers used technical cameras where the lens and film plane could be moved independently of each other,
nowadays this can usually be corrected on Photoshop. It is advisable to make sure there is plenty of room around the top of the building in the shot, as this part will be expanded to remove the distortion.
Another valuable factor to consider when undergoing exterior photography is bear in mind if there is heavy traffic outside the building. I recommend to put the camera on a heavy tripod and take a series of shots with the traffic in different positions,because the camera is stable you should be able to piece together an empty road from the shots with the gaps between vehicles.
