Comments on: Shooting Architecture on Location With Mike Butler in Bogota, Colombia

By: Antonio Cuellar

Antonio Cuellar — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:30:00 +0000

Good Point Mike! I hate it when People make diminishing comments about others peoples work. Every body has their own style. I have had the same exact type of critique for a similar video of my work (found on my website). Coincidentally it was also done in Colombia.
The purpose of hiring a photographer is to make things look good, that also includes lighting. If someone, or in this case a space, looks better in real life rather than in person, the photographer has done a poor job. Mike Kelleys example of match.com explains it well.

By: Mansgame

Mansgame — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 22:36:00 +0000

Well yes, if you expect a person to look one way but you meet and find out they were using myspace angles, photoshop, and all kinds of other tricks to look like a model when in real life they’re 100 pounds overweight, you have the right to just turn around and leave after seeing them. Maybe even tell them they’re dishonest.

By: Mike_Kelley

Mike_Kelley — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 17:45:00 +0000

So is posting a lit and posed portrait on your match.com profile dishonest as well? Everything should be shot exactly how it is, right?

By: Mansgame

Mansgame — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 16:23:00 +0000

If the goal is to show something as it is in real life, and you alter that reality to how you THINK it should look by adding lights, photoshopping, using HDR, etc. then it’s very dishonest. Journalists have a strict code of conduct regarding altering images. Most architectural photographers do as well.

If the goal is to just great a beautiful image that has nothing to do with reality then you can’t call it architectural photography.

By: Mansgame

Mansgame — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 16:20:00 +0000

Well, it’s simple to see whether what the photographer did was right or wrong. Were there landscape lights there to begin with and the 50 lights were used to enhance them to show up in the picture or did the photographer create his own light? If he created his own light then he was in fact WRONG because he was not representing the building as it currently looks or how the architect designed it.

He can add all the lights he wants if he wants to pass off the building as fine art, but once you distort reality, it is dishonest. It’s like those real estate photographers who just happen to photoshop out the landfill behind the house that’s up for sale, add lights in the trees and bushes that don’t exist, photoshop out that water damage to one of the windows etc. Sure it looks better than real life, but when someone goes to look at the house in person and sees it looks nothing like the picture, are they going to laugh and say “hahaha! That’s a great photographer!” or threaten a lawsuit for misrepresentation?

In a way architecture photography is like journalism. You can’t add things that don’t belong there. You can pick the time of day, correct the temperature of the lighting, etc. but 50 lights? come on.

By: Mike_Kelley

Mike_Kelley — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 20:11:00 +0000

Julius Shulman must have been smoking something good when he made that awful image of the Stahl House with added light.

There are many ways to shoot a subject, none more incorrect or correct, though some more aesthetically pleasing. With or without lights, at certain angles, at certain times. If I’m shooting a piece of architecture in the city that has light from another building spilling on it unintentionally, is that criminal as well?

For reference…the most famous architectural photograph of all time used additional light. Again, no right or wrong, just different approaches to a subject.

By: Domo Magnisi

Domo Magnisi — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 09:08:00 +0000

This is not architecture photography….
The architecture photographer must be respectfull of the light-work made by the architect.
In natural light, as well for the artificial light.
As stated in the Zevi works (as well as in many other critics) change the lighting on a building is criminal. Who would be so mad (except some majors ) to lighting from the bottom a cathedral that has been projected for a light that strike on the walls from the sky… Imagine what this would mean on a Romanesque architecture for instance, that live symbiotically with the light.
This is more a real estate photography.

Art in general, and architecture in particular, are projected and studied in specific light conditions. This is for large part an american guilt, USA hasn’t much art history, and accept and introduce the idea of museums and galleries, and so on.. Places where a ’600 or ’700 paint could be “stolen” from the space for whom it has been thinked. Please note that this is a different approach from the wunderkammer one.

You can’t take out the Michelangelo Moses from it’s niche, the Moses has been think as a unicum with it, and this happend for any other work that has been created for a place. And architecture is EVERY TIME created for a place and a precise light, if it is a GOOD architecture.

Kudos for the technique.
But the technique without a deep cultural approach is sterile.

By: fd_villa

fd_villa — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 07:26:00 +0000

Looks like the photos were made as long exposures. I wonder how many minutes were used in each picture

By: Joop van Roy

Joop van Roy — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 07:24:00 +0000

That´s a lot of time and money for a promo video. Good promo video though!

Conveys all the right things to clients: the photographer takes the
initiative, he’s a leader, shows attention to detail and is very
organised. Not to mention the pretty photographs!

Good job.

By: theindianfaust

theindianfaust — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 06:56:00 +0000

@google-fbe1d3a12534b9a03639b8cd28f76466:disqus you stole my words! i have the exact same question too..