Architecture photography styles

I made a conscious decision to complete most of the projects of the course before looking specifically at styles of experts in the field of architecture photography. My tutor suggested I look at three professional architecture photographers:-
J Collingridge is a UK photographer who has won a number of awards for Architectural photography.
The photographs displayed on the photographers website are a mix of interiors and exteriors of commercial buildings. The photos are generally high contrast, high impact images. They are mostly taken from normal eye-level viewpoint with standard to wide angle focal length. Some images from a series of photographs of empty underground stations has been particularly successful.

Southwark Underground Station by J Collingridge

I have the impression that this image may have been produced using HDR technique (High Dynamic Range) which has reduced shadows and increased textures. To my mind, the symmetrical composition and unreal quality of HDR maximizes the impact of the geometry and lines making an extremely graphic image. The downside seems to be that it is harder for the viewer to imagine themselves in this space.  
Jim Lowe is another UK based professional photographer with a special interest in architectural photography. His website displays a range of interiors and exteriors of commercial buildings and it is clear that many were taken for commercial assignments: magazines, advertising and commercial clients. Whilst he has some black and white images in his web gallery, the predominant impression is of saturated colours, high contrast, eye catching pictures. Some of the photos use strange angles and ultra wide angle lenses to create impact.

Architecture abstracts by Jim Lowe

Koen van Damme is a Belgian based professional photographer who specializes in assignments for architects. The portfolio of work displayed on his website is a complete contrast to the two UK photographers above. He uses an understated colour palette or black and white. His compositions concentrate on profiles and three dimensional forms resulting in simple "minimalist" images. Almost all the photographs seem to be taken with a standard lens and at eye level. There is a strong feeling of aesthetics, for example, there always seems to be a perfectly shaped cloud to occupy any empty area of blue sky in the frame.

Office, St Andries by Koen van Damme

Compared to the other professionals above, he seems to use sunlight, dark shadows and low light more extensively. Light reflections in windows are rarely a significant element in his pictures whereas these are a common feature in the photos of the two other professionals.
Another photographer that came to my  mind in relation to buildings and architecture is Edgar Martins, whose photographs I saw in an exhibition in Paris during the TAOP course. He has produced some very striking nighttime images of airport commercial buildings and equipment.

Photograph from Airport Series by Edgar Martins

 The exhibition also included a series "This is not a house" in which he took photographs of houses in USA that had been abandoned by their owners during the early stages of the banking crisis.

Photograph from This is not a house series by Edgar Martins

Whilst these photographs were clearly intended to comment on the US banking crisis, they did not produce in me a strong emotion or empathy. This possibly was because the houses depicted were relatively grand and  without people, the photographs were rather impersonal.
My own style
The ten photographs that I have produced for Assignment 3 are not in a style similar to these professionals:-

• My intention was different as I wanted to show buildings in use. Hence, my photographs are all interiors of public buildings, mostly with people present. 
• In some cases, I have been able to use sunlight, shadows and silhouettes to enhance the visual qualities of the scene. Koen van Damme would I am sure have done this far more effectively. 
• My photographs are all colour although in most cases the colours are subdued as most of the building interiors were decorated in neutral tones. Where strong colours were present, I generally wanted to minimize their effect so that the viewer would not be fixated by these areas. 

Buildings in use - Guildford Museum

Design
I have chosen Guildford Museum as my final building for this assignment  because I wanted a subject where there are problems with the design, to contrast with the previous buildings where the internal design is generally fit for the intended use. Furthermore, as a member of the Friends of Guildford Museum, I am familiar with these shortcomings and the plans to remedy them.

