LIGHTING - Architecture

Lake any subject, buildings need to be flattered or shown in their best light. The times of day are your tools to do this. If you shoot interiors during the day, they will in general be darker than the light outside the windows or door, therefore to expose for the room the window spaces will be ‘burnt out’ or white (a), which can look cool. But if you want more outside detail as well as the interior, then you will need to have a different type of lighting in order to do this. So shooting later when the sun has gone will do this, but it will mean you will have interior lighting to illuminate the room (b). In the examples below we have the two options. There is no right or wrong here, it’s up to you (or your client) as to how to portray it. Both versions work.
Both of these exposures were shot on a tripod, with an aperture of f.22 to get a good DoF.
The daylight exposures were 1/30th of a second @ f.22.
The twilight exposures were 1 second @ f.22.

The same goes for exteriors, you can apply the same thinking here. The only thing I have done with these in post production is to keep all vertical lines - vertical! the architect did not design the buildings with curved walls, so you should always consider this. Also if you are shooting an interior in daylight, shoot for the highlights to a degree, and as a RAW file, then you can rebalance the tones later.
In the dusk winter shots of the Swiss Hotel Waldegg, note how the internal lighting only adds to the ambience of the scene. So you need to plan and organise your shoot for the right moment.

Three different stages as twilight approaches, (a) is too early as the sky is too bright. (b) the sky is still too bright. (c) This is about right. The walls of the building are almost the same tonal density as the sky. This is when you shoot as the image is more or less in tonal balance.

If the building or structure is well known around the world, then often a silhouette can work here, We know what it is, so we can experiment a bit more to impart some mood or atmosphere.

All photographs © Jon Davison 2023.

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