2 Lenses Iconic Architecture and an E-Scooter

2 lenses iconic architecture and an e-scooter pretty much summarises my recent trip to Valencia because the city was enveloped by floods two weeks before we set off and we had no idea if we would be able to get into the city at all, never mind photograph the architecture. As it turned out, the floods actually decimated the area south of the city centre and the industrial zone in the suburbs south of that.

Valencia

This trip was undertaken just two weeks after the floods that devastated the suburbs, took 224 lives and caused millions of pounds worth of damage. So a real dilemma presented itself – do I shoot the architecture or the floods?

I’m not a documentary photographer or a photojournalist and so I was sensitive to the argument that pictures of the devastation on social media would be seen as disaster porn, but on the other hand as a fellow photographer put it to me, we as photographers have a responsibility to record this stuff because this particular disaster was entirely the responsibility of climate change denial. History will be rewritten but photographs are a record.

Let me qualify that statement. The ruling political party in the region is a coalition between the centre right PP and the far right VOX. The Far right are climate change deniers and part of the price of the coalition was that activities related to climate change mitigation would be scaled back.

On the day, more than 12 inches of rain fell in the space of just eight hours. That’s basically a whole year’s worth of rain. The disaster was declared a level two emergency, meaning the regional government – run by PP – has responsibility. Had they concluded they could no longer handle the situation, the level could have been raised to allow the socialist-led central government to step in and take over. Naturaslly that was never going to happen so PP sat on it and watched the disaster unfold in front of them.

Enough of politics. I feel very strongly that the residents of Valencia have been let down by their local government so I’ll just leave it at that.

Iconic Architecture

The City of Arts and Sciences situated in the dry riverbed that runs through the centre of Valencia is world famous. Incidentally the dry riverbed is the result of a huge project in the 1960’s that diverted the river after it flooded very badly. I’ve been planning to shoot there for a decade.

I rented an e-Scooter to facilitate the shoot, the location was 3.5km from my apartment and the scooter made short work of it. I was so impressed I’m thinking of buying one for city trips. The rental cost €30 for six hours so it would pay for itself in less than a year. It’s the first time I’ve used one and part of the joy of Valencia is they have dedicated cycle lanes everywhere so it is an absolute pleasure to navigate. Very easy to operate and really great fun!

The main buildings I photographed, designed by Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava, are

The Hemisfèric

The Hemisfèric is a digital 3D cinema, with a huge 900 metre concave screen wrapping around the audience for a completely immersive experience.

The Science Museum

“Not touching is prohibited” is the motto of this museum. The Science Museum hosts interactive exhibitions about science and technology. 

Palau de les Arts

If you are a music-lover then the Palau de les Arts at the City of Arts and Sciences is a must visit. From October to November, its programme includes operas, concerts, zarzuela and ballet.

The Umbracle

The Umbracle is a huge, open-access garden covering more than 17,000 m² where you can stroll around and take in the typical Mediterranean plants and contemporary sculptures.

Ágora

The home of CaixaForum Valencia, a multipurpose space that hosts temporary and permanent exhibits, live music, projections, conferences and shows for visitors to enjoy culture and science.

L’Assut d’Or

The Assut d’Or Bridge crosses the former riverbed of the River Turia, between the Science Museum and the Ágora. There are several lanes for traffic in both directions and there is a pedestrian bridge in the centre connecting the two banks of the Turia Garden.  

Two Lenses

This trip required different lenses to my usual bag, I took with me, two wide angle lenses, the Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L (which is probably my favourite lens ever although its not for everyday shooting) and the Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III which is a very sharp wide angle lens ideal for this kind of architecture.

For the detail shots I used Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS II

Why Two Wide Angle Lenses?

The 11-24mm lens is extremely wide and very sharp indeed. The downside is that because of the shape of the lens, it cannot take filters. I knew that the skies would be flawlessly blue on the first day and that encouraged me to go for the monochrome renderings in high contrast. To make that work I needed to use a Circular Polariser.

Secondly, The buildings are framed on one side by water and this was part of the architects vision, that the reflection of the building in the water would be part of the experience of seeing it. I realised that wind would disrupt this and so I wanted to use a combination of a CPL and an ND1000 filter to help remove glare, flatten out the surface of the water and bring out the reflections as intended.

Kase Filters

I used the Kase KW Revolution ND set for this trip. Circular filters that attack magnetically to the lens adapter. (I bought different adapters for my three most often used lenses, the 70-200mm, the 24-70mm and the 16-35mm). This enables me to switch between lenses with minimal fuss. I’ve been testingthese filters for nearly a month now and I’m very impressed. They are robust, easy to install, light and have a small footprint in my bag.

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Lessons Learned

There are always a few lessons attached to architectural photography. The first of which is probably the most important.

You can avoid the converging verticals issue, caused by tilting the camera back in a couple of ways. Firstly and most expensively by investing in a Tilt/Shift lens. These work by raising the lens in reation to the camera so that you can get the top of the building in frame at the expense of some foreground. These lenses are not cheap, expect to pay in the region of €1100 second hand.

You can also correct the issue in software, DxO ViewPoint is particularly good with architecture. However you need to be aware that you need to leave space around the subject as the corrections compensating for converging verticals “tilt” the image forward meaning you’ll have to crop in. This takes time and deliberation but costs a lot less!

You can also sacrifice pixels, by stepping back and keeping the camera level. Step back until you can see the whole building and crop in later. This only works where there is room to step back of course, but its free!

Deliberate Photography

The second lesson is to do with wide angle lenses. I always view architectural photography as a chance to record the architect’s vision and that means using lenses with minimal distortion. The wide angle lenses I use fall into this category, at least used correctly they do, but it’s a principle worth bearing in mind. Let the architecture shoot itself!

In the wider sense this plays into my principle of “deliberate photography”, think about what we are shooting and why, before we shoot. This helps to frame the narrative and makes our photography more deliberate.

Summary of Technology Used

As ever with me, this was a technology intensive shoot!

e-Scooter: The e-scooter was the revelation of the trip. It makes city shooting so easy, I’m seriously considering buying one but if I’m on my own I’ll need a strong lock. These things are in great demand!

Camera: Canon 5Ds

Lenses: Canon EF 11-24mm f/4L, Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L III, Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS II

Filters: Kase KW Revolution

Processing: DxO PureRAW, DxO ViewPoint, Adobe Lightroom

I process a lot of pictures using this workflow, I find PureRAW makes an excellent job of cleaning images up and the Lightroom layer masking tools are arguably superior to the u-point masks in PhotoLab. Depending on the picture I’ll use Lightroom or PhotoLab, not both. I used ViewPoint for spatial corrections and Silver Efex for Black and White conversions.

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