Guildford Museum - exterior

Guildford Museum is a municipal museum founded in Victorian times that occupies three buildings: a 16th century merchants house, an extension to the merchants house built to provide an exhibition hall shortly after the museum was founded, and an adjoining Georgian town house. The current interior arrangements were established early in the 1960's and only minor changes have been made since then. The exhibition areas are spread across the lower floor of all three buildings. The top floors of the 16th century house and the Georgian house are used as offices, work rooms and a specialist library.
There are several difficulties with these arrangements:-

• Most of the exhibits are displayed in a warren of small rooms which makes it difficult to display the objects in an attractive way.
• The exhibition space changes level in each building with a staircase in between making access difficult for some visitors.
• Most of the displays have been unchanged since the 1960s and comprise a mixed bag of objects from the county of Surrey without a coherent narrative. Some items are not displayed as well as they should be, many of the displays are showing their age, and there is no use of technology to enhance understanding of the items.
• The museum is in a side street which is little frequented by the public. 

The borough council has a development plan for the museum which would create a new entrance from the popular Guildford Castle grounds at the back of the museum and would provide lift access to all floors. The interior of the 16th century house would be restructured to open up the space for exhibits by removing partitions that are not part of the original structure. The Georgian house will be used for the office and work spaces. A new permanent exhibition will be introduced with a coherent theme "The History of Guildford". Unfortunately, even if the planning and funding go smoothly, this development will only take place in the second half of the decade.
Photography
In addition to the technical issues, photography of the interior of the museum presents a significant creative challenge: how to convey pictorially the complex of small rooms and the drab, old fashioned displays?
I made an initial visit without a camera to decide whether the museum could be a potential subject. I noted a number of potential views of the interior which might work photographically. I returned a few days  later  with my camera and tripod to take a first batch of photographs. Having reviewed these to consider how these fitted my purpose, I returned to the museum with another shooting list of potential shots and angles.
This is a situation where I wondered about using the device of taking pictures of selected parts of the interior to symbolize the larger scene. This device is used extensively in the photo layouts of the "Hip Hotels" books by Herbert Ypma.
Example of page layout from Hip Hotels France (published by Thames and Hudson 2001)

The Hip Hotels France book describes 24 stylish hotels across France. For each hotel, there is an article of 4-8 pages, comprising one or two pages of text, together with some excellent photographs. Most show the interiors of the hotels, but there is typically one or two views of the exterior of the hotel and its location. I could find no credit mentioned in the book for photography and I guess that Herbert Ypma himself may be the photographer as the style for each location is very consistent and distinctive. The sleeve notes disclose that the author is the founder of the award winning magazine Interior Design which probably accounts for the predominance of interior views.
In the museum, I took a number of photographs of individual display cases, objects and corners of rooms which I thought portrayed the time worn character of the place as well as having visual interest. However, when it came to selecting a couple of final images for this assignment, I found that the pictures of individual items that I had taken did not work as well as the room views for the purposes of this assignment. I think that this device would work if I were to combine several images into a single picture, rather like the four images combined in the Hip Hotels example shown above. I felt that producing multiple image pictures was outside the realms of the current assignment.  
Image 1

Museum display room: bike, tiles and other stuff

Nikon 18-200mm lens at 18mm: Iso 400 f7.1 for 1/15th second
This is a view of one of the principal exhibition rooms in the museum. I had discovered that it is generally better to have something reasonably close to the lens to add visual interest to the foreground in these pictures. Hence in this case, I chose a viewpoint where the bicycle features prominently on the left hand foreground. There is a large display case of blue and white tiles filling a significant part of the frame. This is intentional, as this case dominates the room. The perspective lines lead the viewers eye through the doorway through which two other display rooms can be seen. A visitor can be seen in the furthest room.
Image 2

