How space changes with light

Planning

One of the challenges with this project was finding a suitable location.

There are quite a lot of public buildings in and around Guildford, where I live, but many of these I ruled out for various reasons:-

• They do not allow photography (shopping centres)
• Daylight has little access and artificial light dominates (Surrey Sports Centre)
• The interior space is simply rectangular with few features that would build into a reasonable photo (Guildford House Gallery, Lewis Elton Gallery at University of Surrey).

I thought Guildford Cathedral might provide a suitable venue. This is a 20th century building but unlike Coventry and Liverpool's Roman Catholic cathedral, it is relatively conventional gothic shape and design. I visited early morning on a sunny day, hoping to find light and shadow shapes which I could use in the composition. Instead, I found that daylight in the interior was quite flat with hardly any shadow. The multiplicity of high gothic shaped windows around three sides of the building meant that the interior is uniformly lit in daylight with few shadows.

The town has a new concert hall, G Live, as well as a modern theatre, Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, which I thought would have the greatest potential for this project. The reason for this is that each building has an auditorium at its core, a trapezoid shape in G Live and a circular shape in the Theatre. As a result, the surrounding interior spaces are somewhat irregular. Furthermore, whilst there are large windows in both buildings, their principal activities take place in the evening. As a result, the public spaces are designed for artificial lighting.

I had used G Live as a location to take some portraits of my wife in the first section of this course and they appeared to be relaxed about someone taking photographs. It is also much closer to where I live, and I therefore went to G Live as my first choice.

Photography

G Live is a civic concert hall designed by Austin-Smith:Lord and constructed by Willmott-Dixon which opened in 2011. It may not have the spectacular shape of the Sydney Opera House or the Palau de les Arts Reine Sofia in Valencia, but I feel it has been well designed and having regard to limitations on local council budgets, it is a remarkable achievement. The trapezoid auditorium sits on the sloping site with the front entrance on the uphill side.

Diagram of G Live Concert Hall (copyright Austin-Smith: Lord)

Surrounding the auditorium are public spaces for the reception, box office, cafe, bars as well as access to the various doors into the auditorium. These spaces are contained in a glass walled cubic structure which is set at an angle to the auditorium. As a result, the public spaces are unsymmetrical trapezoid shapes as well. Whilst the forms are mostly defined by straight lines, there are occasional curved shapes in the detailing.

The interior is open plan so that the reception, box office, cafe, bars and walkways interconnect giving the impression of a single open area.

In daytime, natural light fills these areas from glass walls and skylights and the light filters down to lower floors through open spaces between the floors. Of course, most events held at G Live take place at night. The electric lighting is therefore important to create a bright and welcoming environment for concert-goers. In addition, at night, a passer-by can see the lit interior behind the glass walls. which makes the building look rather more striking and inviting than in daylight.

G-Live - exterior view

I visited G Live on some fine evenings last week when it was not yet dark and outside the sky was still light. I chose this time as it can be a time of reasonable light for photography. It also meant that the concert-goers would still be enjoying the show. I could therefore get a reasonably clear line of view of the interior spaces, which would be impossible at the time they are leaving. I also took some photographs in bright daylight when I expected that there would be totally different patterns of light and shade.

I took photos at four positions where I liked the composition of the scene. I have selected two of the four to include for this project: "The main entrance and reception" and "The entrance to the upper circle".

Image 1: Main entrance and reception - evening

Panasonic G 3 14-42mm 14mm (28mm equivalent): Iso 800 f8 for 1/40th second

This photo was taken at sunset, just before the audience began to leave the auditorium. There is still some daylight visible through the windows, but the interior space is lit wholly by artificial light.

Analysis of image

I used the widest angle with an aperture of f8 to give sufficient depth of field for this scene. I set the ISO to 800 to get a reasonable shutter speed for a hand-held shot. I did not want to use a tripod as I doubted whether management of the concert hall would allow its use.

I stood in the cafe using the tables and chairs as a foreground. The white tables are lit by spotlights and the chairs are bright green. However, the progression of tables leads the viewer to look deeper into the distance which is less brightly lit.

There are two figures in the left foreground walking towards the door and in the background there is a group of figures waiting by the way out (collectors with a charity box). The figures are slightly blurred due to the slow shutter speed. Whilst the room is almost empty of people, there is a sense of its activity.

