“Professional Architecture Photographers create a false image of the buildings they photograph.”

Is this accurate?

Professional quality architectural photographs are very different from how we view and experience buildings in reality. Is this reality or an illusion? The factors needed to create an image such as lighting, time, composition and subject will all be taken into account. Photographers will be used to illustrate examples.

What is reality in photography? When viewing an image before having any judgements you have to take in account the perception of things. The positioning of the camera is vital in architectural photography as it is the only thing you can’t change in post-production. The angle in which you take the photograph has a meaning and could send the viewer false signals in regards to what to believe. Architectural photography is all about location as it is the subject of the image. When focusing on a specific form of architecture, location can be useful or useless as it can be influential to the image in a good way or a bad way. For example, if you wanted to capture a photograph of a nice building, but its location is in a bad area and it is obvious, then the photographer is selling the image to be negative by showing the bad area. Julius Shulman, a much respected architectural American photographer uses compositions and camera angles in a very sharp and positive way in making his photographs look quite slick and nearly wealthy as his locations he chooses in Los Angeles are always positioned in a way to make it look as if he shot in a rich place.  But what photographers can do is choosing key camera positions and angles to not include the bad surroundings and just focus on the building itself which creates the false illusion that this building can be anywhere, good or bad. This is significant as when people view the images of architecture, they aren’t given all the real info and footage as vital parts can be cropped or cut out, giving the illusion that the real subject of the photograph is how you see it in the image and not real life. The only truth we can believe is with our own eyes but professional architectural photographers know how to make an image look realistically positive for the viewer in manipulating their mind by letting them think that because it’s a professional photograph, then it must be the truth.

The time a photograph is taken and the lighting used can have an enormous impact on the image’s meaning to the viewer and can give an impression that isn’t true to the viewer. Professional photographers know that different times of the day give out different natural lighting and can set a certain mood and atmosphere within the image. For example if a photographer wanted to shoot an image of a skyline and their intention was to show how modern the city is, they would do the shoot at night so the sky is dark but everything is illuminated by the available transmitted light which relates to technology and gives the impression of modernity to the viewer. But taking images at different times and having different atmospheres doesn’t give a true representation of the architectural focus as it can change from dusk till dawn, but the viewer will think the place of the archictural focus stays the same all day. John Maclean another very respected American photographer shoots at very dull and cloudy times of the day to give a plain and boring sense to the viewer. For example his shoots in Los Angeles are all in black and white which enhances the dullness of the white sky and heavy grey clouds which surprises the viewer as they don’t expect that from such a sunny place like Los Angeles. This works well as the time and weather of the photographs have a huge impact on the viewer’s thoughts of the images.

 

Shooting at different times of the day can be very persuasive as the photographer can sell the idea that the place of their chosen architecture subject has that permanent atmosphere and mood by the way they used their available lighting due to the time they done the shoot which is again not the truth and is in fact an illusion created by the photographer wanting the viewer to believe the reality of the photographer and not the truth.