Royal armouries trip... On Guarde!

Fridays are all about learning how to achieve and meet client needs. One of the projects set by our tutor Tony Speight was to go to Leeds and take pictures of the Royal Armouries.

I am quite a keen fan of architectural photography especially for new buildings much like the ones seen in places like Dubai. However, the Royal armouries is not the prettiest of concrete buildings. This therefore I found to be a bit of a challenge.

Before I went to the shoot, I did some research into architectural photography. Paul White photography is a local business in Womersley that I admire greatly. The way in which the architecture is shot really stands out as he uses dramatic angels and changes perspectives in order to create interesting images. Some of their work can be seen below.

Firstly on the day it was very overcast and therefore the sky looked grey. The sun did however show its face a little after lunchtime. I had a look around the building to see if I could find any interesting features, and also decided that i was going to shoot some in daylight and some at dusk. The Armouries has a glass tower like block on the building which lights up and therefore looked great in the pictures.

To me in order to show off a building, one of the best ways it to chose dramatic angles and I have done this in several of my pictures.

Some of my work can be seen below. As you can see, I have used some similar angles to my research and created what I think are some interesting shots. Although the building itself I do not think is that aesthetically pleasing, there are many different types of materials used in its construction. I have tried to use this as a focus, as i think different building materials work well together and make a picture look more interesting.

Have a look and let me know what you think.

Sasha

We were required to meet at 9am and stay for as long as we wanted until we achieved the shots that we wanted. This I feel was a bit of a waste of time especially in the commercial world of photography, as you may need to fit other clients into the same day.

If I had the opportunity to do this again, I would have picked a day when the lighting conditions were better by checking the weather forecast and also chosen the best time of day to visit the location to save time. I think I would also have spent more time focusing on the building in situ. I did do this on the day, but because of the bad light source they looked grey and uninspiring, which is why I focused closely on the building.