The world of photography is continuously growing in popularity and availability. Now, mobile phones allow one to shoot whenever and wherever great images present themselves. However, the mass availability and ease of review-and-delete practices has lead to more images being captured but not necessarily better ones. The guidance of photographic techniques pioneered by the masters since the art form's inception is undeniably important in certain genres like architecture photography.
One does not need to apply any more intention or attention to capturing an image with a digital camera than it takes to waves one's arm. The result of this fact is that the internet and personal photo collections of the masses have become inundated with images as interesting as a waving arm, which is to say not interesting at all. Why? The reason is because it is no longer enough of a visual accomplishment to merely capture the representation of a place visited by taking a picture of a building. Now that mass media has expanded the viewing public's catalogue of mental images seen, it is important to create stylized and individualized images through the application of a few simple techniques.
When photographing architecture, the most important rule is to keep the plane of the recording surface parallel to the planar surface of the architectural structure being photographed, then the object will not be distorted with foreshortening because the distance is equal between the recording surface and all photographed points. Or, to put it another way, as long as the camera's body is straight up-and-down then the building being photographed will not appear distorted at one end than it does at the other end like a pyramid. The advantage to this rule of optics is that it does not require the lens to be parallel, which is why architecture photographers use shift-tilt lenses.
That is a more refined tactic to capturing great architecture images, but other simpler techniques can be readily applied for equally stunning results. Another suggestion is to take pictures of buildings when the sun is at its greatest angle to the surface being photographed, like in the early morning or at dusk.