View Full Version : Photographing an Icon
Hi All,
I took a little trip out to the Farnsworth house last weekend and took the following pictures.
I was trying to capture the contrast between the building and surrounding.
It would be great to get some feedback on these and also if anyone has advise on how best to capture the spirit of an iconic building, taking shots from a different vantage point for buildings that are very recognizable.
First, get your wife of girlfriend out of the picture!:poke fun: I have the same problem, can't keep the kids form climbing all over ther object I'm photographing.
As far as the Farnsworth House is concerned, I think backing off and getting more of the site would help. Really a nice relationship between the natural surroundings and the stark, white, machine-made structure.
The Farnsworth House is one of my absolute faves.
A couple of things:
First, like Jake said, lose the person in the foreground. I believe people are useful, even necessary at times in order to accurately depict human scale. In this case, however, she looks pasted-on or even Photoshopped and doesn't relate to the building in terms of scale.
Secondly, in terms of the shots-less-taken, I might explore the realm of the less obvious... I think your second shot gets closer to what I mean. Focus perhaps on the way the glass can be both transparent AND reflective. Maybe it's the way that you see the context around the house via that reflection.
And what about the other shots? I would love to see one from an ant's perpective, looking through to the other side by shooting underneath or below the floor plate of the house.
On a side note, it might also be nice to see some detail shots which might showcase how this thing was put together - i.e. how Mies hides or exposes his connections - the secrets behind the scenes.
Anyways, the quality of your pictures is very nice in terms of lighting/contrast, saturation, etc. Push your creative comfort zone a little further... You may surprise yourself with what you get!!!
Can't wait to see more!
Ok first off without the wife, thoroughly agree with you both I thought it might add a little foreground interest but palphd you are very right in saying that she looks photoshopped in not what I as intending.
What I was trying to achieve with this shot is to capture the contrast between stark white structure against a foreground of 'messy' vegetation.
Order versus Disorder
Im not really satisfied with this last one, will process more of the raw files during the week and post, had intended on doing it last night but a tornado decided to roll into town
Got to love the midwest.....
nice composition jamesq. You have quite an eye for it.....
well done!!!
ajwtaylor
06-08-2008, 13:44
Ok first off without the wife.
:(:mad::(:mad::(
Maybe you could post some actual photos of your wife......:poke fun:
:bump:
but a tornado decided to roll into town
Got to love the midwest.....
Yea, it missed my house by about 5 blocks. Lot's of trees down in a path about 2 miles long and a block wide. Spooky.
James... thanks for the post. I think Jake's comment on getting away from the building and revealing the context is a good comment. I recently had the opportunity to visit New Harmony and Meier's Welcome Center there. What I tried to achieve in my approach to capturing a building is it's sense of place and context. Here is a panoramic (http://www.pushpullbar.com/forums/showpost.php?p=119704&postcount=3) I took trying to capture that for the Meier building... this picture shows the whole as well as how the building rests on the site. It maybe that the Farnsworth house is surrounded more with Trees and you would have a more difficult job trying to capture the whole thing. The one thing I know that is next on my list for lenses is a wide angle lens (10mm-20mm). The widest I can go right now is 17mm, but sometimes that just doesn't cut it.
Yea, it missed my house by about 5 blocks. Lot's of trees down in a path about 2 miles long and a block wide. Spooky.
It was a pretty nasty one, we were in the basement for a couple of hours, had a really bad feeling about it ended up not being too bad around some trees down but no one injured.
One of the most impressive lightening storms ive seen in a while just before the sirens went off.
Wizum,
Really nice shots of the New Harmony welcome center, Im going to have to get down there for a look some weekend.
Farnsworth house has an open area of grass on the north side which is where most of my shots were taken, there was a large tour group at the time i visited so getting shots from a distance was difficult without getting other visitors in the shot
James,
thanks for the nice comments... Yeah, I hear ya on the crowd in the way :) I have had this problem when going to popular waterfalls to shoot and there being people in the way. Fortunately when we shot the Antheneum it was a slow day and had not problems getting all the shots we wanted.
So maybe another tip to add to the thread is to have control of your subject to some extent so that you can grab the scene the way you want it :)
I believe you can take a private tour at Farnsworth but i think a substantial donation is required to make that happen
Last Sunday was a beautiful day not too hot low humidity, which was one of the reasons we decided to head out there the problem with places like these is that everyone else had the same idea...........
Jake is posting some photos now at the Milwaukee art museum and he seems to have been blessed with a people free day, just a few carefully positioned to give a little scale, Genius :not worth
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