Week 4 - Reading Notes

Reading 1: Foreword and Shooting Techniques in Architectural Photography: Composition, Capture, and Digital Image Processing (2009) by Adrian Schulz

Source: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3Tu4BAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Architectural+Photography:+Composition,+Capture,+and+Digital+Image+Processing+by+Adrian+Schulz&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiLh_yU4dDPAhUBnRoKHUdLCuUQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Architectural%20Photography%3A%20Composition%2C%20Capture%2C%20and%20Digital%20Image%20Processing%20by%20Adrian%20Schulz&f=false

Abstract
This book is a step-by-step guide to architectural photography for both the aspiring amateur photographer interested in architectural photography and the professional photographer wanting to expand his skills in this domain. Architectural photography is more than simply choosing a subject and pressing the shutter-release button; it's more than just documenting a project. An architectural photograph shows the form and appeal of a building far better than any other medium. With the advent of the digital photographic workflow, architects are discovering exciting new opportunities to present and market their work.

Foreword - What is Architectural Photography?
The term "architectural photography" describes both the subject (architecture) and the means of capturing it (photography).
The word 'architecture' comes from the Greek 'arkhitekton', which consists of roots meaning 'chief' and 'builder'. 
Architecture is ubiquitous in our lives, and its primary function as a shelter encompasses a great many functional uses. Le Corbusier once said "Architecture is one of the most urgent needs of man, for the house has always been the indispensable and first tool that he forged himself."
Architecture takes on an extremely broad range of forms, from simple primeval hut, the ornate templates of antiquity, and the purely functional factories of the industrial revolution to today's urban landmarks of concrete and glass. 

History of Artistic Architectural Photography
This began to develop as a genre towards the end of the 1950s. Artists such as Hilla and Bernd Becher systematically photographed anonymous, monumental industrial architecture, creating extensive sequences of images showing buildings in various states of decay. The idea of the documentary photo series gained worldwide popularity and blurred the distinction between "good" and "bad" architecture. Buildings that didn't conform to the perceived aesthetic of modern architecture received just as much attention, and the advent of art galleries and large-scale production of coffee-table books in the 70s underscored the importance of the genre as a whole. Whether ancient or modern, grouped or free-standing, well known or strange, the range of potential architectural subjects is virtually unlimited.

Forms of Architectural Photography
Architectural photography in various forms is part of our everyday lives.

Documentary Architectural Photography: 
Many documentary architectural photographs can be found in books, magazines, brochures and construction documents. In these cases, architectural photography takes the form of multiple images with accompanying explanations, plans, or drawings that are designed to precisely describe a building and it's attributes.

Postcard Photography:
Architecture is often the subject of postcards, even if the photographer's intentions and degree of precision are not the same as those found in documentary situations. Postcards often serve only as a means of recognition and are often reproduced with oversaturated colours, over-the-top effects, and scant regard for technical prowess.

Vacation Photography:
Tourists often have similar intentions when they photograph churches, castles, and other landmarks. Such photos form personal memories. While architecture is part of the subject, the location is usually more important than the type of building. Interestingly, these types of photo are taken almost exclusively on vacation. In everyday situations where we live, buildings like these are considered neither newsworthy nor photogenic.

Artistic Architectural Photography:
These can often be found in galleries and exhibitions, usually in the context of a particular theme or artist. Here, architecture serves only as a means to an end, with no particular connection between the message of the image and the message conveyed by the architecture itself. In this case, it is the photographer and not the architect who is the focus of the activity.

Camera Technology for Architectural Photography
First and foremost, you don't need a lot of equipment to take high quality architectural photographs. A good photographer can make fascinating photos with the simplest of cameras, while less talented people are unable to produce quality images using even the most elaborate and expensive gear. Expensive equipment is not the key to successful architectural photographs - the crucial factor is always the person behind the camera. The camera is a tool designed to help you realise a photographic idea.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Digital Cameras

1. The Number and Availability of Images
Digital cameras have a great advantage over analogue cameras due to their ability to display results immediately. You also do not have to waste the expense of having to develop film. With cameras using film, you are very limited to the amount of images you can capture in comparison to digital memory cards. For analog photographers, more photos means more time and money spent having the film processed. However, this disadvantage can make the photographer think harder about each individual shoot and prevent excessive use of the shutter button. The compulsion to shoot the the next free digital image can lead to hurried compositions and can easily lead digital photographers to producing too many photographs of insufficient quality.

