In a nutshell
- In this article, we’ll show you how to use composition to take your architectural photography to the next level.
- Discover gear recommendations for your camera equipment and check out our favorite destinations for architectural photography.
- Photographing architecture is possible almost anywhere — whether in a small town or a big city.
- You can shoot relatively regardless of the season.
- And you can get started with a surprisingly minimal camera kit.
Tips on Composition
Perspective in Architecture Photography
Perspective is essentially the same as the position of your camera — in other words, the angle from which your camera looks at your subject.
When we walk through a new city and spot an interesting building to photograph, we’re quickly tempted to take a shot from wherever we happen to be standing when we first notice it. That’s just snapping!
Instead, pause and think about which vantage point and which shooting height will give you the best photo of a building or structure.
Simply crouching down can open up completely new angles. If you take your time and walk around a building, you’ll also discover interesting details you would otherwise have missed.
So make a conscious effort to choose your position and, with it, your perspective deliberately. That’s what takes you from snapping to truly photographing.
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The Golden Ratio
The golden ratio is a compositional rule that has existed since antiquity! It’s about dividing your photo into two sections. The ratio between those sections is perceived by people as particularly harmonious.
There’s even a formula for this ratio: a / b = ( a + b ) / a.
Clear as mud? No worries. From this rule, the rule of thirds was derived, and it’s much easier to understand.
The rule of thirds results in roughly a ⅓ to ⅔ division of the image. You should place your main subject along the dividing axis to create a balanced composition.
In the example image, we’ve drawn in this axis so you can see exactly what we mean.
By the way, you can enable this grid in your camera’s menu, displaying it on your monitor or in the viewfinder. This lets you compose your shot more effectively while you’re shooting. It also makes it easier to keep the horizon straight.
Symmetry in Architecture Photography
For symmetry, the thirds grid in your camera settings mentioned earlier is also really handy. It lets you see when your subject is truly centered.
Symmetry produces very graphic images. It works especially well for subways, tunnels, staircases, and similar subjects.
The key is to position yourself truly centered in front of your subject. If you don’t, even photo editing can’t easily correct a slight offset. By the way, shots like these also look great in black and white.
Reflections and Mirrors
Reflections can be used in many creative ways. There are plenty of ways to create them.
In many larger cities, you’ll find glass-fronted buildings whose surfaces you can use for reflections. Try playing with contrasts and see if you can capture an old church reflected in a modern glass building.
Another option is lakes or rivers, where you can photograph reflections of buildings in the water.
For choppy water in particular, you should use a longer shutter speed — half a second or more. This causes the water to appear calmer and brings out the reflection more clearly.
Another simple trick for creating a reflection is a small water bottle. Pour a little water on the ground and you instantly have a small puddle you can use as a reflective surface. Hold your camera close to it and you’ve got your reflection on the go.
Detail Shots in Architecture Photography
When people think of architecture photography, they mostly think of capturing entire buildings. Sometimes, though, that’s just not possible — either because you can’t get far enough away from the subject or because your lens isn’t wide-angle enough.
That’s totally fine, because most buildings have interesting details that get lost in a full-building shot. So look for those interesting details and photograph them instead.
Such shots are ideal as a complement to images of complete structures. This approach is also known as a photo series — a collection of multiple images that share a common theme.
Using Light and Weather for Architecture Photography
One of the great things about architecture photography is that you can get interesting shots in virtually any weather.
In sunshine, you get crisp, graphic photos. You can also use the shadows cast by buildings and incorporate them into your shots.
When it rains, your architecture photos automatically take on a more dramatic feel. Just make sure your camera doesn’t get wet if it isn’t splash-proof.
The time of day also offers many opportunities to photograph the same building in completely different ways.
Just before sunrise or just after sunset is what’s known as the blue hour. Everything takes on a very bluish tone — it’s a seriously great time to photograph modern architecture.
Just after sunrise or just before sunset is the time of the golden hour. Shadows are long and colors are very warm.
At midday, the light is very harsh, meaning the edges of shadows are sharply defined.
Why not turn this into a photography project! Pick a building in your city and photograph it at different times of day and in different weather conditions.
If you want to shoot in peace, we recommend the early morning hours. That way you won’t have to worry as much about other people getting in your shots.
Avoiding Converging Lines
Converging lines are a key concept in architecture photography. If you stand in front of a rectangular building and shoot upward, it will look in your photo as though the building is narrowing toward the top.
These are called converging lines. If you want to photograph the parallel lines of a building as straight as possible, you need to make sure your camera is aligned parallel to the building.
This means you’ll end up with a lot of foreground in your shot. You can crop it out afterward — or, if it looks great, incorporate it intentionally into your composition.
The farther you are from a building, the easier it will be to minimize converging lines.
That said, you don’t need to be afraid of converging lines. You can even use them deliberately in your photos to create very dynamic images.
If the converging lines aren’t too pronounced, you can also correct them easily in most photo editing programs, often with just a single click. Lightroom and Luminar Neo, for example, both have a function that automatically corrects these lines.