Case containing objects from Gertrude Jekyll collection

Nikon 18-200mm lens at 18mm: Iso 400 f7.1 for 1/4th second
This is a view of one of the permanent exhibits, a glass case containing items bequeathed to the museum by Gertrude Jekyll, a famous garden designer and collector of rustic furniture and objects in the 19th and early 20th century in Surrey.
I chose a viewpoint through this ancient doorframe, primarily because this minimizes reflections in the glass of the case. In addition, this provides a frame to give depth to the picture and it shows some of the structural timbers of the building.
This is an example of old fashioned display in the museum. The glass case is almost 2 metres square containing items of furniture and a variety of small items. It is only possible to see the items near to the glass with any clarity as the interior of the case is relatively dark whereas the surrounding room is relatively bright as it has an external window. Furthermore, reflections on the glass make looking inside even more problematic.
I was interested to contrast this display with a similar item at the Garden Museum, near Lambeth Palace in London. As part of the Garden Museum's permanent exhibition, they have Gertrude Jekyll's work desk. This stands on a low plinth with no glass case or other protection. There is a sign warning visitor thats the historic item should not be touched, but it is otherwise possible to examine it as closely as you want. Small items such as hand tools were displayed at the Garden Museum in shallow glass cases so that the items could be seen at close distance.
Style of prints
I have processed and printed both these images in colour to show the interior Guildford museum in the best manner: as good as, if not slightly better than they would seem to a visitor to the museum itself. The processing included minimizing colour casts from the mixture of daylight and artificial light and adjusting exposure levels to lighten some of the dark areas.
I considered the option of making monochrome prints of these photographs. This would emphasize the dark historic atmosphere of the photographs:-

Low key monochrome version of image 2

I also wondered whether go a step further and produce an "Instagram" style antiquated look version?

Antique look version using a Silver EffexPro preset

 However, I did not feel it was appropriate to use these techniques. Whilst it would be feasible to produce some dramatic looking photographs, these would not be a fair representation of the museum as it actually is. A person might be convinced by such photographs initially, but they would soon realize if they visited the building that reality was different. I do not want to misrepresent the situation significantly either way.

Buildings in use - The Copper Box

Design
The Copper Box is one of the sports venues in the Olympic Park, Stratford in London which opened in 2012. The London based architects Make won the initial competition to design the Handball Arena in 2007, and they designed the Copper Box purposefully intending that this should be different to other sports arenas. Inside is a 2750 square metre field of play and retractable seating for up to 7000 people. After the Paralympic games, the venue will operate as a leisure and training facility for use by the local community.

The Copper Box - from the work area

 The exterior shape is a simple rectangular box clad in recycled copper. The reason for choosing this cladding material is not given in any sources that I have found. I am not sure to what extent this is functional or merely decorative.
Rather like G-Live in Guildford, the building is built on sloping ground. On the side where the ground level is higher, the main entrance gives public access directly to the first floor and upper floor seating and audience facilities. On the opposite side where the ground level is lower there are entrances to the field of play, athletes facilities, media rooms and other work areas.
Whilst Make claim in one of their publications ("Sport- the Sport and Culture Magazine from Make Architects") that the Copper Box is "one of the most impressive and eye-catching venues in the Olympic Park", it has drawn little attention in the media as far as I could find. For example, an article by Hugh Pearman, architecture critic of the Sunday Times, London and editor of the Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in the Wall Street Journal includes not a single comment on the Copper Box or its design. I suspect that one reason for this is that the external forms of the other venues are so striking visually whereas externally the Copper Box is so plain and regular. Indeed it was quite a challenge to find a photographic viewpoint and lighting conditions which would show the building in a favorable way.
Sources
Make Architects - www.makearchitects.com
The Architects Journal 19th June 2012 - www.architectsjournal.co.uk
Olympic Delivery Authority - The Big Build Foundations (July 2008) and The Big Build Foundations: Delivered (July 2009)
Photography
During the Olympic Games, various groups of users were present in the Copper Box - the athletes who were there to play in the matches, the public who were there to watch the games, the media and photographers who were there to report on the competition, and the workforce who were there to make it happen. My role  as a volunteer fortunately gave me access to the public areas and part of the workforce area. However, the field of play, the athletes and media areas were tightly restricted and I was unable to enter these areas.
Faced with a choice of photographing the public area or workforce area, I have chosen photographs that show the arena as it is seen by the public audience. The workforce areas were  far less photogenic - e.g. the Sports administration offices, the IT department and the workforce canteen were just like those in many other organizations.
Image 1

The Copper Box during an Olympic Handball match

Panasonic Lumix 10-30 mm at 14mm (equivalent to 42mm for full frame sensor): Iso 400 f 5.6 for 1/40th second
The venue was generally full for the Olympic handball games, but I could view the games from an open area where those unable to use the tiered seating (e.g. wheelchair users) could sit and view the match. I was able to return to take photos during the competitions and tried various viewpoints for taking photos.
As my purpose was to show the building in use rather than the handball players, one of the options I tried was to stand back and use the people seated in this open area as foreground. I selected this image as this was a moment in the match when several players were visible in the small area of the field of play between the figures.

