Archive for the ‘Architecture’ Category
I went on a downtown field trip with my Art History class last semester. It’s a good thing we didn’t do anything that charged admission because 4-hour parking managed to rack up a healthy $20 charge… but I made the most of it and used the opportunity to scout locations for a 4×5 project in another class.
It's a maze in there. Later that week I took the 4×5 to shoot a similar angle. I got what I needed but got so lost in there the only exit I could find was on the opposite side of the building.
We met in the lobby of the Bradbury Building and it didn’t take long to realize why it was worth visiting! It’s been used in TONS of films over the years and, inspired by the recent scene in The Artist, I set to work on combining the set I’d taken.
The stacked stairs at the far end of the atrium should look familiar. You can't shoot something in this building and not include them: Los Angeles CA
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, Andrew, Architecture, Indoor, Los Angeles, Non-HDR | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
Before Tucker and Giacomo came to visit LA a few weeks back, my family embarked on a classic road trip to get me and my car back across the country for the fall semester. As such, we saw it fit to stop by a few places “on the way” from Atlanta to LA: Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, and Las Vegas. Needless to say, Vegas was the only one of these stops that was even close to being “on the way.” I’d like to eventually make my way back up to Vegas when I get a chance, most of what I was shooting while we were there was a spur of the moment, “I wonder what this’ll look like” kind of deal. Now that I’ve got a better sense of the area, I feel like I would be able to get some better material with a more planned out return trip.
As it happens, there are some casinos in the town. And these casinos tend to go… overboard in the theming department. One of the most impressively themed properties I wandered around was The Venetian, complete with functional canals (outdoor and indoor), St. Marks-esque plazas and archways, and generally awesome Italian Renaissance imagery. A long time ago, I saw this image over at stuckincustoms and was stunned that a hotel lobby could ever be so ludicrous. Naturally I decided to take a crack at the same shot, albeit with a tighter framing to cut back on the Footceiling effect that wide angle images usually suffer from (in which the photographer’s feet and the room’s ceiling are able to simultaneously squeeze into frame). In all seriousness though, I am very pleased with how this turned out. The white balance certainly took some after-the-fact loving to coax it back into normalcy but hey, that’s why you shoot in RAW. In the spirit of Las Vegas showmanship and general extravagance, I let this one sit on the tone mapping burner a little longer than normal. It’s a jaw dropping room to experience firsthand and I’d prefer to remember it as the crazy, colorful, and extravagantly themed surprise that my mind first encountered.
This entrance atrium is circular and (as evidenced by the stuckincustoms image) is therefore very susceptible to glaring lens distortion that can make some of the room’s upper arches look twice as big as others despite their being the same size. Actually, it’s probably better that I don’t shoot on a full frame body right now because my 16-35mm is never truly any wider than 26mm, lessening that disconcerting distortion while making me put a little more consideration into composition. Super wide angle (true 14mm or thereabouts) naturally draws an initial “wow” reaction because it’s so shockingly wide… but if you’re not careful it can turn into a shallow “wow” crutch for an otherwise unremarkable shot, giving you an freshly distorted but still unremarkable shot. Just my two cents.
At any rate, there’s PLENTY more to come from the Yellowstone/Tetons/Vegas/Disneyland cornucopia — And that’s just me! I left 90% of the Yosemite stuff to Tucker and Giacomo so there’s lots more goodies around the corner…
Great hotel, great lobby. Unfortunately, the canals were drained and the gondolas were being serviced while we were there… an excuse to go back some other time: Las Vegas, NV
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 7D, Andrew, Architecture, Indoor, Las Vegas | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
I recently got back from two weeks in Maine, but it was not nearly as fruitful photography-wise as my previous trips have been. This is mostly because I’ve all but exhausted the nearby locations, and we live very much in the middle of nowhere up there, so to get anywhere else you need a car, and I’d have to be 25 to drive the rental car…. so I end up kayaking, reading, and generally enjoying getting away from the city. That’s not to say that I didn’t shoot at all, however. A few years ago we built a little website for the house so we could advertise it in various places for people to rent during the summer. It’s been successful, but the images were outdated and featured furniture (or the lack thereof) that has since been changed or added. Because of this, my mom asked if I’d be willing to reshoot the house but in HDR and I was of course more than happy to oblige. Making ANYTHING look accurate with the 16-35, especially architecture, is an exercise in patience and compromise, but the final shots were pretty fun. Here’s just a few of my favorites. I have one or two other unrelated HDRs from Maine that I’ll post soon, but I don’t want to overload one post with pictures so I’ll save them for after the other two post (because I KNOW they each have things to get up here…!)
