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.

The users' point of view

Planning

Last week we were away from home at the Hay on Wye Book Festival. We had been to the Festival before and I therefore knew that the event is held in a field on which a number of marquees have been erected as venues, cafes and shops interlinked by covered walkways. I did not initially expect the Festival to have potential as a source of locations for this project.

• The marquees where presentations take place are darkened for most of the time.
• The huge number of people and tight scheduling of events means that the stewards have to be fairly strict to get people in and out of each venue as quickly as possible.
• In most photographs that I had taken in previous years, I had cropped out as many areas of white canvas as I could as I did not find these particularly interesting.

However, as I was there, and as I was taking photos of the event for my own photo journal, I thought that I might as well make the effort to photograph the Festival location from the users' point of view.

I could foresee a number of challenges in taking photographs of the marquee interiors:-

• In a solid building there will often be columns, arches, rooms, doors and internal structure. The Hay marquees on the other hand are almost all rectangular spaces with plain walls. The structural supports are invisible outside the exterior walls.
• In a solid building the light will normally be designed to reveal the form and geometry of the space in a visually interesting way. Light is often directional, coming from windows, doorways and "architectural" electric lighting. In a marquee, on the other hand, the ceiling and walls are generally translucent resulting in an extremely diffuse light.
• The ceiling of a marquee, however, may have interesting lines where the fabric has been joined. Unlike the ceiling of most solid buildings, the ceiling of a tent will generally be the brightest part of the scene.

On thinking about this, I realized that there are plenty of marquees on the Festival Site in daylight such as the main entrance, cafes, book shop and the queuing areas outside the event marquees, so that I did not need to include photos of the darkened marquees set up for presentations.

The rest was a matter of experimentation of viewpoints, mainly using wide angle settings and small apertures to bring out some points of visual interest in the scene. I selected a few of the better results below.

Later in the week, it also struck me that in Hay, second hand bookshops are central to its character. I thought I should therefore try to take some photographs from the users' viewpoint of these shops.

Most of the shops that I had been in were very small with shelves and floors stacked with books. The light is harsh electric light from naked neon or tungsten bulbs. The windows have usually been covered up to squeeze in some extra bookshelves. I remembered passing a large building saying that it was the Hay Cinema Bookshop. I therefore chose this as a location where I might find a little more room and perspective. I was hoping to find a location where there would be a viewpoint to look down on the floor below, or, failing that, a place where it was possible to see a row of shelf ends.

Photography

1 Festival Site - Public Entrance

Panasonic G3 14-42mm at 14mm (28mm equivalent): Iso 400 f8 for 1/125th

The Entrance is a busy area: a wide covered tunnel which seems a purely functional space. It has the main information desk, notices and posters, the newspaper shop and entrances to the box office and the Festival shop. It is therefore one of the important hubs of the site. Crowds of people are passing through all day, some stopping but most are just walking in and out. This photograph was taken at a relatively quiet time as I did not want the view to be totally blocked by people. At the busiest times, it would not be possible to get a reasonable view of the space as it would be too congested with people.

Analysis of image

I took a sequence of photographs ranging from a high viewpoint overhead down to floor level using the camera's rotating screen to view the scene. The photos from high viewpoint had fairly static compositions which I attribute to the strong horizontal elements: the roof, the peoples heads and the floor. I decided that this one with a low viewpoint was more interesting, because in this case the figures in the foreground introduce some vertical lines into the composition.

The roof lines and diminishing size of the figures in the distance convey a feeling of depth of the scene. None of the figures is too prominent or too individual to be overly strong as a point of interest (I toned down the red of the man's shirt in the right foreground to match the ladies shopping bag in the central foreground).

I also made a variety of exposure adjustments e.g. to lighten shadow areas and increase the contrast of the lines in the ceiling.

I considered converting this image into monochrome as colour did not seem to be adding much to the subject. However, a preview in Lightroom showed that monochrome did not offer a stronger image, so I left it in colour.

2 Festival site - The Friends Lounge

Panasonic G3 14-42mm at 14mm (28mm equivalent): Iso 400 f8 for 1/1ooth

In contrast to the Public Entrance, the Friends Lounge is a calm location where people can sit, drink, chat and read in between events. Consistent with this atmosphere, it has a more decorative ceiling with draped fabric and chandeliers.

Analysis of image

I chose a viewpoint to one side to give the space and ceiling a three dimensional perspective. I positioned myself in front of this particular table mainly because the chair arms were shiny introducing some highlights into the foreground which was otherwise quite gloomy.

The man reading a book draws the viewers eye strongly, but there are plenty of other faces and figures to glance at. Whilst much of the frame is filled with people, I believe the image portrays the place as much as it portrays the people. I also tried a shot slanting the camera to see if this would visually promote the geometry of the ceiling relative to the people in the foreground. This did not work however.

The red of the man's jacket is helpful as it mimics the red of the chairs and other small points of red further in the background. The red contrasts nicely with the off-whites and greys of the ceiling. In this picture, I think that these colours add to the vibrancy and interest of the scene.