The Copper Box during a match without foreground figures

The more obvious viewpoint looking down over the pitch, without foreground figures is shown for comparison. I feel that the foreground figures are a valuable addition to the photograph in this particular case:-

• The figures provide graphical shapes which give the photograph more initial visual impact. Without the foreground interest, there is an evenness over the whole frame which is slightly dull when viewed from afar.
• I think that there is the potential for more a more interactive experience for the viewer. The foreground space and figures seem to invite the viewer to look between them at the scene behind. The viewer can more easily imagine being a part of the audience. In the absence of these figures the view of the match seems more passive and it is more difficult for a viewer to see themselves in the scene.
• The size of the field of play that is visible is much smaller as it is partly obscured by the foreground. As a result, the main subject of the photograph is the spectators. This is what I am aiming for. Without  the foreground figures, the bright coloured pitch and the players are the most prominent visual element and the spectators take a background place.  

I wanted to find another photograph that I could pair with image 1 for the purposes of this assignment. I could use one of my photos where the handball game was the subject, rather than the audience. I also had taken photographs of the stadium before the handball competition started and after the handball pitch had been removed and the building was refitted for the modern pentathlon fencing competition. After reviewing the various options, I picked a photograph of the handball arena when it was empty.
Image 2

The Copper Box - just before the Games

Panasonic Lumix FX33 4.6 - 16.4mm at 4.6mm (equivalent to 28mm for full frame sensor): Iso 100 f 2.8 for 1/60th second
I took this photograph during the introduction session to the venue with my wife's 8 megapixel point and shoot Panasonic Lumix camera. This camera has an aperture priority mode and exposure adjustment settings which give reasonable control over exposure. It has a relatively fast lens when used on wide angle enabling me to use an ISO of 100. Despite the wide aperture, the photograph is reasonably sharp when printed at 5 x 9 for this assignment.
This image seems to complement image 1 because the dominant element in the frame is the handball pitch which is largely obscured in image 1. This field of play is the vital heart of the venue and everything else is designed around this. It is clear that the composition on its own is an unremarkable photographic record of the interior. However, the calm and quiet of this image contrasts with and seems to enhance the tense atmosphere of image 1.  Fortunately the bright colours and converging lines of seats and rows of lights bring some vitality and depth to the picture.
I feel that these two contrasting views were an effective way of showing the structure of the interior space in one photograph, and the use of the interior space in the other.

Buildings in use - Clandon Park

Design
Clandon Park was built in the early 1720's by the second Lord Onslow and his wife to celebrate his elevation to the peerage in 1716 with a suitably impressive and fashionable new house.
His architect was the Venetian Giacomo Leoni who had brought to England a first hand knowledge of the Palladian villa style. In Venice a 150 years before, Palladio's villas used the forms of Roman architecture such as columned porticos in classically proportioned symmetrical structures. Leoni adapted these principles to designs for country houses for his British clients. The exterior of Clandon is a relatively plain rectangle  constructed in brick with relatively little decoration apart from Corinthian pilasters on the south front.

Clandon Park - west front

The Marble Hall is an entrance hall where illustrious guests would have been received. In contrast to the rather austere exterior it is richly decorated in a classical style:-

• The windows and doorways are decorated with pediments, there are classical style reliefs over the fireplaces and Corinthian columns around the walls. The elaborate stucco ceiling also derives from Italian villa architecture. 
• It is a double height cubic space totally white with natural lighting from five large windows facing east. 
• The doors, windows, fireplaces are symmetrically arranged. Double doors lead into the Saloon, with other doorways leading to the other rooms and staircases. 

