Architecture as a Path to Landscape

One of the major take-aways that I got from working with Younes Bounhar was that architecture photography is a fantastic path to developing your eye for composition. Artificial structures provide an opportunity to strip away what can be extraneous, and focus right down to bare essentials in a way that a landscape may not allow. This might result in only a few components remaining or all the way to an abstract image. This act of focusing down to the essentials is applicable to any type of photography: a leading line is a leading line. When you start out trying to photograph a landscape, seeing those leading lines may be difficult: the forest for the trees.

Simplifying an image may be as simple as removing colour or boosting exposure, or using a telephoto lens to compress depth of field into a perceived single layer or focusing in on a smaller area.

or motion bluring a forest to hide the leaves leaving the tree trunks.

So look beyond what your eye sees and look through to your image. Look for the leading lines, curves and shapes. Play with settings on-site and in post-processing. Take those resulting images and try to visualize them during your next outing.

Good shooting!