Upon receiving an assignment to photograph a building one of the first things I do is check the weather forecast and will continue to do so right up until the shoot date. All architectural photographers are at the mercy of the weather and this one critical factor alone has a huge impact on whether the shoot is successful or not. If you want low angle morning sunlight on the east elevation but it’s cloudy and overcast, well there is little you can do except try to return on another day. Schedules and deadlines being what they are, this may not be possible and the photographer is left doing damage control, or trying to make the best out of a bad situation. In southern California during certain months, the marine layer may set in along the coast, sometimes not burning off until noon and ruining any chance of morning sunlight. In one memorable year, I saw this scenario play out day after day for 6 weeks in a row. This can be incredibly frustrating for an architectural photographer. No other profession I know of is so closely tied to and impacted by what the sun is doing except perhaps film making. Speaking of the sun, one of the apps I use to track it is the photographer’s ephemeris. This clever program overlays the sun path on google maps anywhere and at any date desired. Advance knowledge of how the sun is going to impact a particular building on a certain day is a very useful tool in planning a shoot.
Planning a shoot
If the job is local, I always like to scout it first with the client. There really is no substitute for getting eyes on the job in advance, particularly in new builds that are just finishing up. Viewing renderings (I call them fantasy drawings) and floor plans is all good and well, but I deal in reality which may very different than what was drawn. A good set of snapshots can be very useful in shoot planning. I liken scouting shots to artist sketches, it’s a quick little reference as to what is actually there and what the possibilities are for finished art. It also reveals problems that need to be addressed.
As an example, this scouting shot of a lobby shows the wrinkled posters put up in an attempt to hide the junk piled up in that room, a wrinkled and dogeared printed stand-in for a bronze plaque, and the fact that it should be shot later in the day to get the raking sunlight to reach all the way across the millwork. To pull off this shot, my assistants and I took down the posters, moved all the junk out they were hiding, cleaned the glass, broomed the floors and then set up our lights, all timed to catch the desired sun angle. Things like housekeeping really should not be the photographer’s responsibility but often there is no one else to do it, so we come prepared. Knowing in advance what the problems are helps in planning an efficient and successful shoot.
Scouting photo of a lobby with a couple of problems.
Finished Photo