Peeking at Architectural Photography

I spent the rest of Saturday afternoon analyzing what I did wrong with my photos I took at the C&O canal in Williamsport, Maryland.

I also spent a lot of time studying up on architectural photography, something that seems to be a sister to real estate photography. I looked through plenty of LinkedIn posts in the RE and architectural photography fields to try to glean information about the craft from experts who were already in the field.

The one thing I gathered was that this field is expensive. A fancy Lift-Shift lens can easily run $1500 plus the camera body it goes on. But for that field, it's a necessary tool to have in your arsenal. There was a healthy (and I suspect ongoing) debate about some of the popular software out there that could correct distortions on taller objects. Adobe Photoshop and Hungis come to mind. Hungis? is open source so I suspect it's a fairly quality program. $1500 for a lens? Wow. I'd better hold off on that.

One of the things that Ken Rockwell is big on (and so should we) is getting out there and getting dirty a bit with the craft. Make mistakes but at least you're out there snapping away. It's how we learn. We can have all the bookwork in the world but if we don't practice our skills and experience will be limited.

But I argue, well, what can I do in Hagerstown or Williamsport related to architectural photography? Plenty if I would open my eyes.I just need to jump in the car and ride around and explore. Take my camera and my tripod and go to town.

But my general thinking about this side of the hobby was that perhaps I could use the skill in an overseas environment. That way I'm not tied down to a Teaching English job as that's where my training is. Still needs to be explored. My wife's already on board with that idea. In fact, she thought of it first. Love her a lot!