Recent Architecture Articles

Mike Kelley's Hilarious New Architecture Photography Behind-the-Scenes Vlog Starts Now!

Last week Fstoppers released Mike Kelley's latest photography tutorial called "Where Art Meets Architecture: How To Photograph Hotels, Resorts, and the Business of Commercial Architectural Photography." It is the third installment of Mike's thorough educational series on shooting real estate, architecture, and hotels. Throughout our travels, we never turned off the behind-the-scenes cameras so that you can experience a first-person perspective of what goes into producing one of these tutorials. In episode 1, Mike gets settled into the amazing Mauna Launi Bay Resort on the Big Island of Hawaii and shows just how exhausting photographing complex properties can be.

Mike Kelley's 'Where Art Meets Architecture 3' Is Now Available

Mike Kelley and Fstoppers have teamed up once again to produce the third installment of Where Art Meets Architecture. Over the past few years, creating images for realtors, architects, interior designers, and property management companies has become a booming industry for professional photographers. In this tutorial, Mike focuses on how to photograph the hospitality market including how to shoot hotels, resorts, and rental properties. For the first time in his career, Mike also shares everything he knows about the business of commercial architectural photography including pricing your work, creating bids and contracts, marketing your business effectively, and building licensing fees for residual income. We are excited to finally release the most thorough tutorial we have ever produced on architectural photography and have a special offer inside.

Madrid's Five Best Photo Locations

Once again in a series of articles for my frequently visited cities, I have compiled a list of locations for first time photographers to Madrid. The list is open to interpretation and I encourage you to go off the beaten path. It is a rough guide to get lost with a purpose. In my last two articles on Tokyo and Barcelona I focused on street portraits, architecture and night shots of the city. While in Madrid last April of 2016 I walked the city streets with my customers as seen in the Google map below.

Take Your Time Composing For Stronger Symmetry Photos

I'm a symmetry snob. If you are going for the down the center shot, get in the middle. It may seem obvious but at the end of the day a few inches can make a huge difference and actually make or break your photo. So as much as you want to start filling that memory card, slow down and make the fine tune adjustments.

Improve Your Interior Photography With These Five Tips

Are you an interior photographer, or simply aspire to create better interior images? Mango Street Lab is back with another short video tutorial outlining five basic tips that may help improve your interior photography.

Barcelona's Top Five Photography Locations

In the lead image above can anyone mention who was inspired by Gaudi's rooftop sculptures in Hollywood? For first time travelers to Barcelona these are my five favorites photo spots. I am expecting many readers to add their best spots that are not on this list. Please make sure to Google pin your exact locations in your comments. Much like my recent post on Tokyo I would love to see lots of sharing especially less popular locations.

Landscapes of Uncommonly Deserted Cities

Nicknamed the city that never sleeps, New York City is commonly known for busy streets and people on the go at any time of the day or night. When one photographer sees the opportunity to photograph these commonly hustling cities into a uncommonly deserted areas, the results are a tranquil look into the true heart of some of the worlds most famous locations.

Stairways That Take You Back to the Future

Balint Alovits is a photographer based in Budapest, Hungary who created a showcase of Bauhaus and Art Deco caracoles. He calls them "Time Machines." He assures me that these stairways really exist and that they aren't computer generated. He found their location online at first, but then developed a special sense, knowing if he saw the ornate front doors or large glass paneling, there was a good chance there was a special stairway inside too.

Landscape Photographer Shows How You Can Capture Beautiful Images Right in Your Neighborhood

Whether it's the glamor of Paris, the captivating shores of Ireland, or the natural beauty of the Grand Canyon, it is very easy for a photographer to assume that one must go above and beyond to capture the landscape images that he or she desires. Dennis Ramos, a world-renowned fine-art and landscape photographer, took a completely different approach. He captured the beauty that surrounded him where he resides in Tampa, FL.

How Your Smartphone Can Benefit Your Photography

I never really used to take photos on my phone; in fact, I used to be really against it because I never thought the camera was good enough to capture what I wanted. Of course, it's great to always have a camera on you so you can take a photo, which makes the smartphone one of the best tools around. With today's technology, these cameras just keep getting better, and I am finally beginning to use my phone's camera just to work on my composition and angles when I see something of interest.

Grant Legassick Does Multiple Exposures Differently

We've all attempted multiple exposures. We do it when we want to create a specific feeling when shooting portraits, and we do it when we want to expose correctly for an architectural photograph client, to correct in post. We use a tripod, to make sure the images are identical, and we either use the camera's automatic stop metering to compensate and expose all the needed information correctly. And then Grant Legassick goes and changes the way I always considered multiple exposures and how they can be used.

Mike Kelley Photographs Modern Architecture Behind The Scenes Episode 7

Our behind the scenes series during the filming of Where Art Meets Architecture 2 continues today with Episode 7. In this episode we continue shooting an incredible modern home in the middle of a lava field and we attempt to entertain ourselves in a few different ways while we are out in the middle of nowhere.

Where Art Meets Architecture 2 Behind The Scenes Episode 6

Our behind the scenes series during the filming of Where Art Meets Architecture II continues today with episode six. In this episode we fly to Hawaii, get ripped off by Delta, lose one of our bags and our drone, and film our first lesson at a house built in the middle of a lava field.

