Photographing Buildings

Frank Gehry was on American Masters, PBS, on Wednesday. I watched it, of course. For a couple of reasons.

1-I wanted to see what his thought process was behind his work. How he came up with his ideas and what inspired him. I am fascinated with how things are created. I think that's why I like dvds with commentary. It's fun to hear what the directors/cinematographers were thinking when a film was created. I like to know what makes artists tick.

2-The photo of the Disney Concert Hall that I recently took. I have fun photographing buildings. Not quite as much fun as people but still it's fun. The only problem with photographing a building is that it's there all the time. Sometimes, it's been there forever (or at least a couple hundred years). I often think the building must have been photographed thousands of times. How will my photo be different? Or will it mirror countless others?

In general, I usually photograph a building because something about caught my eye. It's usually that something that I try to capture. With the California Missions, I think I try to capture the past. A moment in time where I wasn't. I have a goal to photograph all of the missions. I'm not there yet but I'm on my way.


Other times, I like a building because of it's patterns. Which is why I took that photo of the Disney Concert Hall. This one I took at the Getty. More so I think because the two buildings together made an interesting pattern. (it's a copy of a slide)


This one is also from the getty. I liked that amongs all the lines and right angles, there were these curvy humans. I wondered if the architecht thought of that when he designed the space. This is also a copy of a slide and I'm sorry it has a little flare in it.


I also don't like the composition of it. It's a little off. But I keep it around to remind myself what I was trying. I do that with a lot of my photos/slides.

Back to buildings...I guess the challenge is to find the character of a building. It's easier with people because we have emotions and expressive faces. With buildings, I think you have to do it with mood & lighting. Hard but fun to try.