I have been going over your site time after time, it’s all one great experience really, and I have to say your architecture and interior sections of the site are pretty amazing, which brings us to those 2 in particular.
Thank you, well I am an Architect, so besides seeing architecture I was studying how to design it, so I think I gained more sense about the scale and forms.
When shooting architecture, what are your equipment preferences, lenses, accessories, maybe certain times of the day, it seems u have a certain philosophy when shooting structures, tell us about that?
It depends on the building and on my vision, sometimes I use normal lenses to reduce distortion, and sometimes I need the distortion of wide angles.
Again it depends on the building and the context when it comes to timing, some photos of Ibn Tulun mosque can’t be done except on just 15 minutes of the day looking to one of its interior facades, standing on a very specific spot, using a super wide angle lens.
Also night and day experiences on some contexts are completely different.
My philosophy is to criticize Architecture through photography, whether my opinion was good or bad, I say it through the images, and so with some effort I can bounce the beauty/ugliness of a structure by focusing on some features and eliminating others from the composition, you can say that I am redesigning it using imagination then try to capture that through the limitations of reality.
Interiors...Again what equipment to use, certain tips and tricks maybe to get things just right like not tilting the cam, setting the furniture and things of that sort? Your lighting for your interiors and any difficulties or advices when color balancing indoors?
Yeah, not tilting the camera is a good tip, but basic, it is always important to adjust lighting, and I usually do few trials on site according to my experience to avoid overexposed spots or harsh shadows, and achieving that through lighting composition, details are crucial in Interior photography, setting the furniture is not necessarily the work of the photographer, it is the work of Stylists and art directors, but because I am an architect, my eye is trained, but it costs more time and more trials.
Turn your white-balance to Flash when using lighting system, if not use what is appropriate to the existing light, tungsten, day light, etc
Sometimes slowing the shutter speeds to 1/20 sec to catch some of the existing light if it works well with the context.
When using good lighting system, I prefer adjusting on Aperture f8 or f10 to have more depth of field.
Something else that’s been on my mind, is there a basic lighting setup for shooting interiors, like for instance shooting portraits and the basic lighting setup there?
I prefer using wide angle lenses, but I take care of the distortion on site or in processing, I found myself many times using three light strobes and my SB800 flash, two soft-boxes and one umbrella, but as they say this is one school, other schools prefer other setups for the same scene.
Ok a quick example for our readers, if I were to shoot a dining room for instance, how would I light that? Will it vary much what type of furniture it is, modern, old that sort of thing?
Of course the type of furniture vary much, because of the reflecting planes, classic furniture are usually easier because of minimal reflecting planes, also because the golden and silver details comes out lovely when using soft-boxes or even simple Nikon CLS, while modern interior, you should take care about the many reflecting planes you will face, especially mirrors and shiny plastic dye over wood, you need to use specific angles for that, I gained some experience with that, but I still find myself using “trial and error” technique, some times it takes 8 trials to reach what I want, and what I call equilibrium.
Thank you, well I am an Architect, so besides seeing architecture I was studying how to design it, so I think I gained more sense about the scale and forms.
When shooting architecture, what are your equipment preferences, lenses, accessories, maybe certain times of the day, it seems u have a certain philosophy when shooting structures, tell us about that?
It depends on the building and on my vision, sometimes I use normal lenses to reduce distortion, and sometimes I need the distortion of wide angles.
Again it depends on the building and the context when it comes to timing, some photos of Ibn Tulun mosque can’t be done except on just 15 minutes of the day looking to one of its interior facades, standing on a very specific spot, using a super wide angle lens.
Also night and day experiences on some contexts are completely different.
My philosophy is to criticize Architecture through photography, whether my opinion was good or bad, I say it through the images, and so with some effort I can bounce the beauty/ugliness of a structure by focusing on some features and eliminating others from the composition, you can say that I am redesigning it using imagination then try to capture that through the limitations of reality.
Interiors...Again what equipment to use, certain tips and tricks maybe to get things just right like not tilting the cam, setting the furniture and things of that sort? Your lighting for your interiors and any difficulties or advices when color balancing indoors?
Yeah, not tilting the camera is a good tip, but basic, it is always important to adjust lighting, and I usually do few trials on site according to my experience to avoid overexposed spots or harsh shadows, and achieving that through lighting composition, details are crucial in Interior photography, setting the furniture is not necessarily the work of the photographer, it is the work of Stylists and art directors, but because I am an architect, my eye is trained, but it costs more time and more trials.
Turn your white-balance to Flash when using lighting system, if not use what is appropriate to the existing light, tungsten, day light, etc
Sometimes slowing the shutter speeds to 1/20 sec to catch some of the existing light if it works well with the context.
When using good lighting system, I prefer adjusting on Aperture f8 or f10 to have more depth of field.
Something else that’s been on my mind, is there a basic lighting setup for shooting interiors, like for instance shooting portraits and the basic lighting setup there?
I prefer using wide angle lenses, but I take care of the distortion on site or in processing, I found myself many times using three light strobes and my SB800 flash, two soft-boxes and one umbrella, but as they say this is one school, other schools prefer other setups for the same scene.
Ok a quick example for our readers, if I were to shoot a dining room for instance, how would I light that? Will it vary much what type of furniture it is, modern, old that sort of thing?
Of course the type of furniture vary much, because of the reflecting planes, classic furniture are usually easier because of minimal reflecting planes, also because the golden and silver details comes out lovely when using soft-boxes or even simple Nikon CLS, while modern interior, you should take care about the many reflecting planes you will face, especially mirrors and shiny plastic dye over wood, you need to use specific angles for that, I gained some experience with that, but I still find myself using “trial and error” technique, some times it takes 8 trials to reach what I want, and what I call equilibrium.
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