Learning patterns/Improving your building photography

Improving your building photography

problemYour photos of buildings don't seem to come out as well as you'd hoped.

solutionA few simple tips can make all the difference in the quality of your photos: keep your camera straight and steady with two hands, avoid obstructions, think about how the elements are arranged, and be aware of exposure and focus.

creator• MichaelMaggs

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created onJuly 4, 2014

What problem does this solve?

Your photos of buildings don't seem to come out as well as you'd hoped. Is it your camera? Is it the way you take the photos?

What's the solution?

Here's the good news: the quality of those photos can be greatly improved if you keep in mind a few simple tips. You don't need an expensive camera to take good shots – just a decent one with a little knowledge and care when taking the image. It is possible to take a good photo even with a smartphone (not the cheapest), but in this case it will require additional processing.

Common errors – camera handling

Camera tilted

Take care to keep the camera straight. Spending ten seconds on composition (how the visual elements are arranged in the photo) and alignment can greatly improve your picture quality. And in spite of what you may see others doing, always hold your camera or your smartphone in both hands when composing and taking the picture.

Camera tilt is the single biggest problem (especially with smartphone uploads), and it's worth repeating: always hold your camera or your smartphone in both hands when composing and taking the picture. Do not think that tilted buildings look interesting and original in the photo, they are just tilted, that's all.

While there are applications for later editing pictures by rotating them, it's much better to get it right in the first place.

Building partly obscured

Building obscured

Posing is fine for private collections, but Commons uploads are very public

Try to avoid objects that obstruct the view of your subject. Choose a different angle, or (if the obstruction – especially parked cars – might go away) come back later. You can even ask driver to move his car for a while – most of people agree to do it if asked politely. If you absolutely can't avoid cars, it's better to ensure that numberplates are not visible for privacy reasons. Sometimes number plates had to be blurred out before uploading the image.

People can also obscure the composition either if they are walking by or, especially, posing for a picture. Please don't upload images of people posing, even if there's a nice building in the background!

Top or bottom of the building chopped off

Top chopped off

Bottom chopped off

Don't chop off the top of the building or, as some people like to say: "make sure you get the cross on top of the steeple". It can ruin a good picture if the viewer expects to see something that has been chopped off.

Also don't chop off the bottom of the building unless it's unavoidable. It's easy to forget the bottom when you point your camera up to get the top of the building.

Think about how far the edges of the building are from the frame. If the entire building won't fit in the frame, walk back if you can, or try a different angle. If there's nowhere from which you can take a good picture, concentrate on something else instead, such as the architectural details of the building.

Flare

Avoid pointing the camera too close to the sun. The amount of flare in this photo makes the picture unusable, even though the sun itself is outside the frame. If sun is over or behind the building you can try to place it out of the frame and cover your lens from the sun by hand, but it's not a 100% successful tactics. The best decision will be to come back later, when the sun will shine from another direction or will be obscured by clouds.

Camera shake

To avoid camera movement, especially in dark interiors, use the font or a pillar as a support. Blurred images such as this are of little use. Even outside, occasionally we're lucky enough to have something solid like a bench or fence conveniently located; if so, try resting your camera on it for greater stability, and see if the composition and alignment work from that angle.

This picture seems to have been taken one-handed; remember the rule about always holding your camera in two hands? Notice the annoying chopped-off candle holder on the left; again, think about each element in relation to the edges of your photo.

Common errors – auto settings

Underexposure

The camera has automatically exposed the sky correctly, but that leaves the building much too dark. If your camera has exposure adjustment, increase the exposure by about one stop and try again. If that doesn't solve the problem, take the picture from another angle and try to keep the amount of sky to a minimum.

Overexposure

Overexposure like this is not very common on modern cameras. If you see it, check your camera settings: the "exposure compensation" may have been set incorrectly.

Check what your camera is focusing on

Wrong focus

Here, the camera autofocus has latched on to the lamp to the left, rather than the building.

No watermarks please!

No watermarks please

If your camera creates a timestamp watermark, please turn off that feature beforehand. We also advice you to not add any author watermarks with post-editing and add the author data into the metadata instead to ensure clear authorship.

Common errors – subjects

Please don't take photos of signs

Don't photograph signs!

Please don't upload photographs of posters, noticeboards, signs, modern murals, or anything else having text or two-dimensional images that might be copyright-protected. That applies even to text or images in a public place – even if everyone else is taking pictures of them. Ancient wall paintings in churches are fine: they have no copyright protection.

Here, the copyright-protected text and images have been blurred out. It's OK if your photo of a building incidentally includes an unobtrusive sign that appears small in the final image, but if the sign appears large or prominent, please take the photo from another angle.

That looks a lot better!

St Peter's Parish Church, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire

The signs are small in the composition and don't cause a copyright problem. Maybe you can do even better than this?

When to use

Individually uploaded photos of local buildings

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