Architects and Photography

April 30, 2012 by Bob Borson 39 Comments

I am setting myself up here in a major way by saying that photography is a skill that more architects should practice. You could infer from that comment that I might be holding myself out as an example of someone who takes good pictures – and I’m not … but I have gotten considerably better over the last 2 years as a result of writing this blog. Since I endeavor to use only my own images on this site, I started taking lots and lots of photos and as time passed, I became more and more aware that my picture-taking ability needed some polish. Just the act of taking as many pictures as I now take, in addition to getting them ready for these blog posts, my skill set has moved from “point and shoot” style to actually framing up, processing, and stylizing my pictures.

And it’s a skill that I think most designers and architect could benefit from developing.

If I were a magician, I’m quite sure that I would be blackballed for showing you how I process some of my photos. (Okay, that’s not quite right … why would a magician be blackballed for showing how they process their photos? It’s a lazy analogy but you know what I mean). Maybe it’s a bad idea because you will discover for yourself that my mediocre talents are even more mediocre than you might have thought. That’s okay … I’m not comparing myself to anyone other than me and as long as I am seeing some improvement that’s all I care about.

I took the picture of the scaffolding above last week when I was on the job site. Nothing to interesting about it but when I framed it up, I thought it had the possibility of being something pretty interesting.

Once I take a photo that has some potential, I bring it into a iPhone app called Camera+ (I’ve talked about this app before here). Within Camera+ I run it through a filter that brightens or darkens the photo – in this case I chose ‘Backlit’. From there I crop it down to a size that I like – and I generally like ‘Square’. I can resize it to remove bits and pieces that I don’t want in the final picture.

Now I move into the ‘Effects’ category. There are 36 preset filters in the Effects category and while I haven’t used them all, there are several that I like. For the scaffolding picture, I went with ‘Lo-Fi’ because it has a strong contrast aspect to it that I like quite a bit. And then…

… the finished product. Now I’m not going to say it’s a great photo but I like it. The process of modifying this picture was around 90 seconds – it was that high because I like to look at several of the filters and then choose which one suits my picture in a manner that’s pleasing to me.

At this point, it’s important for me to distinguish my reason for showing you all this. You might think these pictures are garbage – that’s okay (but keep that to yourself, I have a fragile ego). The thing that I think is important is that this process has made me think about how I frame up my pictures, what looks good to me and why I think it looks good. Knowing when to apply a filter, which one, how much, crop it how … the entire process makes you think of the final product and what you want it to look like. This is a skill that I have talked about before, that as a designer, it’s important to know why you like a particular thing and then be able to articulate your reasons. This ability is what makes you a professional in my opinion because this level of knowledge means you can duplicate your successes without having to recreate them.

I can’t tell you how important I think that last sentence is … I’ll give you a moment to go back and read it again, really let it sink in.

I take pictures all the time now and the camera in my iPhone is so good that it allows me the ability to take pictures anywhere and at anytime. I thought I would include some before and after images so that you can see where some of these pictures stated and where they ended up. When I got the idea to write this post (this morning when I was in the shower – where most of my post ideas are hatched) I was nervous that I wouldn’t have many before images still on my phone (which is where all of these came from). Sadly, I had removed most of them but there were a few I left on my phone – most likely on accident. These might not be the best examples but I do hope that you enjoy them.

So there you go, it’s a little like seeing the inside of a nightclub with all the lights turned on – not nearly as good as you might have thought. I hope that my bad photos have inspired you to start taking more photos of your own. You may not start churning out professional grade photography but I can guarantee that you will see some improvement in all aspects of the photos you take.