The second of the two upstairs bedrooms.
The dining room table, which up until recently was literally a picnic table that the builders made for us after construction finished.
A view down the house longways. It is honestly my favorite place on earth.
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 5D Mark II, Architecture, Indoor, Maine, Tucker | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
Well I’m almost set to head down to New Zealand for a semester abroad! Amidst the packing and preparations I’ve realized that between school in California and only a handful of brief visits home, I haven’t really done much in terms of shooting in Atlanta. So, this week I went out and did my best to put together some material that would stand as THE Atlanta shot or shots when I think of work from home. The result is a 2-for-1 post!
The first image is a bit cliche with the long-exposure highway blur but the more I thought about it the more I realized “I’ve never actually done one of those before…” This image is also available in the Desktops section of our site if you feel so inclined.
The fast moving red blurs on the right side of the southbound lanes quickly becoming individually discernible cars tell a pretty truthful story about Atlanta traffic on the Downtown Connector: Atlanta, GA
And the second is from about 50 stories up in an office building at sunrise. I’m looking North here, so the light from the East was just beginning to hit the right sides of these buildings. Eventually I think I want to try this building again, there may be a better place on the floor to try this from. Actually, by the time I get a chance to try this again, the sun will be rising in a slightly different place — which might turn out to be better anyways!
To address the large building dominating the left side of the frame, I actually wanted this to come off as being taken from a building, not as some helicopter aerial view. Besides, the large interesting buildings only really extend to the North from here so there isn't much to see on the other side of the foreground building anyways: Atlanta, GA
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 7D, Andrew, Architecture, Atlanta, Handheld HDR, Night, Outdoor | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
This shot was really tough. I still have many problems with it, but the main reason I am posting it is so I can discuss them here, as many photographers run into these problems a lot (especially those trying to shoot architecture accurately, or really anything with an ultra-wide angle lens). Many things were going through my head as I stared at the LCD screen on the back of my camera. Ever since I was exposed to the work of architecture photographer Julius Schulman (some would argue that he is THE expert in this area) I find it nearly impossible to compose a shot in which all parallel lines are not, well, parallel. This was the first and foremost thought in my head as I was trying to get this shot just right. I knew I needed the side of the building on the left, for example, to be completely parallel with the side of the frame, which limited the amount of the sailboats that could be included and I was forced to cut off the tops of the masts. Already making some sacrifices, but honestly it would have looked worse to have a distorted building popping out of the corner rather than something that is at least somewhat perspectivally accurate. Since the masts were parallel with the side of the building, I knew that the verticals in the image would all line up nicely with the sides of the frame. By doing this however, I created another problem for myself: My image was not anywhere close to the traditional “rule of thirds,” which states that a good composition, landscapes in particular, will have some combination of 1/3 sky and 2/3 foreground, or vice versa. Putting the horizon smack in the middle of the frame is usually regarded as a visual no-no, but here I can almost get away with it because of the amount that is going on in the foreground, and the fact that the foreground objects, the boats, interact with the sky because of the tall masts. I still think there’s a bit too much foreground, but if I’d tilted the camera up a bit to capture more sky, I would have immediately turned all of my nice verticals into distorted diagonals. It would have been nice to get more of the building on the left (which is in fact a cool old abandoned boathouse that partially burned down) but if I’d moved the frame a bit that way, I would have lost the back of the rightmost boat that reads “Boothbay, Maine” which I love because it is an identifier, and it would have cut into the sunset reflecting off the puddle. All in all, I had to continuously adjust the frame both in camera and in Photoshop to get it the best I could, but there’s a lot to be wanted.
