While my portfolio is largely dominated by nature and landscape photography, I spend a significant amount of time photographing buildings and cityscapes, be it at home or during my travels. I initially took up architectural photography only as an exercise to develop my vision and my compositional skills. Little did I know that I would soon be completely hooked!

A quick look at my images will surely show you a trend or two. I particularly relish shooting big sweeping curves and strong diagonals. Yes it does test the limits of my flexibility (increasing my neck pains by the same token), however, I really try and instill a sense of movement and dynamism in all my architectural work. Now that I think about it, it’s pretty paradoxal…I mean, giving an impression of movement in the least mobile of human creations…always thought I was odd, but  I could never figure out why…there goes my answer…I come here to blog about photography and end up with a public psychoanalysis session – go figure!

Anyhow, random thoughts apart, my goal today was to share  with you a few tips on how to use diagonals to create strong, dynamic architectural photographs.

1- Diagonal = movement

While our brains readily associate horizontal lines with stillness and stability, they also automatically associate diagonal lines with dynamic movement.  Had I taken this image directly facing the pier, I would have had a fairly dull and unappealing composition. Instead, I positioned myself so that the ends of the pier coincide with the corners of the frame. In this instance, your gaze is forced along the length of the bridge, as if sliding through its length. The perspective is such that it draws into the scene, as if you are about to take a walk along it.

2- Points de Fuite

One of my favorite tricks is without a doubt the use of the “point de fuite”. This is a concept often used in architectural and industrial design to simulate depth and perspective. Basically, a point is set at a distance, and all the lines starting at the edge of the frame converge towards that point. Photographically, this is very simple to do. I usually set my wide-angle lens at its widest setting (here 10mm on a DX camera), I then point the camera upwards and place a main line on each edge (here I used the columns and the edges of the building). The extreme wide angle distorts straight lines and records the scene such that the points at the edge converge towards an imaginary point at the back of the scene. Compositions like these create a sort of tunnel vision effect that immediately “sucks” you into the scene.

3- KISS differently

No this is not the rock band, nor is it a famous concept for simplifying things. Keep It Slanted Silly. That’s my new motto. As a landscape photographer I go through painstaking adjustments to make sure my horizon is, well, horizontal. Yet, when shooting buildings, I never shy away from tilting the camera in all sorts of angles. Your building has no great diagonals to offer you? You don’t want to add another “Here is the “insert building name here” shot?  Why not create your own diagonals to add a little bit of pop to your shots? This is exactly what I’ve done at the Seattle Space Needle. I had already taken shots of the place from every possible angle, and had seen more shots in more angles, but none really satisfied me. I then backed-up a bit, went down the stairs, tilted my camera, used the railings as my guides (stemming from the edges of the frame), and ta-daaa! To this day, this remains one of my favorite architectural shots.

Do you have any more “diagonals” tips or insights to contribute? Please chime in!