Nature Meets Modern Architecture in Stunning Time-lapse

A transportive time-lapse is something that never gets old, particularly when it looks and sounds as elegant as a waking dream. Forcibly poetic diction to describe lengthy slider moves and dramatically shifting clouds, perhaps. However, it’s hard to ignore the feeling you’ll get when you take this trip to Døvrefjell, a mountain in Norway that never looked more serene.

The Next Season Of Fstoppers Behind The Scenes Begins Now

It all started last year when Patrick and I flew around the world twice to create Photographing The World with Elia Locardi. We documented our entire three months of travel and edited it all down into 16 behind the scenes episodes. Earlier this year we created a behind the scenes series with Joey Wright covering our Swimwear Photography tutorial. These series have been so popular that we've decided to continue them.

Mike Kelley's New Tutorial On Architectural Photography Is Now Available

Four years ago we filmed Where Art Meets Architecture: How To Photograph Real Estate, Architecture and Interiors Tutorial, and it has been the most successful tutorial Fstoppers has ever produced. We've teamed up with Mike Kelley again to produce Where Art Meets Architecture 2: How To Photograph Luxury Homes and Advanced Photoshop Techniques, and it's available now.

Why Long Exposure Photography Is So Much Fun, but So Hard to Get Right

The first time I saw streaky clouds and silky smooth water, I knew I needed to learn how to do that. However, after buying my first neutral density filter, I realized it wasn't so easy to do. It was really hard to focus, and some photos were too dark, while others were too bright. And why were the middle of so many photos pink? Hopefully, this article will help you avoid some of the mistakes that I made as a long exposure beginner.

Photographer Reshapes Landmarks into Cartoons with Paper Cutouts

Rich McCor sprung to 175k followers on Instagram, with his creative approach to landscapes. Adding his own paper cutouts to the frame, we’re treated to a cartoon view on famous landmarks. They’re playful, well made, and definitely a creative way to travel the world.

Facing Away From Historic Landmarks

Searching for a photo of Christ the Redeemer on Flickr returns 26,615 images. How many photos are taken facing away from the landmark? Probably not a lot, which is why Oliver Curtis’ series of photos explores the other side of famous destinations.

Architecture in Motion: Emile Rafael

When it comes to shooting homes, Emile Rafael takes it to the next level. As a real estate photographer and videographer, I see the potential in shooting videos for agents; the only problem is they don't typically want to pay much, and they need things turned around fast. This is something where the agent could be taking a risk and receiving a quality product, but it does not seem to be so common.

Flirting With Disaster: Filmmaker Duo Flies Drone Inside Byzantine Church and the Result Is Beautiful

Flying a drone indoors is always a challenge. You have to remain absolutely calm and collected, and generally, I highly recommend not flying a drone indoors, especially if you're new to them in general. That's also the warning that Filmmakers Guillaume Juin and Joris Favraud give anyone wanting to recreate this feat. They are a pair of rather brazen drone operators if I've ever seen any, coming together to form their company BigFly. Normally, the risk of flying a drone inside of a structure is already high, but usually, the highest risk is to the safety of your equipment, as the ease with which your drone could come into contact with any number of disastrous endings is increased exponentially.

Critique the Community with Mike Kelley - Submit Your Architectural Photos

The Fstoppers team has been working on a new project with Mike Kelley. While we're with him, we wanted to give some of our readers the chance to have their architectural images critiqued by one of the best in the field. Join us for our next episode of Critique the community by submitting some of your pictures below in the comments. We will be selecting a total of 20 images to give feedback to. See the instructions below to submit your images correctly.

Is This Photo Fair Marketing Or A Cheap Trick?

In a quaint suburban neighborhood south of Sydney, Australia stands a three bedroom brick home that looks like any other at first glance. It is sharp and modern. The image is bright and vibrant and definitely eye catching. At a quick first look, it is a pretty standard image of the facade of a home. The detail that isn't featured in this image is what has the entire real estate industry buzzing. A simple Google search of the home brings up a much different representation of the property. Which begs the immediate question; how far is 'too far' when using photo editing software to edit real estate imagery?

Photographing Hong Kong With Elia Locardi / Behind The Scenes Episode 13 and 14

Our second tutorial with Elia Locardi: Photographing the World: Cityscape, Astrophotography, and Advanced Post-Processing was all about different types of cities. We started in Cinque Terre, a region of Italy where cities are basically built into the side of a natural landscape. We then moved on to Rome to shoot ancient architecture. Next we moved on to Singapore and Hong Kong for something a little bit more modern.

Some Like It Old: The Earliest Surviving Video of London in Existence

Right-o! Let's jump in our "wayback machine" to London, England in the late 19th century to witness some of the oldest known video footage, not only just of the city, but in all of human history. I'm a sucker for finding the earliest cinema and photography have to offer, and if you are too, then click on.

Check out These Amazing Inception Styled Cityscapes

Flatland is a project created by the Turkish photographer Aydın Büyüktaş. These images resemble scenes from the hit movie Inception, where the city seamlessly curves upward into the sky. Each image takes months of planning, and because of the complex scenery, Aydin must constantly reshoot locations in order to get the perfect alignment.