These days, the Marble Hall is still the room where visitors are received, but the visitors are not members of the elite. Clandon Park is now a National Trust Property and the house is open to the general public. A volunteer room steward greets the visitors and offers them a brief guide to their visit around the rooms and will answer questions about the room.
Sources:
Clandon Park published by National Trust published in 2002
Wikipedia article on Giacomi Leoni (at current date)
The Architecture Pack by Ron van der Meer & Deyan Sudjic published in 1997
Rices Architectural Primer by Mathew Rice published in 2009
Photography
Whilst I was aware that visitors are permitted to take photographs in the Marble Hall, I decided to inform the House Manager beforehand of my plan to take some photographs for this project and also to check that it was OK to use a tripod. I decided that I should use a tripod as interior light levels can be quite low. A tripod is also helpful when taking photographs of symmetrical spaces to make sure the horizon and verticals etc are not at an angle.
The windows of the Marble Hall are on the east side of the house, and the windows should therefore catch the morning light. The house opens to visitors at 11 am and I decided to go there at opening time on a sunny day last week when the light levels should be reasonably high. If this had not worked out, I could have returned later in the afternoon. I was however happy with the photos that I took in the morning light.
Image 1

Visitors in the Marble Hall at the start of their visit to Clandon Park

Nikon 18-200mm at 18mm (tripod mounted): Iso 400 f8 for 1/20th second
This viewpoint shows the symmetry and proportion of the Marble Hall. There were a number of people arriving and moving through the Hall and this one had the best placement of figures. I wanted to include figures in the hall as I wanted to show the building as it is used today.
There were a number of technical issues in relation to this photograph:-

• I deliberately chose an eye-level viewpoint as I was happy to leave the ceiling out of the frame. 
• In order to retain some detail in the windows, I underexposed by a full stop. I have adjusted and balanced the exposure levels in Lightroom.  
• The verticals have been corrected in Lightroom as the wide angle zoom setting causes the verticals to converge towards the top  of the frame.  
• There was a distinct blue colour cast around the windows, and I desaturated these areas to match the neutral decor of the room. 

There is a slight  amount of barrel distortion which I have not corrected for as I felt this was not particularly noticeable for a general viewer.
Image 2

Marble Hall with view through to Salon

Nikon 18-200mm at 20mm (tripod mounted): Iso 400 f8 for 1/20th second
This viewpoint illustrates the decoration of the space. I chose this particular version of the photo as some visitors are visible through the double doors into the Salon. Although relatively small, this area of darker tones seems to be the point of initial attention for the viewer. The viewer's eye can then roam around the room noting the decorative elements of columns, a painting of an ostrich, the decorated frieze and, on the left hand side, one of the enormous fireplaces.
I did take some photographs that featured the fireplaces more prominently (see comments below on guidebook illustrations), but these were not visually as interesting as this version.
As in the previous image, I underexposed by one stop so that the highlight of the far window was not totally  washed out and subsequently adjusted the exposure levels in Lightroom. I also used Lightroom to moderate some colour casts in the room due to the mix of natural and artificial light.
Contrast with guidebook photographs
The National Trust guidebook "Clandon Park" has two photographs of the Marble Hall:-

• A wide angle view taken from the same camera position as Image 2, but looking towards the opposite corner of the room using a vertical frame. This provides a good overall view of the Hall, as it shows the the lower floor, upper floor and a part of the ceiling in one view.
• A view of one of the chimney pieces square on in a vertical frame to show the fireplace, overmantel relief and pediment in more detail.

These photographs are successful in showing the architectural features of interest in the room. My intention, on the other hand, was to show the character of the space for a visitor. I therefore decided that imitating the photographs in the guidebook would not suit my purpose.

