Architectural Photography – The Complete Guide
Architecture is an excellent area of photography to explore - it’s easily accessible, you can practice your photography skills and its great fun to do! This blog is a complete guide to architectural photography where you’ll learn all the tips and tricks needed to create perfect photos of architecture together with some great examples and famous photographers to study.
Plus, we will be putting our money where our mouth is by putting it all into practice in the beautiful city of London.
NB: Below are some affiliate links and TSOP will receive a small percentage of some purchases made.
What is ‘Architectural Photography’?
Architectural Photography simply means photography that focuses on buildings. It can include building exteriors and interiors, as well as other structures and serves as an accurate record of a building, both its design and contents.
Architectural photography emerged in the late 19th century alongside the development of more portable and affordable cameras and was used for documentary purposes to record historical buildings and archaeological sites.
William Henry Fox Talbot, Nelson's Column under Construction, Trafalgar Square
WIlliam Henry Fox Talbot, The Sir Walter Scott Monument under construction.
Architects and builders also began to use this photography to promote their work and attract clients.
As time went on, the advancements of modern technology, such as colour film, faster lenses and flash all made it easier to capture architectural subjects in a variety of lighting conditions.
Learn to control exposure in a variety of lighting conditions here.
Theoretical movements and trends such as Brutalism and Modernity, which incorporate clean lines, functional design, and geometric forms in their design, have provided a rich subject matter for architecture photographers.
Ilnur Kalimullin on Unsplash. Brutalist architecture trends are a popular subject for architectural photographers.
Famous Architectural Photographers
When learning about architectural photography it is good to study the masters. When doing so, look particularly at the way they frame and compose their buildings. This may provide inspiration for your next shoot!
Here's some iconic architectural photographers and their photography that we recommend looking at:
Frederick H Evans
©Frederick H Evans
©Frederick H Evans
Ezra Stoller
©Ezra Stoller
©Ezra Stoller
Julius Shulman
©Julius Shulman
©Julius Shulman
Mitsuru Sakurai
©Mitsuru Sakurai, Base Point 1
©Mitsuru Sakurai, Base Point 2
©Mitsuru Sakurai, Base Point 3
Best Camera Equipment for Architectural Photography
Wide Angle Lens - It’s a good idea to use what’s called an ultra-wide-angle lens. On a full-frame camera, this will be a focal length of 16-24mm, on a crop sensor camera it will be 11- 17mm and on a micro 4:3 camera it will be a focal length of 8-12mm.
To learn more about lenses and focal lengths click here.
Tripod - You will need a good sturdy tripod to take the weight of your camera. Avoid using cheap flimsy tripods as these could cause your camera to move in the wind or make your set-up top-heavy.
Digital SLR camera or Mirrorless camera with manual setting - As a beginner in photography, you need to learn properly from the start. You will need a camera that works fully manual. A good camera to use would be a DSLR or mirrorless camera.
To learn how to use your camera in fully manual mode click here.
Canon RF 100 - entry level mirrorless camera body. You can find out more about these cameras here.
Canon RF 14-35mm Ultra Wide Angle Lens. Find out more about RF lenses on Wex.
Manfrotto Tripod. Looking to buy? Find out more on Wex.
Settings for Architectural Photography
As with most genres of photography there isn’t a go to setting as it will depend on the subject you photograph and the conditions you photograph in. However, there are some generalisations that will get you started:
ISO 100 to 400 - For architectural photography, it’s best to keep your ISO as low as possible – that way you’ll get the most crisp and clean details in your images.
f/11 to f/16 - A smaller aperture will give you a longer depth of field. This will keep everything sharp from the foreground to the background and help you capture the finer details in the architecture
Prioritise getting a wide focal length and a low ISO for your architectural photography.
Shutter speed varied – Due to having a small aperture and low ISO you may need to use quite long exposures. Because of this it’s best practice to bring along a sturdy tripod so you don’t end up with camera shake. If nothing is moving in the scene (being buildings, they generally don’t) then you can use longer shutter speeds to balance out the exposure.
Choosing Locations for Architectural Photography
Research your city
When choosing what to photograph for your own architectural photography, do your research and get to know a bit more about the building you’re photographing. When is it at it’s busiest? What does it look like in different weather and lighting conditions? Are there any specific stand-out design elements built into the architecture? What is the building used for? Etc.
In our video example above, I am photographing architecture in the beautiful city of London. You should also be able to find good architecture in any city across the world. Examples of buildings or structures that grab attention are government buildings, business districts, museums, historic landmarks and those tourist hotspots of famous places.
Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash.
