Architecture

Learning goal

You will be able to explain why a building's walls topple toward each other when you photograph it from below, and apply keeping verticals upright in architectural photography. You will see that converging verticals come from tilting the camera upward; you will try out how keeping the camera level and moving back, rising, or shooting with a wide angle and cropping the bottom prevents this tilt; you will know why you need to leave a correction margin at the edges if you are going to do a perspective correction in editing; you will read from a facade's orientation at what hour it gets light; and you will tell that sometimes converging the verticals on purpose is also a choice of expression. The lesson's close shows the track that focuses on buildings and interiors.

The question

The town's stone church has been used as a cultural center for years. Standing in front of it, you tilt the camera upward to fit the whole bell tower into the frame. On the screen the tower fits, but something is strange: the church's two side walls come closer to each other toward the top, and the whole building seems to lean backward, toward the sky. A building that really stands upright looks in the photo as if it is about to topple.

The same thing had happened a few days ago when you photographed the fish market's high ceiling. Why do buildings come out leaning? In this lesson we will talk about architectural photography's most familiar problem, where this problem comes from, and the ways of showing a building upright, as it really is.

Context

Buildings are patient subjects: they don't run away, they don't blink, they don't change their pose. The difficulty of architectural photography isn't in speed but in geometry. A building is made of straight lines, right angles and repeating shapes; the eye notices the smallest disturbance of this order right away. A leaning tree looks natural; a leaning wall, on the other hand, looks like a mistake.

On top of that, a building's atmosphere depends tightly on at what hour and at what angle the light strikes its facade. The same structure can look flat and lifeless in the morning, and textured and warm in the afternoon. This lesson takes up architectural photography's two basic questions, the straightness of the lines and the light on the facade; for those who want to go deeper, it also points to a separate track.

Simple explanation

Why do buildings topple?

Camera tilt is the camera being turned up or down instead of being held parallel to the ground. When you tilt the camera up, the sensor is no longer parallel to the building's facade: the bottom of the building stays closer to the camera, the top farther away. Because distant things look smaller, the top of the building looks narrower than its base, and vertical lines that are really parallel come closer to each other toward the top. This is called converging verticals; the eye perceives it as a building leaning backward.

It matters to know that this isn't a flaw of the lens; it is a result of perspective. A wide-angle lens exaggerates the effect, because with it you shoot close to the building and often tilting more; but the verticals converge in a telephoto frame taken with the same tilt too. As long as you keep the camera parallel to the ground, whichever lens you use, the verticals stay straight.

How are verticals kept straight?

The first way is keeping the camera level: turning on the level in the screen or viewfinder and setting the camera parallel to the ground. But this time the top of the building may spill out of the frame. There are a few ways to solve this: moving away from the building, shooting with a wider angle and later cropping the extra ground at the bottom of the frame, or going up to a place near half the building's height, for example shooting from the upper floor of a building opposite or from a slope. When you rise, you can see the whole building without tilting the camera.

Editing programs also offer perspective correction; this tool, which we saw in Lesson 7.2, makes converging verticals parallel again. But while doing this, the top of the image is widened and its edges are cropped. That is why you need to leave a correction margin when shooting, that is, extra space around the building, especially at the top corners, to be cropped; otherwise after the correction the tip of the tower or the edge of the facade gets cut off. The shift lenses we saw in Lesson 12.9, on the other hand, do this correction during shooting, without losing any of the image.

What do light and deliberate convergence add?

Façade orientation is the direction a building's front faces, and it decides at what hour of the day that facade will get sun. In the Northern Hemisphere, a facade facing east gets direct sun in the morning, and a facade facing west in the afternoon and late afternoon; a facade facing north, on the other hand, usually stays in shade and is lit by a soft, flat light. Stonework, reliefs and window ledges stand out with their shadows in light striking from the side. In the blue hour after the sun has set, when the building's interior lights come on, a balance can also be built between the sky and the facade.

Keeping verticals straight is architectural photography's established approach, but it isn't the only option. Photographing a tower right from its foot, deliberately and clearly looking up, makes the verticals meet at a point in the sky and can tell of the structure's height, its majesty, or a scale that overwhelms people. As in Lesson 14.9, here too the difference is in decisiveness: slightly converging verticals read like carelessness, strongly converging verticals like a choice.

