Composition method of architectural photography

How can I make my architectural photography more brilliant? The following is the composition method of architectural photography I compiled for you, hoping to help you!

1. Criterion

The human eye is very sensitive to lines. It is a very common and effective composition method to use directional lines to guide the line of sight and attract the attention of the audience to the main body or depth of the picture.

Specific to architectural photography, architecture, as a kind of artificial creation, always has a regular shape, and you can find many guiding lines casually.

For example, the most typical staircase and escalator room. The straight edge lines of stairs and escalators form several groups of visual guide lines in the same direction, which have excellent eye-catching effects:

Guide lines can also be multi-directional, even in the opposite direction, leading the line of sight to different places. This picture is very interesting:

The root of the wall and the edge of the floor tile form multiple guiding lines, and the effect is multiplied.

Because there are straight lines everywhere in the building, it can be said that visual guide lines are everywhere, so make good use of them ~

Look up/down

I feel that there is nothing to shoot around the scenery, which is really lacking? Probably, it's just because your angle is too ordinary. Why not try to look up or down?

Looking up at the world, you can see completely different scenery.

For example, in many western-style and Chinese-style ancient buildings, you will see magnificent or exquisitely-structured domes, which condense the countless efforts of designers:

Even if there is no gorgeous and complicated dome, you can run to the patio and take pictures of it being divided into various shapes by the edge of the building to form a "blank" sky:

When shooting "tall and thin" buildings, such as towers and high-rise buildings, the perspective effect of "near big and far small" will make the building look taller and more majestic, and this effect will be more obvious when shooting with wide-angle pan/tilt;

In addition, this shooting angle can also help you avoid the messy scenery on the ground and a large number of tourists, and eliminate interference.

When you shoot it, you can often shoot interesting pictures.

In addition to learning to climb stairs and climb to the top of the building to take a panoramic view, taking spiral stairs is also a very popular way:

Even the most common spiral staircase can give people a different feeling.

3. Intersection of line segments

Different from traditional architecture, which emphasizes symmetry, simplicity and beauty, modern architecture emphasizes complexity and contradiction, and its appearance may be more diversified.

In complex architectural modeling, it is often possible to find the intersection of multiple lines by adjusting the observation angle. Many straight lines and curves of different sizes and shapes gather here, which is naturally attractive.

4. Negative space

In architecture, "negative space" refers to the "gap" between buildings. They are similar to the "blank space" in Chinese painting, and their function is to highlight some interesting structures and are excellent photographic materials.

You can use a large area of white space to set off the features of the details:

You can also do the opposite and highlight the gap with large entities:

The same walls make holes in doors and windows stand out.

Negative space needs to be discovered or created by ourselves. If we enlarge and focus the original ordinary area and keep the field of vision within a certain range, the negative space we want may appear.

5. Structure

In fact, it is a composition method that uses the foreground scenery to produce a sense of occlusion and focuses the audience's attention on the unobstructed part.

As shown below, the picture shot through the narrow window frame has a "voyeuristic feeling", which is more likely to arouse the curiosity of the audience and lead the audience's attention to the depth of the picture.

The frame is not necessarily the structure of the building itself, but also some other beautiful scenery (such as flowers and branches) can be found in the foreground as shelter.

You can also consider whether it is necessary to blur the foreground properly, which will bring a different feeling to your architectural photos.