Making Photos vs Taking Photos: Addressing Power Lines in Architectural Photography
An architectural photographer or a construction photographer is frequently confronted with a variety of uncontrollable elements when they go to shoot an architectural photo. Power lines are a common issue.
When a commercial architects designs a project and commissions a rendering, they hardly ever consider distractions that are present in reality but don't exist in the concept world of designing an architecture project.
Take this modest apartment building in Minneapolis as an example. Even though the owner who commissioned this photo was well aware of the existing conditions, he probably was not aware how dominant the utility pole is. It really mars the visual character of the building. When we see it with our own two eyes, we tend to edit out distracting elements like this. But, given the opportunity to rest our eyes on a photograph of the building, our eyes would naturally gravitate toward the utility pole.
Using advanced architecture photo techniques available in Photoshop and other applications, we removed the pole. In addition, we eliminated the cable that was strung across the top of the left facing facade.
We were also presented with a similar challenge by the architect for the Minnesota Hillel located on the campus of the University of Minnesota. Again, utility lines and poles on either side presented a challenge.
We used some of the same techniques to perfect this architecture photo by removing the utility lines running across the face of the building. We also changed the aspect ratio of the image from a 6x4 ratio to a 10x8 ratio. This had the effect of eliminating unwanted poles on either side and focusing more of our attention on the building itself.
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Steve Silverman
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