The space becomes narrower as it recedes into the distance. This is emphasized slightly by the wide angle lens.

There are small patches of brightness where the electric lights are in sight of the lens, for example in a line along the top of the right hand side windows. As a result of keeping these from being overexposed, the opaque surfaces of the floor, ceiling and walls are relatively dark in tone. I used Lightroom "tone curves" and "fill light" to restore a more natural balance. The floor, walls and ceiling are sufficiently contrasting to be distinguishable. In places they faintly reflect light to reveal their sheeny surface.

Image 2: Main entrance and reception - daytime

Panasonic G 3 14-42mm 14mm (28mm equivalent): Iso 200 f8 for 1/250th second

This photo was taken just before noon on the following day from a similar viewpoint. This time, the room is lit almost wholly by natural light. Only a few neon lights in the ceiling of the floor below are illuminated.

I was impressed by the architect's design in that the whole area was shaded from direct sunlight. This must be a tricky problem when designing a glass-walled building. In this case, sunlight is streaming in through the upper windows and skylights and this falls on the upper wall of the auditorium. The reception area is therefore lit by diffuse light from the windows on the right and light reflected from the auditorium wall on the left. There was just a small area in direct sunlight in the corner of the cafe behind me.

Analysis of image

As the light levels were higher I was able to use ISO 200 for a reasonably fast shutter speed.

The tables of the cafe, this time occupied by an early customer, formed the foreground. In the daytime, the white table tops are similar in brightness to the floor and ceiling. The green chairs are again the dominant coloured object in the picture, but the colour is less vivid than under the spotlights in image 1. As a result, the contrast is more even and the light level is balanced more towards the middle ground and background. The relative brightness of the background means that this recedes less than in the evening light.

There are a few figures in the scene, one in the foreground, one standing at the box office on the left of the frame and two standing in the far distance. They provide points for the viewers eye to rest on and add to the sense of depth.

The brightest areas of the scene are the light coloured pavement outside, and a small patch of sky visible through the upper window at the far end of the building. I used Lightroom to dodge in these areas and reduce the contrast.

Image 3: The entrance to the upper circle - evening

Panasonic G 3 14-42mm 14mm (28mm equivalent): Iso 400 f8 for 1/80th second

This photo was taken at 8 pm in the evening on the upper floor of the concert hall. I chose this position as I liked the placement of the various diagonal lines of the ceiling, handrails and floor. I also liked the feeling of depth looking along the walkway towards the window in the background wall.

Analysis of image

I took similar photographs from this position, this one I took at 8 pm when it was bright outside and another at 9.20 pm when it was still light outside but it was just sunset. I chose this out of the two because the background wall in this case is visually slightly more distinct. At this time, the wall is illuminated by diffuse daylight from a skylight above and windows on the right (outside of the frame). It therefore has a different tone and is slightly brighter than the artificially-lit wall that fills the left and centre of the frame. In the later photograph, the far wall is not so distinguishable and as a result it seems to recede in prominence. The additional element of contrast makes the image slightly more interesting visually.

The higher level of ambient light also meant that in this photograph I was able to use ISO 400 to get a reasonable shutter speed, whereas for the later photo I needed ISO 800. There is therefore a slight benefit in noise levels and grain.

Image 4: Entrance to the upper circle - daytime

Panasonic G 3 14-42mm 14mm (28mm equivalent): Iso 200 f8 for 1/250th second

This photograph was taken from a similar position just before noon on the following day when the whole space was lit by natural daylight from skylights in the roof and a glass wall on the right (outside of the frame).

Analysis of image

The higher light level allowed me to use ISO 200 for this photo. However, the brightness of the sunlit wall with its pattern of shadows results in a rather unbalanced and messy composition photographically.

The harmony of the architectural design is difficult to discern as the lines of the entrance, the handrails and the ceiling are less prominent.

Conclusions

I found that there was plenty to think about in this project and I felt that G-Live had given me some good experience. I did not therefore need to think about one of the other locations.

If I had to select one photo of each space, I would choose the two evening photos:-

• In the view of the Main Entrance, the darker shadows and highlights of electric lamps make this more vibrant than the daylight shot (is this a similar effect to having eye highlights in a portrait?)
• As mentioned above, the evening photo of the Entrance to the Upper circle is less messy as a composition than the daylight photograph.

Perhaps this is only to be expected where a building has been designed primarily for use in the evenings.