As with the first image, I made a variety of exposure adjustments e.g. to lighten shadow areas and increase the contrast of the lines in the ceiling.

3 Festival Site - Lining up to go in to a performance

Panasonic G3 14-42mm at 14mm (28mm equivalent): Iso 400 f8 for 1/125th

This is a view of people waiting outside one of the huge marquees to go into a performance.

Analysis

I chose this location because the queue is a straight line along a covered walkway. The people are lining up on one side so that it is possible to see into the distance along one side of the walkway. I held the camera at an angle so that the converging perspective lines of the floor, the ceiling, and the diminishing size of the figures recede into the upper right of the frame. This sort of composition is difficult to avoid with corridors and other spaces of this shape. I needed to wait for the steward in the yellow jacket to move back far enough to leave an open space in the foreground.

Looking at this photo afresh, the green carpet appears over-prominent and the structure of the ceiling not prominent enough. I think the composition would have been improved with a lower viewpoint. Corrections to tone down the green colour and brighten the ceiling would go part way to adjust this imbalance, but not wholly.

4. Festival Site - Snake lines

Panasonic G3 14-42mm at 14mm (28mm equivalent): Iso 400 f8 for 1/1ooth

At other marquees, people are lined up in zig-zag lines outside of the doors. This is a view of one of the zig-zag "snake" lines outside one of the venues when the space was empty during a performance.

Analysis

I stood at this location as I wanted to have one of the arrows painted on the carpet in the foreground with the lines receding into the distance. The idea for using the arrow was triggered by one of the photos that I saw in competition at my local photography club a few years back. The picture by Andy Tobing showed a yellow painted arrow in an empty multistory car park pointing towards a young woman standing at an ironing board, ironing. It is a very good photo, even though this is not my style of photography.

I angled the camera downwards to emphasize the converging lines on the carpet. The arrow is relatively low key, but it does add interest to the foreground and leads the viewers eye into the picture.

The are some figures in the central band of the frame that the viewers eye can rest on, but again nothing too prominent to detract from the view of the marquee area as a whole.

I made some adjustments to straighten up the walls and adjust the relative exposure levels as for the other photographs.

The dominant white and green colours are not aesthetically pleasing together, but the composition is not one that I would expect would make a good black and white photograph also.

5 Hay Cinema Bookshop

Panasonic G3 14-42mm at 14mm (28mm equivalent): Iso 400 f5.6 for 1/13th

I found that The Hay Cinema Bookshop had two floors of bookshelves. There was one place where it was possible to look down onto a small section of the floor below, and I took a number of photos from different angles from that spot. However, the people in this area were generally walking through rather than browsing books.

Analysis

This photo, on the other hand, was taken on the ground floor looking down a space between some bookshelves and a line of bookshelf ends. I chose this standpoint as I wanted to see a view of the shelves crammed with books, but also populated with a few individual users looking at books. In this photograph, there are two individuals in the middle and far distance both browsing books. They provide points of interest to draw the viewer further into the picture.

I held the camera at an angle so that the composition is asymmetric and also pointed it downwards to minimize the area of neon ceiling lights included in the frame. The floor luckily has some visual interest as the cement in the foreground has been stained by customers wet and muddy shoes. In the background, the wooden floor is bright which provides a partial silhouette of the women sitting on one side. Otherwise she would be difficult to see.

The ceiling lights at the end of the corridor are blown out, but detail in that area is not especially important.

Conclusions

Photography of buildings and architecture seems to be one of the most popular genres of photography with club photographers. For me, however, apart from an occasional photograph of buildings when traveling, I usually find such photography one of the least interesting genres to look at. I was not therefore expecting to enjoy this section of the P&P course as much as the other sections.

I feel that this was a useful exercise in planning, technique and composition. I learnt several useful lessons:-

• Once a location is chosen, light is the first essential to consider.
• The composition needs to show the space and its use in a visually interesting way. This may take some experimentation for structures and spaces that are quite plain. Photos taken square to a subject and pictures with all or mainly horizontal elements can be drab and uninteresting.
• It is important to get an appropriate balance between floor and ceiling by raising or lowering the lens viewpoint.
• Whilst I normally choose to include people in scenes, in these pictures such figures need to support the visual portrayal not dominate it. They should not be too large or too bright or too eccentric.
• The viewpoint and timing need to be chosen so that the location is reasonably empty and the space is not obscured by too many bodies.
• Colour can enliven a picture of a space, but this is probably not under the control of the photographer. (This may explain the strange colours sometimes used on television when filming people in offices, laboratories etc. ) Whilst monochrome may be suitable for some architectural forms, it did not seem suitable for these subjects.

Exploring function

Planning

Looking at the photos shown in the course notes and also at the project photos taken by other students, I felt that it would be preferable to find a location for this exercise where there is sufficient visual interest to evoke the functions undertaken there, for example:-

• The photograph of old maps and books laid out on a table in library on the front page of Part 3 of the course notes.