Buildings in use - Guildford Cathedral

Design 
The architect was selected by a national competition in 1932. From the 183 entries, the design by Edward Maufe (later Sir Edward Maufe) was selected. Maufe's design was intended "to produce a design definitely of our time, yet in the line of great English cathedrals, but build anew on tradition, to rely on proportion, mass, volume and line rather than on ornament". This suggests that aesthetic considerations took precedence over function in his design.
The concept of using proportion, mass, volume and line seem to be similar to the modernist design ideas of Le Corbusier and Bauhaus in the early 20th Century. Maufe, however, cited modern Swedish architecture as the inspiration for his design ideas rather than the modernist ideas of that time. Maufe's style was conservative and traditional, a great contrast to the pure functional designs of Le Corbusier (e.g. the Villa Savoie 1929-31 which was of the same era). By 1961 when the building was finally dedicated taste had moved away  from its neo-Gothic structure.
The cathedral has a brick exterior with reinforced concrete roof beams allowing a wide nave. The interior walls are plain; covered in plaster or clad in light coloured stone. It is Maufe's "masterly  use of space which won general admiration" according to the entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Moreover, the decline in church attendance means that there is little demand for such a huge space of worship. For example, there were just a handful of people arriving for evensong on Sunday evening.
The cathedral has a programme of other activities and I was pleased to see that the University of Surrey, which is next door, was holding one of its graduation ceremonies in the cathedral on my earlier visit. However it stands on a hill about a mile from the town centre which is not a convenient location for many townspeople. Furthermore, the cathedral is not well suited for concerts or performances. It is difficult for many of the audience to see the performers, and the sound can be lost in the huge space.
The building seems to exemplify what can happen where the intended function no longer requires such a sizable space. It is unfortunately largely a white elephant.
Photography
I first went up to the Cathedral about 4 pm last Thursday but the sun was still too high to have much effect on the interior. On Sunday however, it was open until 6.30 pm  and there was bright sunshine. I arrived at about 5.30 and the sun was just starting to light up the eastern end of the nave.
In the hour available, I scouted around to see how the light was illuminating the interior and took a variety  of different photos. I have selected two which I feel show the use of the building (or more appropriate in this case, its lack of use).
Image 1

Nave of Guildford Cathedral

Nikon 18-200mm at 18mm: Iso 400 f8 for 1/45th second
I decided to use my Nikon D200 camera rather than the smaller Panasonic Lumix G3 because I expected the light conditions to be tricky: a wide contrast between the sunlit areas and non-sunlit areas within the nave. Whilst the Nikon is an older model, I think its larger sensor should cope better with higher ISO settings. (Although I have not directly compared the performance of these cameras to test whether this assumption is correct). I also took a tripod as I knew that I would need to print the results at almost 8x10 size. There were only a few people around so I felt it was OK to use the tripod.
This was one of several photographs that I took kneeling in front of the choir underneath one of the flower displays. The sunlight was streaming in through the west windows at the far end of the nave illuminating the columns of the nave and the ceiling in an attractive way.  I knew, however, that the bright windows would risk blown-out highlights. I used the columns on the right hand side of the nave to conceal most of the windows to mitigate the brightness. I also set the exposure adjustment to minus one stop where the histogram indicated that the highlights were still OK. The foreground was quite dark as a result, but sufficient detail was retained to allow subsequent adjustment in Lightroom.
The view towards the west end of the nave is framed by columns on the right and left of the frame and the front of the pews along the bottom of the frame. I included just a few leaves of the flower display at the top of the frame. I think this breaks up the pattern of symmetrical columns which can otherwise be rather dull visually. The dark foreground is also enlivened by light shining along the central aisle between the pews.
Within this framing, there is a contrast between the warm colours at the sunny far end of the nave and the cooler shady light at the nearest end of the nave. In addition, a clergyman is seated with a visitor in front of one of the pillars on the far side of the church.  Their heads are catching the light from the far end of the church so that the figures stand out against the shade of the column behind.
I chose this photograph as I think the contrast between warm and cool colours makes an attractive photograph of the interior, there is a feeling of depth and grandeur. In this picture, the interior looks quite similar to the medieval gothic cathedrals that inspired it.
The seated figures give a sense of scale and they also seem to give a sense of the church as a place of calm and contemplation.
Image 2