Interiors
Capturing the interior of a building is also architectural photography and can create really effective imagery. Remember, architects don’t just design the outsides of their buildings! Capturing the interior is a great way of capturing the story of the building – how is it used and how do people move around it? Are there striking design elements within the design of the floors, ceilings, pillars etc? See if there are specific design choices that are used to direct the flow of traffic within thew building and notice the way that an interior is lit or structured.
Christian Wiediger on Unsplash.
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Composition in Architecture Photography
The most recognizable aspect of architectural photography is the way in which photographers can almost anthropomorphise buildings within their images. Use framing and composition techniques to make a building look inviting, imposing or sleek.
One of the fundamentals of good architecture photography is good composition. Get this right and the rest should slot into place.
Learn about composition in photography here.
For example, shooting architecture from the front as opposed to the side will give a very different feeling to an image – take this into consideration when setting up the composition of your shot. You can employ compositional rules to add an extra layer to the image and force the viewer’s eye around the image in the way you want.
Wanja Njama on Unsplash.
Leading Lines: Lines in a photo that draw the viewer’s eye toward a particular area, usually leading to the main subject or vanishing point. Leading lines can emphasize the height, symmetry, or depth of a building. In architecture, they often come from features like hallways, columns, railings, or even pathways outside a building.
Leading Lines Photography - Increase your Creative Skills - Instantly!
Scott Webb on Unsplash.
Symmetry and Bisecting Lines are lines that split the frame or image into two distinct sections, often right down the middle, horizontally or vertically. Bisecting lines highlight symmetry and contrast in architecture, usually creating balance. A bisecting line might run down the centre in a shot with a building’s facade, showcasing a symmetrical structure or contrasting textures on each side.
Symmetry in Photography – Killer Tips to Improve Composition
Atefe Pirzade on Unsplash.
1-Point Perspective: A technique that emphasises a single vanishing point on the horizon line, creating a sense of depth and dimension and is often used to create strong, symmetrical compositions.
Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash.
2-Point Perspective: A perspective technique where lines converge toward two different vanishing points, typically near the edges of the frame. This perspective is useful for corner shots of buildings or structures at an angle. It’s effective when showing two facades of a building or for capturing depth and dimensionality in complex architectural forms.
You can find out more about compositional rules in our beginner’s course here.
Pierre Chatel Innocenti on Unsplash.
Vantage Points
Sometimes street level isn’t always the best vantage point for the shot that will capture the building at its best – you can try shooting from multi-story car parks, rooftops, hilltops and out of the windows of tall buildings. Providing there aren’t any legal restrictions within the area that you’re shooting, you can even use a drone to get the shot you want!
Dealing With Distortion
To avoid distortion in your architectural photography, you first want to make sure your camera is level and perpendicular to the building.
Due to the nature of a wide-angle lens, you may end up with distortion in your image. You can tell this is happening when the lines of your buildings aren’t straight and have a slight curve to them.
There are a couple of ways you can remedy this: realigning in Photoshop or using a tilt-shift lens. Solving the distortion problem is the best part about using a tilt-shift lens in your architectural photography. Tilt-shift lenses work by tilting the lens relative to the camera body, which lets you control the plane of focus and ultimately stops buildings from looking like they’re leaning backwards!
Tick ‘Enable Lens Profile Corrections’ in Lightroom to adjust distortion.
If you don’t want to spend money on a tilt-shift just yet, depending on your composition, you may be able to adjust some of the distortion using the Lens Corrections features in Lightroom and Photoshop.
Post-processing
Lastly, you will need to do some post-processing on your images. This could be as simple as cropping and adding contrast using a phone or free PC apps. Or, if you want a more professional look, you will need to take the pictures in RAW format and use post-processing programs like Lightroom or Photoshop.
It might be more of an expense using paid software to edit your photography but believe me it will pay dividends in the end!
You can easily edit your architectural images to make them look striking in software like Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop.
HDR
High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography is a technique that allows you to capture a wide range of tone, colour and detail in your photos and is commonly used in architectural photography. HDR images are visually striking and bring out the full beauty of a scene. And in a contrasty scene it will help get correct exposures every time.
Make your architectural photography even more striking by using HDR.
Examples of Architecture Photography
f22 ISO 100, 20 Second Exposure, Focal Length 16mm
f11 ISO 400, 2 Second Exposure, Focal Length 19mm
f11 ISO 100, 8 Second Exposure, Focal Length 17mm
f11 ISO 200, 6 Second Exposure, Focal Length 17mm
Conclusion
Architectural photography is a great way to take notice of the fantastic buildings around you and how we interact with them. We hope this has inspired you to go out to your local urban areas and practice your photography by capturing interesting architectural designs and details.
Happy Shooting!
Check out these tutorials below
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Thanks for watching and remember – Learn more at The School of Photography.
