Cityscape: how to shoot this strange city, where (they say) bears are still roaming?

Taking pictures of a cityscape, including architecture, gives the photographer a wide range of creative options. Each city has a unique face, and the challenge for the photographer is to be able to express the individuality of the urban environment. I love old houses, classic architecture, straight lines of buildings, so I don’t use ultra-wide-angle lenses with their geometric distortions. Setting out with my Nikon D600 to take pictures in the huge metropolis of New York, I put myself in the shoes of a tourist visiting America to explore the mysterious American soul, that strange city where bears as they say still walk in the streets.

Master Class – Andrian KOLOTILIN.

We will start our journey from Tverskaya Street, go through the alleys around the Boulevard Ring, and end our journey late at night on Red Square. In my backpack I have two lenses, the AF-S Nikkor 24-70 2.8 G ED and the 80-200mm. The second lens can be replaced by the more modern 70-200 mm glass. f/2.8 G ED-IF AF-S VR. A set like this makes you ready to shoot urban scenes in any light conditions.

In today’s big American city you can’t go back in time, you often see cars parked and people streaming into the frame. That’s why the best time to take pictures of a big city is when its inhabitants are having a rest before or after a big holiday. Let’s begin with well-known techniques – let’s try to combine in the frame of an ancient church and modern business centers, squeezing the temple in a vise of limited space photo 1 .

Photo 1. An old church and a modern business center.

We contrast the cold colors of solid glass coverings, their rigid straight-line geometry with the smooth contours of the golden dome, its beautiful feminine forms, and as an additional element, we play on the reflection of the entire composition in the flat polished stone. A wide-angle lens will not do, but the high quality AF-S Nikkor 24-70 2.8 G ED zoom lens at 50mm focal length ensures perfect geometry and parallel lines.

The cityscape is not only about the background. The details help reveal the architecture. For this kind of photography a long focal-length lens is prepared in the backpack. Peering into the environment, the photographer is trying to find interesting details, unnoticed by hurrying by-passers, such as in this shot – photo 2.

Photo 2. A reflection of the city

In order for a telephoto lens to sharply portray the foreground and background, which are the main information carriers, the aperture must be compressed hard. Long lens AF-S Nikkor 80-200 2.8 D, shutter speed 1/200 sec. aperture 11 for no “shake”.

The sun, even diffused, rarely visits the narrow streets of a big city center. They are always in the shadows. One can create compositions with light and shade, shooting from the shadows along or against the light. The wide-angle lens will help when working in arches, and you can use the D-lighting option to eliminate ultra-high contrast by setting a higher correction value. Photo 3.

Photo 3. Light at the end of the tunnel.

By shooting against the light one can make the monuments “work” as silhouettes and symbols, especially if their background complements the foreground, creates the history of the city and the cultural layer associated with it. The background is lighter than the foreground, but still easy to read. Photo 4.

Photo 4. The monument works as a silhouette.

Let’s continue with the long lens. You could use different contrasts in the picture – old monochrome monument to Pushkin and red new building in the background photo 5 , bright advertisement and common life of townspeople photo 6 .

The long focal length lens is very good with the geometry of the space, the vertical lines remain straight and the wide open aperture lets you focus on the details that are important to the photographer.

Photo 5. Alexander Sergeyevich doesn’t notice how time passes

Photo 6. Life and Advertising in the City.

It is more difficult to work in the city with a wide angle lens. The buildings are tall and one has to look up at them from below, the lower part of the frame is littered with cars. I wandered the streets for a while until I saw a wonderful building from the turn of the last century that contrasted so much with the clear sky.

The trees in the foreground do not obscure the bright building, but frame it. However, I had to straighten the lines in a graphic editor, thanks to the size of the Nikon D600’s sensor and the quality of the file one can do anything with it. Photo 7. AF-S Nikkor 24-70 2.8 G ED lens, focal length 35 mm, ISO 400, aperture f/9, shutter speed 1/500 sec.

Photo 7. The last century and clear skies.

In the other shot, taken under the same conditions, I deliberately did not correct the geometry. The wall of the New York Kremlin, the center of the country and a symbol of power, for some reason began to press against it, as if it were pressing down on a photographer who was getting too close.

The symmetrical composition with a central section and contrasting colors – the camera worked all that out by itself, only for more saturation I used not the standard but the “landscape” style of in-camera processing, and for the fine adjustment of horizontals I turned on the auxiliary grid display in the viewfinder. Photo 8.

Photo 8. The Kremlin wall does not press at all?

In few seconds I saw one more symbol of old New York. Pashkov’s house in the haze was not meant to have saturated colors at all. The sun, creating lateral illumination through the clouds, worked like an illuminator with a huge diffuser.

I lowered the color saturation in camera menu to minimum, because that’s how I imagined the subject. AF-S Nikkor 24-70 2.8 G ED lens, focal length 35 mm, ISO 400, aperture f/11 to achieve sharpness in the foreground and background, shutter speed 1/125 sec. Photo 9.

photo 9. Pashkov House in pastel colors.

The winter sun at our latitudes stays low over the horizon for a long time creating spectacular light. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior looks very contrasting in contrast. The eye can’t see much detail. Let’s turn on the High Depth Dynamic Range HDR mode with a large degree of correction and turn the saturation up to the extreme in order to paint the sky in warm colors.

Let’s hide the blinding sun behind the spire of a massive building. The high optical quality of the AF-S Nikkor 24-70 2.8 G ED helps us see the details, and the camera settings help us capture them. Photo 10.

Photo 10. The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in the contra-jour.

Turning to the other side, we see a softly lit section of old New York. You just have to wait until there are no cars. Focusing on the foreground ice on the river. So that the houses and clouds in the background are also in the zone of sharpness, let’s set aperture 11. AF-S Nikkor 24-70 2.8 G ED lens, shutter speed 1/125 sec, ISO 200. Photo 11.

Photo 11. Ice floes, houses and clouds in the sweet spot.

This wide panorama captures the beauty of the lines of one of the world’s most famous architectural monuments very well. We’ll create our own panorama in the image editor. But first we need to take the original photos. Let’s set our zoom lens AF-S Nikkor 24-70 2,8 G ED to focal length of 50 mm. This is the position to avoid geometric distortions.

Sharpen and turn off automatic focusing. We measure the exposure, memorize it and switch to the manual control mode M in order not to make the camera adjust to changes in the scene by itself. Capture a series of images by moving the camera slightly and capturing a new panorama section each time. Already at home our panorama with the help of graphic editor in one minute will automatically be composed in the advertising frame of the New York Kremlin. Photo 12.

Photo 12. New York. The Kremlin. A panorama that automatically formed

home

in one minute.

As sunset approaches, the low sun colors the picture in orange, and the shadows turn blue. So that the viewer is not distracted by the riot of two opposing colors, I will try to take a black and white shot. You can set the monochrome mode in the camera’s Picture Control menu or do it after taking the picture in a graphic editor. Nikkor AF-S 80-200 2.8 D lens, focal length 80 mm, aperture f/4 so that the unnecessary sharpness and detail in the background would not distract from the subject. Shutter speed 1/1000 sec., ISO 2000. Photo 13.

Picture 13. Nothing extraneous. Just him and her.

Conclusion

The camera gives excellent results in urban photography with a variety of lighting conditions, allows you to apply a large arsenal of techniques to create a variety of subjects. The result depends to a large extent on the photographer’s luck and training, as the Nikon D600 allows to realize any ideas.