Hi!
If you're anything like me, you think that cities offer a lot of visual interest.
But you also feel like the flow of people, the constant movement of cars, the lack of space - it all makes for a difficult photographic experience.
For the past few years, I've been experimenting with different approaches to capturing cities effectively. I've spent hundreds of hours walking various city streets with my camera, and today, I wanted to share a few of my best tips (covering both cityscapes and architectural shots photographed from within). I'll also share a few of dPS's best articles for further reading.
Of course, I'll also share a critique or two, as well as the dPS bi-weekly challenge!
Also, don't forget the 5DayDeal Video Creators Bundle pre-launch giveaway promotion is open now - they're giving away prizes worth over $15,555, including software, courses, and even a 13" MacBook Pro (I want that!). Enter FREE here.
Now, without further ado:
The dPS bi-weekly challenge: night architecture
From Sime:
Night Architecture! Architecture at night... after the sun's gone, before the sun's up?
It doesn't need to be in a city, find something appealing about your house at night. A detail or a well lit tile - see how you go.
Remember to tag your post with #dpsweeklychallenge and #dpsnightarchitecture on our weekly challenge page or on social media!
Handy tips for capturing beautiful photos of cities
As I noted at the start of this newsletter, getting good photos of buildings, city streets, and city skylines can be a real challenge. But it's far from impossible! Here are some quick tips to help you capture nice city shots the next time you head to a metropolis:
- Photograph in the middle of the day
When it comes to natural light, the standard advice is to photograph early and late in the day (the golden hours), while keeping your camera packed away when the sun is at its peak.
But if you want to photograph inside of a city - that is, the areas that are surrounded by skyscrapers - I recommend you do the reverse: photograph in the middle of the day, and use the early morning and late afternoon hours to seek out other subjects.
Here's why:
The taller the buildings and the narrower the streets, the darker the city center will be. Skyscrapers (and even medium-sized apartment buildings and parking garages) block out the light, so in early morning and late afternoon, most areas will be completely shrouded in shadow.
But when the sun is high overhead - around noon - buildings, people, and other areas of interest will be bathed in high-contrast light, which can make for some amazing photos.
One caveat: If you're willing to spend a lot of time moving and walking, you can find some spectacular views inside the city where the sun shines through gaps in the buildings and creates pools of light along the roads.
But in general, midday is a great time for photographing those city interiors.
- Look for space
Cities vary widely in terms of their spaciousness; some have cramped and narrow streets, while others have wider boulevards and sidewalks.
In my experience, however, most cities don't offer a whole lot of room for you to really step back and take a wide-angle shot that shows an entire building (from top to bottom) or an entire street scene.
One approach is to look for narrower compositions that focus on the details. But I like to capture more expansive images, so what I like to do is seek out space. I'll look for parks and plazas that let me step back and really take in the full view. Even parking lots can be great for this (though not all cities have spacious aboveground parking lots, as I was frustrated to discover on my first trip to Manhattan!).
(Another benefit of the "seek out space" approach is that you'll have a lot more room to maneuver and compose your images without getting in people's way.)
- Scout using Google Street View
If you're visiting a city for the first time, it's important to think about what you want to photograph before you arrive so you can make the most of your time.
You can always look up photo spots online, but I tend to avoid those areas because a) they're often quite crowded, and b) they're photographed so frequently that I struggle to get unique results.
Instead of going to popular tourist destinations, I like to spend a few hours "walking" the streets using Google Maps. With Google Street View, I can get a rough sense of how the buildings and streets will look, and when I find a view or a building that seems like a potential photographic opportunity, I'll mark the destination with a "Favorite" pin. (Alternatively, you can just write down the address.)
This can be a great way to guide your shooting when you arrive. Just remember that the city can look different depending on the time of day and the season, so don't be afraid to deviate from your location list if you come across another interesting scene!
- Go to the city outskirts
I already mentioned the value of finding spacious areas within the cramped city, but I'd also like to offer another approach for getting those wider shots:
Leave the main part of the city, and head to the outskirts. Many cities have well-known vantage points that offer great views of the skyline from afar, and Google can be your friend here!
I often like to seek out pedestrian-accessible bridges that let you get a good distance from the main part of the city, but you can find more original viewpoints with some scouting on Google Maps.
Also, if you do decide to get away from the city interior, I recommend ignoring my earlier advice and photographing during the golden hours - skyline photos can look amazing at sunrise and sunset!
- Account for perspective distortion
Perspective distortion is a fact of life for most forms of city photography, and you've undoubtedly encountered it before, either in your own photos or photos taken by someone else. It often appears as converging vertical lines, which makes buildings seem like they're leaning inward.
One way to avoid perspective distortion is to keep your camera completely level (so that your lens is parallel to the ground). But this is extremely restrictive, so it's not an approach I recommend. Another option is to invest in a tilt-shift lens, but these are both expensive and very limited in terms of focal length options.
My advice is to correct perspective distortion in post-processing (it's easy to do in a program such as Lightroom). What's important to realize, though, is that perspective correction will result in the edges of your image being cropped. So it can be helpful to deliberately shoot slightly wider than you normally might, keeping mind that you'll probably lose the edges of the frame. That way, when you do make the perspective adjustment, your software won't trim away anything important.