I’ll give you an example of what I mean by “distorted verticals” or lines that should be parallel but are not due to the use of a wide-angle lens and the framing chosen by the photographer. Don’t get me wrong, I love Trey Ratcliff and the work he does, but pictures like this make me wonder if all that distortion could have been avoided. Looking back on my work from even 6 months ago there are definite instances where I chose to do similar things, and I still sometimes have to, but these days I really try my best to avoid it. I also don’t like it when verticals, especially walls and doors, are cut off, as he does in the corners of this shot… Again, love the guy and he’s an inspiration to the three of us and tons of other HDR photographers, it’s just interesting to compare my way of looking at things to his, and realize that there’s more to work on in both cases. Maybe if he would just switch to Canon… 
This is another one of those "well, it's 4:00pm, better get shooting before the sun sets… in 15 minutes…"
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 5D Mark II, Architecture, Landscape, Maine, Nature, Outdoor, Sunset, Tucker | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
As I investigate the issue I’m currently having with Photomatix 4 I am left with little option but to whip out the old 3.1 in order to continue processing. The New Years trip to Orlando brought with it a TON of fun stuff to shoot and manipulate and it’s going to be showing up gradually on the site. Naturally, DisneyWorld was a must but the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure was also on our to-do list. It is an incredible recreation of exactly what it claims: it’s a veritable WORLD of wizard- and magic-related items from the books and has such attention to detail that you’d swear you were actually inside the book. The area comprises about a dozen shops named after their literary counterparts including Ollivander’s Wands and the Three Broomsticks, but the real piece of art is the castle. The ride it houses is a nausea-inducing motion simulator that takes you through most of the Harry Potter canon as you ride aboard an enchanted piece of levitating furniture. Amazing accomplishment, a requirement if you call yourself a true Harry Potter aficionado.
The sign advertises a 10-minute wait, made possible by the lack of crowds on New Year's Day thanks to the three bowl games being played in the neighboring areas of Florida: Orlando, FL
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 7D, Andrew, Andrew's Favorites, Architecture, Night, Orlando, Outdoor | 1 Comment »
I feel like there has been a severe lack of posts recently. The problem is that this is busy season for schoolwork and outside projects and as everyone winds their way towards a well deserved Thanksgiving break, any extra chunk of spare time you find often ends up turning into a nap. Nothing wrong with that of course, unless you’re supposed to be contributing to a photo blog on a regular basis. Regardless, on an afternoon not too long ago I decided that in my two hours before my last class before break I would steal up onto the roof of a building and see what I could see from there. It rained just a few days ago so I knew the sky would be uncharacteristically clear-ish… fortunately, the stars aligned and there were also some interesting clouds hanging in the background. This never happens. I was more than happy to record a copy for myself. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Downtown from the direction of campus, about 150 feet up: Los Angeles CA
Posted in 24-105mm f/4L IS, 7D, Andrew, Andrew's Favorites, Architecture, Handheld HDR, Landscape, Los Angeles, Outdoor, Sunset | 1 Comment »
I know, I know, I haven’t posted in forever… a confluence of having nothing new and no time has led to this… but I once again went back in time, to an age when RAW was a little-understood setting in the camera and chose another shot from London to post. The Hampton Court Palace and surrounding gardens was home to many figures of British royalty, most notably King Henry VIII. He expanded the palace and added some ridiculously awesome gardens including mazes, fountains, lakes, you name it… I wish I could go back there, with the 5D Mark II, a tripod, and those same clouds and shoot this again! The image quality out of the 300D is laughably poor but the single-shot HDR capability of Photomatix 4 is (and I’ll say it again) just out of this world and makes this a picture worth posting. Unlike Trey Ratcliff’s most recent completely out of focus portrait. Um anyway. Trey’s work is usually great; no idea what he thought he was doing with that one.
I have a few more shots will post, one or two from Maine, one of the stormy cloudy Atlanta skyline, and some macro stuff. The bulk of my new material will start flooding in during and after my trip to Hawaii in late December. I am heading off to Ohio soon for my grandmothers funeral, so while the circumstances are not pleasant, I will definitely bring my camera and see what happens, see if I can’t make something good out of a sad situation. I’ll be in Maine for Thanksgiving, but I don’t have high hopes for that either because snow turns really nastily grey in most shots unless you get the light just right… but who knows. It’s always better to have the camera with you than to have that feeling of “oh, man, this is totally awesome… why is my camera at home??”
All of that awesome noise, chromatic aberration, and un-sharpness makes me appreciate technological advancement and love my 5D even more. Still, great clouds are great clouds!