Visual evidence

This time you go back to the church in the afternoon; its facade faces west and the sun now strikes the stones from the side. You go up to the terrace of the café opposite, to the second floor. Holding the camera parallel to the ground with the level, you shoot with a wide angle: the bell tower fully in the frame, a piece of sky above it, extra square paving below. The side walls are upright; the relief of the stones and the shadows of the window arches stand out. When you crop the extra ground at the bottom, the building stands as it really is.

Then you go down to the door. The cultural center's caretaker, a dark-skinned man in his sixties wearing a flat cap, sits in the shade of the arched door. You ask him for permission, and when he agrees to come into the frame you ask him to step forward to the door's threshold; the light coming from the west now falls on his face too. That way the difference between the sunny stone facade and his face shrinks; the stones stand without blowing out, and the caretaker's eyes and the lines on his face come out of the arch's shadow. The person gives scale too: the door's height reads at once against the man at its foot. Finally you move to the very foot of the tower and look up on purpose, taking one more frame that makes the verticals meet in the sky.

Common mistakes

Summary

When the camera is tilted up, the sensor stops being parallel to the facade, and because the building's distant top looks smaller, verticals that are really parallel come closer together; this is a result of perspective, not of the lens. Keeping the camera level with the level, moving back, rising, shooting wide and cropping the bottom, leaving a correction margin if you are going to do a perspective correction in editing, or using a shift lens keeps verticals straight; facade orientation, on the other hand, tells at what hour the building will get light. Strongly converging the verticals can be a deliberate choice of expression; a person who enters the frame, on the other hand, needs to be shown as more than a scale, on every skin, by first asking permission and bringing the light to their face.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will photograph the same building in different ways and see the behavior of the verticals with your own eye.

1. Photograph a fairly tall building near you from its foot, tilting the camera up.
2. Photograph the same building keeping the camera level with the level, with a wide angle and moving back if needed; crop the extra ground at the bottom.
3. Find the building's facade orientation and photograph it again at an hour when the sun strikes the facade from the side.
4. Photograph the same building once more right from its foot, deliberately and strongly looking up; put the three frames side by side.

Check yourself

• In the frame where you kept the camera level, are the verticals parallel?
• In light striking from the side, are the facade's details more distinct than in flat light?
• If a person entered your frame, does their face also look as carefully shown as the facade, and in their own skin color?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. What is the reason a building looks in the photo as if it is leaning backward?

• A) The lens being dirty
• B) Vertical lines coming closer together because the camera was tilted up
• C) The ISO being high
• D) The white balance being wrong

2. When you keep the camera level, the top of the building spills out of the frame. Which of these is not a solution?

• A) Moving back
• B) Shooting from the upper floor of a building opposite
• C) Tilting the camera up again
• D) Shooting with a wide angle and cropping the bottom

3. Why should you leave a correction margin when shooting if you are going to do a perspective correction in editing?

• A) Because the correction crops the image's edges
• B) To shrink the file size
• C) To protect the colors
• D) To increase sharpness

4. In the Northern Hemisphere, when does a facade facing west get the most direct sun?

• A) Early in the morning
• B) Never
• C) At midnight
• D) In the afternoon and late afternoon

Answers

1. B — With a tilted camera, the building's distant top shrinks and parallel verticals converge.
2. C — Tilting the camera recreates the problem; the other three ways keep the verticals straight.
3. A — Perspective correction widens the top and cuts the edges; without a margin, the building gets cropped.
4. D — As the sun lowers in the west, a facade facing west gets direct light.

Summary card

• Converging verticals: not a lens flaw, but the result of camera tilt.
• Keep the camera level: the level; move back, rise, shoot wide and crop.
• If you will correct in editing, leave a margin; a shift lens corrects without loss.
• Façade orientation tells the hour of the light; light from the side opens up detail.
• Strong convergence can be a deliberate choice; permission and light for the person in the frame.

Bridge to the next lesson

If you want to specialize in buildings and interiors, Track R8 · Architecture and Interiors moves through eight lessons, from perspective correction to the facade's hour, from detail to interior and real estate shoots, from balancing window light to permission and respect at historic and religious buildings. In the reading order, on the other hand, we open from a single building onto a whole journey. When you come back from places you have been, most of your photos turn out to be frames of the same monuments, from the same angles, that everyone who goes there takes. How do we get past tourist photos? The next lesson talks about travel photography, and telling about place, people and culture together.