I will be on the road for the rest of the week, so this will be a shorty. I will also hopefully get some time for Friday Roundup tomorrow. Next week is the start of the month of June, so look out for the first ever Monthly Calendar.

Today’s post is a quick follow-up to yesterday’s on shooting architectural exteriors. I received several questions regarding the lighting I used and  how I managed to get the exposure right. So here is the “secret” behind the scenes for these kind of shots.

It is very simple really: shoot it at twilight, in the 30min to 1h following sunset (depending on whether you are facing East or West).  Photographing buildings and cityscapes at those hours has several advantages:

- the sky has a deep blue colour that says “night”, yet it is clear enough that the building doesn’t disappear in darkness. You get well defined edges that emphasize the shapes of the buiding;

- the exposure is very easy to handle: somehow, at twilight, the brightness of the sky is roughly equivalent to that of the street lamps. So, no contrast nightmares or tough exposures: just meter off the sky or use your matrix metering and it’s in the box;

- from an aesthetic point of view, the effect is certainly very pleasing: the city lights aren’t the dominant source of light yet, therefore, you can still use daylight white balance and get perfect colours. Even better, use “cloudy” WB to enhance those yellows and really make them stick out from the twilight blue in the sky;

- I know I had another point but it is escaping me right now…mmm…ah well, I’ll get back to it if I think of it in the next little while.

Anymore tips you want to add? I’d love to hear your input.