A few more resources for photographing cities
Hopefully, you found the above tips helpful! And if you're looking for more advice for capturing amazing city photos, here are a few excellent dPS articles on the topic:
- Cityscape Photography: A Guide to Breathtaking Images (+ Examples)
- 7 Tips for Breathtaking Skyline Photography
- The Ultimate Guide to Architectural Photography
- 8 Pieces of Essential Architectural Photography Equipment
Critiquing your images
As always, thanks so much to everyone who sent in images for critique! Even though I don't get to every image, I absolutely love looking at each one, and I make sure to add each one to our critique "pile" for future newsletters!
First, we have a beautiful cityscape photo from Stephen:
What I like:
- You've captured such fantastic colors here, Stephen, and that sunrise/sunset is absolutely gorgeous. As I noted earlier in the newsletter, for distant cityscape shots like this one, shooting in the early morning or late afternoon is very effective, as is clear from your image!
- I like your decision to place the horizon off-center, which makes the image more dynamic and places emphasis on that breathtaking sky.
- You've done a good job of maintaining detail in the sky, especially in the upper portion, which can be tough when you're shooting into the sun like this.
- I like how the blues at the very top of the frame contrast with the bright oranges and add another level of contrast to the image.
Ideas for improvement:
- While I do think that this type of approach - with silhouetted buildings - can make for great images, with silhouettes it's very important to include well-defined outlines. Here, the buildings are only partially visible, perhaps due to a high vantage point? My recommendation would be to get down lower, if possible, so the buildings can be framed against the sky and create fuller outlines.
- Exposing when shooting into the sun can be really tough, and while you've maintained good detail in the sky, the city is very dark on my monitor. That's completely fine - as I said above, it's a legitimate approach! - but if your goal is to create a cityscape shot that includes detail in both the foreground and the background, I'd recommend choosing a vantage point so you're not shooting directly into the sun (in this case, for instance, you could try coming back at sunrise if this was shot at sunset); another option is to capture multiple images at different exposures, then blend them together in post-processing. Or you could photograph when the sun is still below the horizon, which will help minimize the tonal contrast between the sky and the foreground buildings.
- It could also help to go closer or zoom in, so that the tallest buildings are emphasized - right now, they're competing with other elements on the horizon, like the trees(?) and smaller buildings closer to the edges of the frame. On the other hand, if your goal is to show the buildings in the context of the landscape, taking the wider approach - as you've done here - is a good idea. Just be careful to make sure the skyline is balanced; right now, the center and the left are very building-heavy, while the right is much flatter and consequently doesn't have the "weight" of the left.
Next, a stunning landscape image from Mary E, who notes that the photo "was taken on a tripod, using Nikon D750, 24-105 mm lens at 35mm, ISO 100, F16, 1/6 sec."
What I like:
- I'm loving the depth in this scene, Mary; the combination of the foreground rocks, the midground water/river, and the background trees really lend a sense of three-dimensionality to the scene.
- I also like the way you've composed this image for a very smooth transition between foreground, the midground, and the background; it's visually clear, with no real points of confusion, and as a result, the eye can really move through the shot. That's something that is often tough to do and requires very careful positioning, at least in my experience, so well done!
- The water is beautiful, and your 1/6s shutter speed did a great job of rendering silky flow while also maintaining some real texture.
- I find your decision to exclude the sky from the frame very interesting! Often, landscape photographers like to show a clear foreground with a compelling sky in the background, but I like what you've done here. I think the distant trees, with the raking sidelight, offer enough of a point of interest to draw the eye without requiring a dramatic sunrise or sunset.
Ideas for improvement:
- One compositional thought: For me, the overall push of the image is great, with the foreground leading to the midground and the midground leading to the background, but because of the way the river cuts across to the left and vanishes behind the outcrop on the left, it feels like the eye is directed off to the left, rather than resting on the trees at the back of the shot. I don't know what existed outside the frame, but adjusting your framing to remove that push to the left could improve an already strong composition! (Alternatively, you could try subtly darkening the top left corner of the frame in post-processing.)
- Looking at the image large on my screen, the foreground rocks seem a bit sharper than the background trees. Your f/16 aperture could be enough to maintain depth of field from foreground to background, but it might help to focus slightly farther back into the scene - I don't know how you approached this shot, but using a depth of field calculator to determine where to focus could be helpful. (Alternatively, a "double the distance" approach - where you focus on the point that's double the distance of the nearest foreground element - can be a good rule of thumb.) That said, the background might just be soft due to insufficient depth of field, which sometimes happens when you're dealing with near foreground elements…in which case you may need to try focus stacking, where you capture multiple shots with different focal points and then blend them together in a program such as Photoshop.
- Another minor compositional note: I'd love to see a bit more of that rock in the nearest foreground; I think it works as is, but it is a little close to the edge of the frame, which creates a bit of tension. I'd normally suggest going wider, but given that you used a 35mm focal length on a lens that goes to 24mm, I'm guessing that there were other elements just outside the frame that you didn't want to include. Perhaps you could try lowering your camera to magnify the foreground rocks? It's hard to say for sure whether that would work - it might mess with the beautifu sense of depth you've created - but it's just something to keep in mind!
Well, that's all for now, but I hope you found that helpful - have a great week!
Talk to you next Saturday,
Jaymes Dempsey (and the dPS team)
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