I thought I’d straightened this in Photoshop, but it appears tilted here. Oh well. I don’t really have the desire to fix it…. even though it is distracting…. ugh
Posted in Architecture, Nature, Outdoor, Single-Shot, Tucker | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
True to my word, here is a shot from earlier in the day before anyone else had arrived. A bizarre but strangely amazing exhibit,”Urban Lights” is the iconic arrangement of restored antique street lamps that serves as the main entrance into LACMA. It’s fairly surreal to stand in the middle of them and look up, especially once they are all lit at nighttime…
LACMA is on Wilshire a couple miles NW of the La Brea exit off the 10. Check it out sometime: Los Angeles CA
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 7D, Andrew, Architecture, Handheld HDR, Los Angeles, Outdoor | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
A whirlwind weekend for sure with two back to back days of hectic, last minute night shoots. Sony officially announced their new F3 camera on Monday morning and had tasked a small group at school with putting together a test/promo piece over the weekend to show it off. It’s really an amazing piece of work, opting to do 1080p very well instead of trying to play the resolution game and reach 2k or 4k levels. The sensor size is almost the size of a physical frame of 35mm film and the body is intended to be used with legitimate PL mount cinema lenses, essentially Sony’s attempt at making an affordable offering for indie productions looking for 35mm caliber images who don’t actually want to shoot on film. Very pretty picture for sure. Regardless, our story for the promo involved two young people frolicking amongst the Urban Lights exhibit at the LA County Museum of Art. In between setups, our two actors were kind enough to return to their spots so I could try and come away with my own bit of imagery for the evening. I have said on previous occasion that I love getting to take HDRs when the subject matter has been intentionally lit… it’s not often but the results are amazingly satisfying. More images from LACMA to come later in the week but I couldn’t wait to start working on this one as soon as I got back home earlier tonight…
All those in favor, say aye… Los Angeles CA
Posted in 24-105mm f/4L IS, 7D, Andrew, Architecture, Handheld HDR, Los Angeles, Night, Outdoor | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
A while back I posted some of the HDRs that I took of designer Rick Jones’ work. Those shots were of work he had done for clients, and he is truly able to visualize exactly what should go in a space in order to make it magical and transform it into a place in which you really just want to stay. He has done the same thing with his own home, and I posted some interior shots of his bathroom and kitchen before, and as the final part to this project he has asked me to photograph his back patio, yard, and shed, along with the steps on the front of the house. I’m nowhere near done with the processing as it takes an hour or so per photo, as many of you who have tried HDR and really put your heart into it know, but here’s a shot that I really liked to the point where I finished it up first, before starting from the beginning of the shoot! There is just so much going on here, from all of the different natural textures of the trees, plants, and stones, to the shifting colors in the sky, and the great pre-sunset light setting the foliage on fire. What a fairyland!
Time stops for a bit as you enjoy life outside in Rick Jones' beautiful backyard.
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 5D Mark II, Architecture, Atlanta, Nature, Outdoor, Tucker | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
I’ve been here a couple times now and I think I just made up my mind… it’s my favorite place to eat in LA. I haven’t been very many places of course, but Tart is easily my favorite. They’re famous for their amazing outdoor atmosphere on their back patio and of course their food is exceptional as well — make sure to stop by Restaurant.com to check for coupons, they usually have them. We lived within walking distance of Tart over the summer and I happened to have my camera with me when we came over here one night. This is a questionable final product. Typically, I really love the “unghosting” process incurred when moving objects make blurry, indistinct objects in the final composite. But for a place like this, I didn’t really have to do much with the colors to get it to turn out like this… the place really is this gorgeous out on the patio. Because the HDR process exaggerates this a little, it’s nearly impossible to do a straight-faced image of Tart… the patio atmosphere just makes it such a fun place to eat. So, in the spirit of keeping Tart’s outdoor patio lively and full of action, I am leaving Karl and Krishen to be free to move around and enjoy the evening as they may see fit. Hopefully we can head back over there sometime soon.
I am allowing myself a ghosting exception in the spirit of Tart's vivacious atmosphere… Los Angeles CA
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 7D, Andrew, Architecture, Los Angeles, Night, Outdoor | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
I can’t stop raving about how awesome Photomatix 4 is with making HDR images out of single RAW files! It’s nearly magical, and no, this won’t be the last time you hear me (or any of us for that matter) say this. I’ve had a lot of fun digging through my photo library looking for some RAWs that deserve processing, and I remembered that on my trip to DC a few summers ago we had some great clouds as we visited the World War II memorial, on our way to the Lincoln Memorial. Yes, these shots fall under the category of “generic tourist shot made to look cool because of HDR” but that’s kinda the point. The HDR process turned a “boring” photo into something post-worthy, and I like that there is a new variable here beyond simply finding a good subject to photograph that can determine the quality of the photo. In this case, HDR was actually essential to these shots even being considered usable, and I’ve included links to the original RAW files (compressed, of course, but color-accurate) so you can see what I mean. They were poorly exposed to begin with.