2. Resolution and Tonal Range
Today's digital image sensors with their sheer number of pixels can provide higher resolution than analogue film camera with the same format. Only larger format sheet film cameras used in combination with high-quality digitising processes can offer greater resolution and better detail rendition.
Digital photographers have to pay more attention to their lighting conditions and exposure in comparison to analog. Things look rather different when it comes to reproducing the dynamic range (the range of contrasts) in a scene. Negative film can reproduce 12 or more stops of contrast and reacts less sensitively to critical, high-contrast situations. Analogue material also has less trouble in potentially overexposing image areas, and tends not to produce the the burned out highlights common to digital sensors.
Because maximum reproducible dynamic range is directly related to the size of each pixel in the sensor, camera wit considerably smaller sensors are only capable of reproducing up to 9 stops of contrast.

Digital v Analogue - Burned out highlights

Lenses for Architectural Photography
The lens you use largely determines the angle of view you can capture, the sharpness of detail, the minimum depth of field in your images, the permissible shutter speed, and the degree of lens errors visible in the finished image. In short, the lens dictates image quality.

Reproduction Characteristics
Architectural photography requires the use of lenses that provide consistent reproduction with minimum lens errors and anomalies. 
The large size of the subject, the wide angles of view, and the relatively large subject distances mean that selective focus doesn't play a significant role in our considerations. We need to be sure that the entire subject is captured in sharp detail. For this reason, we often shoot with the lens stopped right down (wide aperture) - a technique that also reduces vignetting effects, chromatic abberration (colour fringing), and softness at the edges of the frame.
The distortion that a lens produces is independent of the aperture you use, and both barrel and pincushion distortion are more evident at the extreme wide-angle and telephoto ends of the zoom scale. It is therefore important to compose your image with enough space around the subject to allow effective subsequent distortion correction.



Focal Length
In general, architectural photography requires the use of a range of wide-angle lenses that capture a great angle of view than standard or telephoto lenses. This also means that objects appear smaller on image sensor or film. Ultra wide-angle lenses are those with an equivalent focal length of 24mm or less and an angle of view of more than 84 degrees.

In exterior situations, we usually use lenses with focal lengths between 20-35mm. While interior situations normally require focal lengths between 14-24mm. A short telephoto lens is a great tool for capturing details of buildings or shooting from greater distances.

Tilt/Shift Lenses
These allow photographers to make adjustment to the perspective in an image while shooting. They can be used to prevent the occurrence of converging verticals and obviate the need for various quality-reducing correction steps during the subsequent image processing. They also make it easier to compose images, as they give the photographer more freedom in the choice of standpoint and framing. Besides aperture control, these lenses are usually fully manual and thus require you to select distance settings by hand.

Camera Standpoint
Since the camera position and direction alone are the factors that influence perspective in a photo, making a carefu choice of standpoint is essential to the sucess of a shot. Even slight changes in standpoint can have a strong influence on the look of a photographed building.

The Ideal Subject Distance

The ideal distance between camera and subject depends on:
- The type and size of the building 
- The nature of its immediate environment
- The photographer's visual concept for the image.

Things to consider:
- If the 3D depth of the building is important to the final image, select a standpoint that is close by.
- The further away you are from a building, the flatter it will appear in the photo.
- If the building's environment is cluttered, you will have to move closer to get a clear view, but in order to produce an undistorted, realistic looking image, the laws of optic dictate that you need to move further away.
- The larger the building, the further away you will have to be to capture it with natural looking proportions.

Extreme Standpoints
Shooting from close up produces pronounced perspective effect, and the low viewpoint emphasises the effects of protruding or sunken elements of the facade, especially in the upper floors.
- If you shoot from too near, the resulting converging verticals cannot be correct later.

Extreme perspectives in photos of skyscrapers can produce additional tension that contributed to the dyanamism of the image, even if the building looks less realistic as a result.



- The further you are from your subject, the smaller the role converging verticals will play, and the easier it will be to correct them if they do appear.
--> The disadvantage of greater subect distances are the risk of extraneous objects ruining your compositon.




A useful rule of thumb for exterior architectural photography state the best subject distance lies somewhere between one and three times the height of the building. This is one of the reasons why architectura photographers often resort to the use of wide-angle lenses in the course of their work.

The Effects of Viewpoint on Perspective
Different viewpoints can provide very different compositions, even if you are photographing a single building. Experienced photographers can use subtle changes in composition to emphasise particular aspects of its design, or to concel its less attractive characteristics.

Before you start as shoot, it is important to have a clear idea of just how important your choice of standpoint is and how this choice can affect your original concept and the results. If you shoot from the wrong place, no amount of image processing will improve the results.


Standpoint and Surroundings
A change in standpoint can also mean that other elemnts of the immediate environment will be captured and portrayed differently, which can have a positive or negative effect on the overall look of an image. The art of successful architectural photography lies not only in finding the right view of a building but also in the skill integration of its surroundings in the overall composition.