Nave at Evensong

Nikon 18-200mm at 46 mm: Iso 400 f8 for 1/15th second
I took this photograph about half an hour later when a few worshipers had started to arrive for the Sunday evening service. It was the lone worshiper silhouetted against the sunlit pews that drew my  attention to this viewpoint. The view is looking down the nave towards the opposite side of the nave which was more brightly lit by the sunshine.
In this case, I stood back so that the flower display provides foreground interest and used a narrower field of view (the focal length of 46 mm is equivalent to 70mm for a full frame camera). I also used a higher viewpoint, as I liked the way the sunlight was catching the surfaces and points on the pews and seats.
Two columns in the shady interior provide a narrow dark frame adding depth to the view of the sunlit columns in the background. There is a contrast between the solid structures of the columns in the background and the more intricate patterns of the seating in the middle ground.
The figure is more important to the composition than image 1 and attracts the viewers attention straight away. The silhouette stands out strongly, even though it is not large in the frame. In image 1 above, I think the viewer discovers the seated figures only after looking at the view down the nave.
In taking this photograph, there were similar technical considerations as with image 1 above.
I decided to select these two images, even though the subject is the same part of the cathedral:-

• These were the two with the best composition and light. 
• They both convey the feeling of the cathedral as a place of calm and contemplation. There is visual harmony between the two images. 
• Nevertheless, I consider that there is sufficient difference in framing and composition to retain the interest of a  viewer.   

Conclusion
The cathedral is clearly a location where the angle and intensity of light is a key factor in showing the structure adequately in a photograph. Fortunately, the time of my visit coincided with a service and as a result, there were a handful of people in the main nave of the church. On a weekday, a smaller chapel is used for services and the main space is not used.
I have discovered over the course of this and the previous The Art of Photography course, that I generally prefer to have figures in my photographs of places, both places I have visited on holiday or locations chosen to carry out course projects. Figures can enhance the composition by providing foreground interest, a sense of depth or scale, or simply a point in the frame that will attract the viewers eye. It is possible that there is an element of habit in this, as I sometimes find myself looking at a photograph of an unoccupied space thinking "would this have been a better photo, if there was a figure in the foreground/midground/background?" I have not seen this mentioned in the photography literature that I have read so far.

Buildings in use - planning

The instructions for Assignment 3 "Buildings In Use" require taking between two and four photographs of five or six buildings in order to describe the way the spaces are used. Furthermore, for each building, it is necessary to find out how and why it was designed the way it is, and to form an opinion on its effectiveness as usable space.
I realized that these requirements are quite similar to what I did for G Live in the previous project "How space changes with light". Also, I think that the photos that I took of the G Live interiors are good enough to include as photographs for this assignment.  I therefore will use the G Live work as one of buildings.
I have chosen three other buildings that I think will be interesting and varied subjects:-

• Guildford Cathedral is an early 20th century cathedral built in a neo-gothic style. I had previously tried taking photos of the interior of the cathedral in the early morning about a month ago. I did not use the photos because the interior lighting was flat at that time of the morning with little contrast to bring out the structure. I thought that I would see if the interior was more interesting in the late afternoon or evening for this assignment. I hoped light would be streaming through the large windows at the western end. The Cathedral Guide Book and Wikipedia provide information on the architect and design of the cathedral.  
• Clandon Park is an 18th century country house on the outskirts of Guildford run by the National Trust. The most impressive room architecturally is the Marble Hall, and, fortunately, photography is permitted in this room, even though it is forbidden in the rest of the house. The National Trust Guidebook for Clandon has a section on the design and architecture displayed in the Marble Hall. 
• Copper Box is a brand new sports venue built in the Olympic Park for London 2012. Designed to be used as a public sports centre after the games, it will be used for Handball, Modern Pentathlon, and Goalball for the next few weeks during the Olympic and Paralympic Games. I will be working at the Copper Box as a volunteer games maker during the Olympics and I hope that I will have the chance to do some photography during this time. Each venue on the Olympic Park had different architects but surprisingly their identities are not disclosed in the publications and webpages of the Olympic Development Authority. It therefore took a little more time that I expected to track down information on the architects and their design. 

I plan to complete the work for each of these locations straight away. I still need to find one more building as a fifth subject to fulfill the assignment requirements.