I can't believe how much definition in the trees came through after the HDR process!
 There is almost no definition in the trees! |
 Before the HDR process. |
I rarely comment on issues of composition beyond the occasional note, but in the image below a lot of things are coming together to make this work. Obviously, symmetry is huge. 4 pillars on each side, opposing groves of trees, equal parts foreground and background, horizontal bands of clouds mirroring horizontal swaths of grass and pavement. All of the orthogonal lines converge on the single point on the horizon, the Memorial itself, but more prevalent is the layers of horizontal elements that recede back, the alternating grass and pavement, and bands of dark and light clouds. All of this is stark and obvious in the black and white; it is muted and becomes lost in the original color version.
The picture comes alive in black and white.
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 40D, Architecture, Handheld HDR, Outdoor, Single-Shot, Tucker, Washington DC | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
See what I did there? The pun in the title? Yeah, I thought you would be laughing. umm so anyway… I’ve been wanting to get an HDR of the exterior of the High Museum, where I’ve been spending a good portion of my time lately as an intern. Unfortunately the weather has been really nice, not too hot (which is good) but no rain, so the skies have not been that interesting… I dug back to the beginning of the summer, when Giacomo and I went there for the Allure of the Automobile exhibit and remembered that I’d taken a few exterior shots as we left. I picked out a bracket and processed it today, and it came out alright. I’d love to get a stormy-dramatic one, of course, but this is a more accurate representation of the place anyway, albeit aided by a circular polarizer. Also, I’ve recently gotten an iPhone 4 and have been messing around with its HDR capabilities. I have found a few things: 1) it works great outside, and looks awful in almost any indoor environment, 2) it only takes 2 shots, one dark, and one light, and merges them, and 3) it’s not the same as doing it with a true SLR camera. The third may seem obvious, but the images that the iPhone takes with HDR on really just look “better” than the original, not “different, weird, cool, and trippy” like HDRs from Photomatix tend to, and they don’t have the characteristic “glow,” increased saturation, or increased contrast. The iPhone HDRs look like the original with maybe 1 stop more dynamic range in each direction, causing me to think of it really as EDR or Extended Dynamic Range… but still, it’s a fun thing to be able to experiment with. I plan on attempting to actually take a decent picture with it and upload it here, but I’ve just been using it to see what it’s like and haven’t shot anything worth posting. Yesterday I was lucky enough to be asked to go to the uncrating of the Jeff Koons mustache that he made specifically for the Dalí exhibit at the High, and I got to watch them take the huge cast-iron thing out of the box and set up the chains and hang it. All in all it took them almost 6 hours to do… they are very meticulous! Unfortunately, due to a bunch of different reasons that mostly involve artist rights, I can’t post any of the shots I took there, but if you’re in Atlanta the Dalí exhibit and the accompanying mustache are not to be missed.
The original building, seen here, was designed by Richard Meyer and completed in 1995. The addition, peeking out to the left, was done by Renzo Piano and completed in 2005.
Posted in 16-35mm f/2.8L, 5D Mark II, Architecture, Atlanta, Outdoor, Tucker | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
Although I took all kinds of pictures of and around the Piazza del Campo, the one I always wanted to take would have been impossible to get to: a shot down on the nightlife of the city from on top of the building directly across from the tower, and with a wide enough lens to capture the people and the tower in the shot. Oh I know, I should have just brought Tucker along and had him shoot it with his camera and lens–now I have an excuse to go back and bring him along. While I was there, I couldn’t resist taking the picture that 100s of other tourists did. The large west entrance has a great view of the whole piazza and the Torre del Mangia, and as you walk down, you can’t help but stop and stare, as I did, even the 100th time I walked through. To take this picture I had to wait a while for exactly that reason; to try to minimize the number of people in the foreground taking pictures and staring at the impressive view of the tower looming over the piazza. Turns out I got pretty lucky.
The iconic view from the west of the Torre del Mangia on the Piazza del Campo in Siena, Italy
Posted in 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6, 50D, Architecture, Giacomo, Giacomo's Favorites, Handheld HDR, Italy, Outdoor | Like our work? Be the first to comment! »
The Beltline - A New Perspective on Atlanta
TAG is One Year Old!
Fall in Williamstown!