Standpoint and Symmetry
Symmetry can be use to great effect in architectural photos, but it is important to differentiate between architectural and photographic symmetry. 
A symmetrical building doesn't have to appear symmetrical in a photo, although a coincidence of structural and visual symmetry can create impressive effects. Most viewers find symmetrical architectural images pleasing, due to their monumental and slightly artificial look.



In order to use symmetry successfully as an element of photographic composition, the photographer has to align the camera precisely along the axis of symmetry of the building. Even the smallest movement awat from this axis can create unnecessary tension and spoil the effect. 



Photos shot along the diagonal axis of square buildings create especially interesting visual dynamics, as they produce a great feeling of depth in addition to the symmetry the image is based on.
Photos of courtyards and round or elliptical building are perfect subject for close-range, symmetrical architectural photos, too. 

The strength of a symmetrical effect depends on the degree to which the physical depth of the building is made visible. If you photograph the side of a building head-on, the effect will be less dynamic, and the special effect that symmetrical vanishing points will be lost.


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Reading 2: Uses of Photography (1972) by John Berger pp. 52-67

Abstract
This book is a response to Susan Sontag's book 'On Photography'.

The camera was invented by Fox Talbot in 1839.

30 years on, the camera became a gadget for the elite, being used for:
- Police filing
- War reporting
- Military reconaissance
- Pornography
- Encyclopedia documentation
- Family albums
- Postcards
- Antrhopological records
- Sentimental moralising 
- Inquistive probing
- News reporting
- Formal portraiture

The Nazis were among the first to use systematic photographic propaganda.
"Photographs are perhaps the most mysterious of all the objects that make up and thicken the environment we recognise as modern. Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousnessin its acquisitive mood."
(p. 53)

"Through photographs, the world becomes a series of unrelated, free-standing particles, and history, past and present, a set of anecdotes and faits divers. The camera makes reality atomic, manageable, and opaque. It is a view of the world which denies interconnectedness, continuity, but which confers on each moment the character of a mystery."
(p. 53)

Unlike any other visual image, a photograph is not a rendering, an imitation or an interpretation of its subject, but actually a trace of it. No painting or drawing belongs to its subject in the way that a photograph does.
"A photograph is not only an image, an interpreation of the real; it is also a trace of something directly stencilled off the real, like a foot print or a death mask."
(p. 54)

There are two distinct uses of photography. There are photographs which belong to private experience and there are those which are used publicly. 
The Private Photograph - the portrait of a mother, a picture of a daughter, a group photo of one's own team - is appreciated and read in a context which is continuous with that from which the camera removed it.
A mechanical device, the camera has been used as an instrument to contribute to living memeory. It is a momento from a life being lived. The context of the instant recorded is preserved so that the photograph lives is an ongoing continuity. (If you have a photograph of a family member on the wall, you are not likely to forget what they mean to you.)
The Public Photograph - usually presents an event, a seized set of appearances, which having nothing to do with us, its reader, or with the original meaning of the event. It offers information, but information served from all lived experience. Photographs are torn from their context in contrast to the private photograph. The object becomes dead allowing it to lend itself to any arbitrary use.

(p. 55/60-61)

"Our very sense of situation is now articulated by the camera's interventions. The omnipresence of cameras persuasively suggests that time consists of interesting events; events worth photographing. This, in turn, makes it easy to fell that any event, once underway, and whatever its moral character, should be allowed to complete itself - so that something else can be bought into the world, the photograph."
(p. 59)

" A capitalist society requires a culture based on images. It needs to furnish vast amounts of entertainment in order to stimulate buying and anaesthetise the injuries of class, race and sex. And it needs to gather unlimited amounts of information, the better to exploit the natural resources, increase productivity, keep order, make war, give jobs to bureaucrats. The camera's twin capacities, to subjectivise reality and to objectify it, ideally serve these needs and strengthen them. Cameras define reality in the two ways essential to the workings of an advanced industrial society: as Spectacle (for masses) and as an object of surveillance (for rulers). The production of images also furnishes a ruling ideology. Social change is replaced by a change in images."
(p. 59/60)

Photographs are relics of the past, traces of what has happened. If the living take that past upon themselves, if the past becomes an integral part of the process of people making their own history, then all photographs would re-acquire a living context, they would continue to exist in time, insteast of being arrested moments.
(p. 61)

The task of an alternative photography is to incorporate photography into social and political memory, instead of using it as a substitute which encourages the atrophy of any such memory... For the photographer, this means thinking of her/himself not so much as a reporter to the rest of the world, but rather as a recorder for those involved in the events photographed. This distinction is crucial.
(p. 62)