It’s fair to say we live in an image and motion picture-dominated world. As such, business owners across all sectors are adapting their marketing strategies to keep up with the current trends in consumer behaviours.
One such industry is domestic and commercial architecture, where imagery and high-quality professional photography are crucial. This guide will look at this type of photography in finer detail and explore how architects can leverage the power of advertising and commercial photography to their advantage and make their images stand out.
Professional Architectural Photography
Structures and architectural design thrive off of high-quality photography, with these images doing the following:
Attracting interest from potential customers, if it were, for example, a popular tourist attraction, historical site or commercial structure.
Providing insight into the particular architect’s scope of work, enticing prospective clients to look into their other similar projects.
Creating valuable marketing collateral to use in printed brochures or flyers, on websites or a company’s social media account.
Architects’ clients and prospects will always want to see photographs of their projects at various stages of the planning, design and construction process, where commercial photography services can come in handy.
So how can you ensure your investment in an architectural photographer pays off? Before you hire a photographer, consider the following strategies as a guide to improve your images’ visual quality and strength.
The following tips will also help your business tell its visual story and engage the potential customers within your target audience.
Architecture Photography Tips
Take Pictures in Various Weather Conditions
Consider building a collection of photographs that showcase buildings at different times of the day. Don’t just settle for sunset shots where the long shadows and dark backdrop are the only settings that add value to your building’s photography. Instead, capture images during other weather conditions to capture its ambience at multiple points in time.
Make Photographic Lighting a Priority
Good photographic lighting should always be a priority. Using professional lighting and equipment will help emphasise the space, specifications or atmosphere (or a combination of the three) of the building. If you want to find out my go-to’s for the lighting and camera for architectural photography, feel free to email me.
Capture Images from Various Angles
It’s important to play with perspective, within reason. Allow yourself additional time to find different angles to capture images from, where a professional architectural photographer could potentially expose overlooked features of a building’s detail. You’d be surprised how the small details make a big difference in a building’s appreciation.
Include People in Photography, Where Appropriate
Historically speaking, the inclusion of people in architecture photographs has never been embraced by all photographers. That said, recent trends have seen a shift in that mindset. People are integral to the success and progression of commercial and domestic architecture, so don’t be afraid to include them in your building imagery.
Highlight the Finer Details
Capturing images with a wide-angle lens is generally the go-to solution in architecture photography. That said, the intricate details – such as vertical lines of a building – are often lost or concealed when the entire facade or room is confined to a single frame.
Avoid ‘Objectifying’ the Structure
People could form a polarising opinion if they visit a structure having only visualised it from one specific point of view. This does architectural photography a disservice, whereas multiple angles provide the opposite.
Keep Photo Edits to a Minimum
Images should only be altered to enhance or match the atmosphere you want to create with your architecture photography. Only amend any images in post-processing once you’re fully aware of what kind of changes would add value to them. My recommendation would be to leave any photo edits in the capable hands of your professional photographer.
Reasons to Choose a Commercial Architectural Photographer
If you’re serious about investing in high-quality architectural photography services, consider Mike Green Photography.
By choosing me to capture professional images of your projects, you’ll be working with a flexible, reliable and capable commercial photographer in Berkshire with a wealth of experience in the construction, engineering, manufacturing and technology industries, as well as architecture.
I use best-in-class lighting and camera equipment with wide-angle lenses, tilt-shift lenses and more. I’d be more than happy to discuss the scope of my photography services with you and set clear expectations of when you can expect drafts, edits, etc.
I am a photographer in Reading, Berkshire and often conduct location shoots in areas across the Thames Valley but will also be happy to travel further afield if need be.
If this is something of interest to you, please consider filling in my contact form.
Here are some of Mike Green’s product photography
Product Photography
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