• Another student had taken a photograph of the papers spread out over the desktops in the college office where he worked.

In contrast, I looked at various student photographs of corridors and other rooms where the visual composition was not especially interesting.

With this in mind, I thought that a restaurant/bar the "William Bray" could be a suitable subject. We were going for a country walk with some friends this morning, planning to finish up at the William Bray for lunch. This is a modern restaurant and bar in the Surrey village of Shere set in a restored Edwardian mansion. Both the bar and the restaurant are high ceilinged rooms with natural light from north facing windows.

Like a country pub, the function of the public rooms is social in nature, with couples, families and friends having a leisurely lunch or drink together. Photographically, I hoped to take some photos of tables laid with cutlery and glassware, customers having lunch or drinking at the bar, and photos of the bar itself with beer taps, wine bottles and glasses. Like the photograph in the library above, I would be looking for a high viewpoint looking down on the tables and the people with a reasonably wide angle lens.

There would therefore be several possible functions of the restaurant/bar that I could present:-

- customers having lunch

- customers drinking at the bar

- bar staff and serving staff working behind the bar or at the serving stations.

I would have to look for scenes which would work visually for any of these. I did not need to work to a narrow objective.

Photography

I was fortunate that the walk also started in the village, so I went along to the William Bray before we set off on the walk. It was open and there were a few serving staff getting the tables and bar ready for lunchtime. They had no objection to my taking a few photographs. I took some more photographs when we arrived back at the restaurant at the end of our walk. By this time, several other tables were occupied with customers and there were a few people socializing in the bar. Hence, I could choose whether to show people in the pictures or not.

I have selected two photographs for this exercise.

Image 1 - Ready to start

Panasonic Lumix G3 10-30mm zoom at 14mm: Iso 800 f6.3 for 1/20th seconds

The photograph was taken when the bar was empty and shows the area where water jugs, cutlery, table numbers are lined up ready to be distributed when the customers need them. In the background is a general view of the bar room, bar fittings etc. In the far wall there are two doorways through to another room beyond (which is the restaurant).

Techniques

I chose to use the new Panasonic Lumix camera as the touch screen is useful for composing from high and low angles. Also, I need practice to become familiar with the settings and controls. The focal length of 14mm is equivalent to 42 mm in a full frame 35mm camera. I use this focal length quite frequently when taking photos that I want to look "natural". I was interested to read in another students blog that whilst the angle of view of the human eye is similar to that of a 50mm lens, the angle of view both human eyes used together is wider, being equivalent to a full frame lens with focal lengths approximately 35 to 40 mm. There may accordingly be a scientific reason for using this setting for natural looking photographs.

The light levels were lower in the bar room than I expected, and I needed to set the ISO to 800 as I was hand holding the camera.

Critical analysis of image 1

I chose this viewpoint, as I wanted something in the foreground to draw the viewer into the scene. If I moved more to the left, I would see the bar from the front, but the foreground would be little more than empty tables.

The scene is very busy and in colour there were several red highlights in the background including a red cushion and a union jack on the wall which were distracting. I therefore decided it would be better to convert the photograph into black and white. I chose a relatively high key Silver Efexpro conversion adding a subtle dark vignette so that the bright foreground objects remain prominent for the viewer.

I experimented with cropping out different sides of the photograph but in the end reverted to the full scene (after some minor adjustments to straighten up the perspective).

Image 2: Comfortable modern restaurant

Panasonic Lumix G3 10-30mm at 20mm: Iso 200 f6.3 for 1/20th seconds

This is a photograph of the restaurant at lunchtime taken through the doorway of the bar. Various tables in the middle distance and background are occupied, but the closest tables are laid but not yet taken (apart from my glass of beer).

Technical

The portrait format has been cropped across the bottom as the area under the table was not relevant to the scene.

The tables are just below the windows so the light in this area was sufficient to use ISO 200. The viewpoint and zoom level were adjusted so that the perspective lines of the table tops and ceiling lights stood out in the photograph giving a sense of depth.

The beam in the ceiling has white lettering advertising the house champagne. I burned this until it is barely visible as this was a visual distraction on the edge of the frame.

Critical analysis of image 2

In this scene, I felt the colour should be retained as this shows the style of the room and table settings. The dark blue glasses are complimentary in colour to the pale orange of the wood tables. These colours stand out against the neutral colours of the walls, ceilings and pictures.

One of the customers is wearing a red jacket, which in this case I think adds something to the photograph. The colour is not too bright and I think the photograph would have looked rather flat if she had been wearing something neutral in colour.

My objective is to produce one image from these photographs, so it is not important that the two pictures have the same style.

Conclusions

Neither photograph has as strong a visual impact as I would have liked. Maybe for this sort of scene, I should have used the widest angle possible (like the example photograph of the scene in a library).

My gut feeling is that Image 2 is the better photograph, as it is less cluttered than Image 1. There is more order in the scene with the lines of chairs, glasses and ceiling lamps.

Some more practice is clearly necessary.