Landscape and Architecture

In honor of “The Great Frederick Fair” coming to town this week, I thought it would be fun to blog something I could tie one of my favorite photos into…

Today’s post is about Landscape and Architectural photography. Have I admitted my artistic weakness yet? It’s time to come out and say it: I can’t shoot landscapes! I suppose I shouldn’t say “can’t” but this much is certain, it doesn’t come naturally to me the way working with people does. I think part of the problem I have with capturing landscapes comes down to this: I’m a night person. To get really great landscapes, you need golden hour light. Yes there are two opportunities for that each day, but if you’ve seen the fog lifting across a field on a December sunrise, you’ll probably agree that morning light is where it’s at for landscapes. (Though I like sunset colors for people images.)

So, if sunrises are out by choice, what’s that leave? Well, there’s always stormy days…

And nights! DC is a great place to shoot at night…

One of the beautiful things about shooting at night is balancing the ambient light with artifical lighting. The photo of the Washington monument was maid after sunset, but before all the blue had drained from the sky. You can also do neat time lapse photos at night with just a tripod and the M setting on your camera. During the day a 10 to 20 second exposure would simply blow out to white, but after dark you can capture those great taillight and headlight streaks.

Below are a couple of architectural interior shots I did for a commercial client in Frederick, MD. I lumped architecture with landscapes in this blog post because they have quite a lot in common…

Great architectural photography comes from composition, attention to detail (keeping vertical lines actually vertical is a big one), and lighting. Balancing ambient light and artificial light can make or break an architectural photo. Some of the best exterior architectural photos are done around the golden hour with all the lighting of the structure turned on. In the photos above, I used an HDR tone mapping technique combined with bracketing the exposure at image capture.

The lead-in shot for this blog entry is one that won 1st place in Frederick Magazine several years back and also 1st place in the Landscape and Architecture category of the Cumberland Valley Photo Salon. Fairs and amusement parks are great places to make photos! I love shooting even more when I can combine it with roller coasters and funnel cake  :) … The image at the left links to a lightbox of summertime stock images I have for sale on iStockphoto.

If you have any landscape tips, or know of great landscape locations around Frederick don’t be shy, share it in a comment!