4 Composition Techniques for your Architecture Images (you are not using)

recently I have been looking at the incredible work of different visualization artists all unique and captivating in their own way I have been trying to understand how they create these fantastic images and I'm not talking about software I'm talking about underlying themes that you can replicate in different projects from composition lighting to textures colors and stories and today I want to talk about composing the camera angle of your renders and illustrations and I will review and dissect different images from different artists and offices in some architectural photographers due to the characteristics of most architectures worldwide

there seems to be a common way of representing them one of the most common among architectural visualizers is the hero shot in photography the Hero shot is often defined as a type of shot that highlights the main subject and presents it in the hero like wait kind of like a superhero movie where the main character is the main subject in the frame typically above the eye line of the viewer this shot can have many technical variations sometimes the subject can be centered or in one of the thirds of the image nonetheless the idea is the

same presenting it as the hero or kind of the new architecture different artists portrayed the idea of the hero in different ways maybe classic but perfectly executed way is done by the studio playtime Barcelona where in different projects of different scales and contexts the project is seen in a hero like way this is accentuated by photographing the building from a certain angle typically from a corner where you can see more than one facade is rotated in comparison to the plane of the camera of course this isn't exactly and it variates with each building the story

of each image in some cases the corner of the building is centered and others it is off-centered on some occasions the images foreground tells the story of the building in others it is left almost empty so the eye can directly travel level to the middle ground other times this hero-like aspect is accentuated by the main lighting almost as if the Sun that day shines brighter on the proposed architecture than anything else or if it is a cloudy day then the clouds will open in just a bare minimum so the sun can shine through and only

bathe the proposed architecture in light this and many more techniques will accentuate the aspect of the hero angle on the other hand there is the opposite of the hero angle and that is a frontal shot the hero angle defines the newly arriving the new kid on the Block the frontal shot defines stability something that has been there for some time now and blends perfectly into the context we can see the difference between these two angles in Canaletto´s painting the Bucintoro at the Molo on Ascension Day this piece depicts the same scene from two different points

of view one is from an angle where you can see the boats and people passing through the Grand Canal in the foreground in the Middle Ground you can see the center of the Palazzo Ducaley undoubtedly one of the main protagonists in the frame if we look at the frontal angle of the same scene we can see how the story and mood changes we still have the Palazzo the center of the painting and the characters in The foreground but it is an entirely different mood similarly renders that are portrayed with a frontal shot communicate a different

idea of their building we can see some frontal compositions from the French office Arte Factory lab that create different types of images but the camera angle is parallel to one of the main facades of the building this can also be read as an elevation or a way of showing the facade in its context this frontal shot allows you to play with techniques like repetition or contrast we can see in some images that the horizontal pattern of the facade of the building is being followed in the rest of the image or you can also contrast this

pattern by highlighting the opposite of the lines of the facade like in these images we can see on screen the landscape photographer Richard Misrach represents this with this picture the Santa Fe from 1982 where he aligns the main subject the train to the landscape different from his photograph River Corridor where we can see factories in the background but the farming landscape from the perpendicular position to them creating a clear contrast and I also want to note that this investigation and Analysis was done using Milanote. the sponsor of this video Milanote is a tool for organizing

your creative projects like this one with Miller note I can create a brainstorm Board of each composition technique and quickly categorize and paste ideas from my head I can just copy all the images of each artist and paste them onto my board I can also jot down random ideas and thoughts that pop up from time to time and remember them at different project stages here I can paste essential links and videos I consider important on the composition topic I can create annotations highlight specific details and create color palettes sometimes many apps are very rigid and

don't allow me to treat this like a sketchbook where I can scribble write create lines paste many things change the colors Etc with similar note I can do all this making sure my creative brain dumps also look creative Miller note is a place to collect and organize your thoughts and ideas organize checklists of everything that needs to be done visualize and gather inspiration and set a visual direction for a project Milano gives you a bird's eye view of everything happening and when you are ready to share your work you can invite your colleagues and clients

gather essential feedback and collaborate with them in real time and starting a project is easy with over a hundred built-in templates available for designers photographers filmmakers and more the best thing is that Miller note is available for free with no time limit sign up using the link in the description and start your next creative project the close-up render is a trickier technique that can be successful if achieved well a large percentage of the building is cut off to portray a specific detail of the building concerning its context we can see this in many of the

renders by the Nordic office MIR we can see how the white space is distributed if we put the context in Black versus the building white of course this leaves you with a feeling of wanting to see more of the building by doing precisely the opposite hiding most of it these close-ups can be composed like a zoomed in version of a frontal shot or an angled version where you feel the building was photographed with a telephoto lens where most things are cropped you see only a few details we can take advantage of this technique to show

the construction methods of the building the relations between different levels or the layering of different elements an example of three close-up shots that tell the story of a building or a place can be seen here the first is by Cristobal Palma photographing a public school in Colombia the second is by Julius Schulman of case study house number nine made by Charles Eames and cyranin where you see a superposition of shapes and colors that try to portray a synthesis of the house and finally a photograph by Stefan gutierre of his series melting point where an endless

collage of facades textures and balconies tile up and if you leave information about the building behind in a close-up have a shorter field of view and expect the viewer to complete the rest with their imagination you can do the opposite in a wide angle shot tell a story through a wide angle lens and instead of leaving out information you include information that generally would not be in a classic architectural photography or on some occasions these shots are the opportunity to include angles and shapes in the foreground that direct the viewer's eye to a certain point

and in other occasions a wide angle shot can include information about the context and help the building appear in a more casual aspect kind of like a person that was taken by surprise in a casual photography fee a wide angle lets the building be a bit informal in these wide angle shots you feel in place due to the wide angle it inserts a human point of view into the image different from other techniques that we have seen that maybe give it a more formal aspect where we feel like we are looking at a photograph but

in this case we feel like we are actually in the real place now you can't have every solution in these four techniques of framing your architecture which we can cover in a different video but creative angles are not always expected and sometimes can be used in you know different kinds of projects the possibilities are endless so the next time you are getting ready to render your projects and are saving a ton of different scenes in your model stop and think which one should I use what do I want to show more of or less of

the point of view the angle can be definitive for an excellent image so after you have that checked you should probably revise other aspects like how to add realistic fog to your renders if you don't know you can click on this video right year I will leave links to all the artists and Studios we talked about in the description and I will see you in the following video bye