In the free app Snapseed, you can adjust them manually and straighten the lines with just a few swipe gestures on your smartphone. The app is available for free on Android and iOS.
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Making People Disappear
Most of the time, you’ll face the problem of not being alone in front of a great building. Other people are walking back and forth in front of you, taking their own photos.
There’s one trick for making people disappear: long-exposure photography. For this, you’ll need special lens filters.
ND filters are filters that reduce the amount of light entering your camera — like sunglasses for your lens. This means that even in bright sunlight, you can set a longer exposure time.
To do this, set your ISO all the way down to ISO 100 to 200 and simultaneously choose the largest aperture number possible.
Combined with an ND filter, you can now expose for 30 seconds or longer. This causes the movement of people walking around you to blur, and they gradually disappear the longer you expose.
Of course, this technique requires a tripod or a stable surface on which you can place your camera without any camera shake during the shot.
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Panorama Mode for Large Buildings
Almost all smartphones and most cameras have a built-in panorama mode. Take a look in your camera’s menu to see if you can find it.
When people think of panorama mode, they immediately think of sweeping landscapes. But of course you can use it creatively for all kinds of photography.
If you find that your lens isn’t wide-angle enough to capture an entire building in a single frame, panorama mode is the solution.
The trick is to pan the camera vertically rather than horizontally. This way, you can capture the full height of the building in one shot.
Camera Settings for Architecture Photography
Architecture photography is mostly about getting photos that are as detailed and sharp as possible.
For this purpose, it’s best to use the lowest ISO value your camera offers. This is usually somewhere between ISO 100 and ISO 200.
A tripod is also a great tool to make your photography easier. It protects against camera shake during long exposures.
It also encourages you to work a bit slower and more deliberately — and that automatically makes your photos better.
The other camera settings depend heavily on what you want to photograph and how. Here are a few settings and their effects:
A small aperture number up to f/2.8 creates a shallow depth of field. Objects in the foreground are rendered sharply, while objects in the background blur away and don’t distract from your main subject.
A large aperture number starting around f/8 does the exact opposite. Your photo will be sharp from foreground to background.
A fast shutter speed like 1/500s lets you freeze motion — for example, the water from a fountain or people moving in front of buildings.
In contrast, a long exposure time of 1 second or more blurs motion. Clouds in the sky become flowing streaks in a good breeze, or a lake’s surface turns glassy and smooth, perfectly mirroring a building.
There really are many different settings combinations that let you create all kinds of effects. Just experiment with your camera settings and see what happens.
Which Lens for Architecture Photography?
For classic architecture photography, wide-angle lenses are ideal, allowing you to capture as much as possible in a single frame.
For detail shots, telephoto lenses are a great choice. They let you get very close to your subject optically.
In the tables below, you’ll find a buying recommendation for both a wide-angle and a telephoto lens.
Wide-Angle Lenses
Telephoto Lenses
Since architecture photography rarely demands the widest possible aperture, you can start out very well with your kit lens. It typically already covers the wide-angle range and even reaches into a light telephoto focal length.
As you gain experience and realize that you need more wide-angle or more telephoto for your architecture shots, you can always add a new focal length later.
Read our lens tips too:
Great Cities for Beautiful Architecture Photography
To practice and put our best architecture photography tips into action, every city and village has at least a few interesting buildings. But honestly — it only gets truly exciting with genuinely compelling architecture!
Here are our favorite cities where you can take stunning, modern architecture photos — listed from closest to farthest:
Still more inspiration for beautiful cities
Freedom of Panorama in Architecture Photography
Finally, a topic we’ll only touch on briefly here, but one you should definitely keep in mind. If you’d like to learn more about it, we recommend our article on freedom of panorama.
You cannot photograph architecture freely and publish those photos however you like. Laws vary significantly by country, but in many places the key principle is similar: you can generally photograph and publish anything you can capture with your camera without leaving public property. So far so good.
For example, there are some hotels in Berlin from which you can get a wonderful shot of the TV Tower. In theory, this is where it gets complicated.
The Berlin TV Tower is located in public space. But you are not, if you take the photo from a hotel or another building. The copyright to the photo belongs to you, but the right to publish it belongs to the hotel.
Then there’s the topic of ‘permanent works’. With buildings, this is relatively clear-cut. The Molecule Men installation in Berlin, for example, is a work of art that stands permanently in the Spree River and can therefore be photographed without any issues.
But do you remember the wrapped Reichstag in Berlin by the artist Christo? That’s a trickier case. Because that “artwork” was only on display for a limited period of time. Christo successfully sued a publisher that sold postcards featuring this image.
In other countries, copyright laws look quite different. In Paris, for example, it is prohibited to photograph the Eiffel Tower at night and publish those photographs.
You can find more details on this topic in our comprehensive article on freedom of panorama.
Click here for the article on freedom of panorama
Do your research before visiting a foreign country and planning to photograph there. But don’t stress too much about it. If you’re taking photos just for yourself, it’s generally not a problem.
