Old buildings can be fascinating. Many people shoot them from the outside. Many of these buildings can be large and you do not often have a lot of space to work with. So the only way to shoot these buildings is the use a wide angle lens. Wide angle lenses make these buildings fall over backwards in your images. To prevent this architectural photographers use tilt and shift lenses for correction. If you do not shoot architecture a lot these lenses may not be a good investment for you. By the way, tilt and shift lenses are also great for landscape photography because they can be used to increase your depth of field. Is it fair to say though that most photographers do not own such lenses. So how do we shoot these buildings?

          Have you ever thought of shooting them from the inside? These buildings are just as interesting on the inside as what they are on the outside. I prefer shots that do not attempt to include the whole view. Eliminate a lot of the scene. Find photographs within the grand view. Focus your attention on parts of the whole. See shots that others do not see.

I watched many people in this building that day. To get the large view (that attempts to include everything), people would squeeze themselves against a wall to get as far back as they can. I witnessed a lot of frustration as people were not able to include everything they wanted to include. I could not help but wonder why they wished to include so much. Yes, of course, they want to include everything as a keep sake of the place. However, these kind of shots are not always good photographically.

          Rather than shoot the grand scenes (which had just too much on offer) I selected shots like the example above. I used a tripod (nobody bothered me because they did not "get" what I was trying to shoot pointing the camera the "wrong" way). Yet, photographically speaking I liked my shots more than even the post cards being sold in the visitor center. I am not saying that there is anything wrong with the images being sold; they certainly served the purpose of capturing where you just visited. From an artistic point of view though I think this image is far stronger than the grand scenes.

          When shooting inside buildings it helps to think compositionally; forget where you are - have your spouse capture those kinds of images as they are important too. Look for detail. Look for repeating themes like arches or many doors or openings. Look for patterns. Find a strong center point of interest that is different from the rest of the image. For example, there may be many closed doors; so pick the only open one as your center point of interest. In this image above I used the window as my center point of interest. It works well because it is different (not brick), it is brighter (the human eye will always go to what is brighter; use that compositionally), it is well placed (rule of thirds; see my previous blog on composition), and the arches kind of lead the viewer to the window.

          The next time you see an interesting building, please try shooting inside as well. Find shots of interest within the bigger scene. "See" shots that others don't look for. Find shots that others don't have.