When I look around the internet at articles on photography there is always an abundance of articles on photographing landscapes, portraits and weddings, but architecture is an area that seems to be almost forgotten.  It isn’t totally forgotten, but it certainly doesn’t get as much attention as the others.  Most people think of Real Estate when they think of architectural photography, but there are other types, and there are certainly other uses.

Architecture has been used in artwork for hundreds of years.  Aristocrats would commission artists to do a painting of their homes, or their very large castles.  Castles have been featured in the artwork of so many painters, and today it is still a popular subject for artists and photographers.  So is their a place in the world for professional photographers/artists who want to photograph beautiful architecture for clients who want wonderful images of homes and work spaces that they are very proud of?

I have to say I know there are clients out there who want images that can enlarged and framed for their walls.  Though, the impression I get is that it isn’t normal architectural images that these potential clients are looking for.  I was asked to photograph the interior of the Manchester Unity Building in Melbourne because the client liked how I photographed architecture, although it turned out to be more about how I processed it.  They liked the artistic element my images had and the mood that my photography gave to their building.  For the above image I was asked to make it look like Batman lived there.  It is nothing like what the original image looked like.  I had to do a lot of work on it.  This is what I call Fine Art Photography.  I created a piece of artwork that was enlarged  a lot and then framed and hung in the building.

The big question is, are there other clients out there who want images like this for their walls, or even their websites.  It is a hard thing to work out.  I recently was given a job photographing a hotel in a country town, the hotel had recently been renovated and they wanted photos for their new website.  It wasn’t going to be a big job like the one for the Manchester Unity Building, but still, they wanted images that would highlight the beautiful 150 year old bluestone country hotel in Inverleigh.

This is a straight shot of the hotel with little processing.  All the elements are there, the clouds in the sky, the dull light stops any sharp shadows.  The building is place on a corner and there weren’t any cars around, so I could concentrate just on the building.  It is a nice shot and I like the angle, but I knew that I could do more.  I did process the image in the end as a HDR, and I got a better image than this, especially after removing the power line through the top.

I was happy with this, and this was included in the images that were supplied to the hotel on completion of the job.  I wasn’t paid to do fine art images of the hotel, and therefore I had to work within the budget I was given.  That is how it works in photography.  Though, I think in the future I should negotiate more and see if they would like a couple of fine art images.  This is all learning for me too.  So I decided to see what I could do with the image if I was doing a fine art image of it.

It isn’t a lot different, but I think it does look better and gives the building more focus.  The image has been warmed up to match the late afternoon light.  I hope the owners of the hotel would think this image is much better and more appealing to what they want.

Learning to run a photography business is hard, working out what to offer and how to negotiate with clients is a whole new ball game.  I find I am learning new things all the time and dealing with clients is one of those things.  The next thing to learn is about marketing and networking.  I did a fine art degree, and I learned how to be an artist, but they didn’t teach us how be good at the business side of it.  I remember a TAFE course I did for one year at NMIT that talked how to be an artist is all very well, but you have to be a business person as well.  That is so true.