On a recent visit to Liverpool my wife and I couldn’t but help notice that there were a lot of new shops and offices being built. If you walk from the docks to the city centre it is hard not to get the impression that you are walking on a nice new path through a building site.
I am always on the lookout for photographs and one of the buildings that attracted my attention was a block of offices with an unusual shape that appear to be falling on top of you as you walk by. The untouched shot opposite, taken on my iPhone at dusk, gives a sense of the context for the building (the tower on the right).
I wanted to take a photograph of the building which, for me, would capture something of the building’s unique unusual shape, and its sense of literally overwhelming you as you walk near to it.
The next day when I was out with my camera I again crossed the main road next door to the building. It was early afternoon and the clear blue sky meant that there was enough light for a fast, detailed shot. Despite the traffic on the busy road, I managed to stand on the crossing long enough to compose a shot. I wanted to avoid a vertical angle to make the shot more dynamic and help draw attention to the abstract shape of the building. The shot below is the one that came out of the camera.
I was moderately pleased with this but felt the shot would benefit from sharpening and increased contrast. I also wanted to see what a bit of colour enhancement would look like. The result of all of the above was the shot below, where in my view, the shot is richer and the definition enhanced.
My final attempt was to take it further into the abstract by toning the whole picture. I chose a blue to try to create a futuristic steely cold picture. I also worked to remove some of the white from the frames on the bottom right side and took out the box on the top rail. The blue toning increased the definition of the windows and also had the effect of virtually removing the blue sky, allowing more focus on the building itself.
If I were to go back to Liverpool I would want to revisit this building with my camera. Although I like the final version, it completely fails to capture the sense of the building falling on top of you. To do that, I would need to think harder about the shooting angle and try again.
(All the photographs in this blog are copyrighted © James Rye 2008 and must not be reproduced in any media without the photographer’s permission.)
That’s a great building, same architect as the Petronas Towers in fact.
I did enjoy reading this and had not noticed intially that you had removed the box at the top of the building.
My taste has changed a lot since first being introduced to flickr and photography. A year ago I may not have been nearly as taken with this image as I am now.
This picture is very different to the one I would normally take and if I did, it would look -well just like your first picture, at best.
This is where I can see the power of editing in photoshop, or similar programmes and it encourages and prods me to have a go at some point.
A very good teaching session, very understandable and clear. I like the way you take us through each photo and how you change and build the image up as you go along and tell us about this process.
I would love to see similar blogs in the future.