What makes a good architectural photographer is really to have a sense of space.
The surfaces that we photograph create a perception of space
because we cannot photograph air.
My name is Benny Chan. I'm an architectural photographer.
My company name is Fotoworks.
Hi, Fotoworks. This is he.
My name is Benny Chan.
I'm an architectural photographer primarily working in Los Angeles.
What kind of building is this? It's a hospital, okay, great.
Most hospitals are designed over a long period of time.
When I walk through with a client, often the designer of the architectural
firm has left the company.
I always try to do a scout.
The scout really helps me figure out the sequence of the shot.
Which shot to go for is based on the orientation of the building.
The information they send me like drawings, plans, and the exterior elevations
help me understand the building better
and therefore arrange the sequence of the shot better.
The type of project always affects what kind of equipment we use,
how the setup will be.
Here we have the Alpa XY camera attached to the Phase One IQ180 back.
It's an 80 megapixel back.
You can blow out the pictures 6 feet by 8 feet and still retain a lot of details
and also give me the amount of perspective control I need for architectural photography.
One great thing about this digital back is that it's the first back
with an integrated high resolution screen
and you can actually shoot it without tethering to the computer
you can really see the detail and judge whether you are in focus.
The back also has a tremendous amount of dynamic range so we don't have to use as much lighting.
It's really beautiful, the file looks really clean and really smooth.
What makes a good architectural photographer is really to have a sense of space
and the surfaces that we photograph create a perception of space.
The buildings speak to me.
When you walk into a space you can feel how open it is.
The volume of space is created by walls and closures are what create a space,
what defines a space.
I set up the shot here because it is based on the scouting shot I did.
It was pre-elected by my client.
This is the shot we picked out of all the scouting shots we did.
For architectural photography the linear line really gives that perfect painting like composition.
If you look at some of the old Da Vinci's paintings and some of the Piranesi drawings,
we try to replicate that look and feel.
Once we have shot the image, we bring it back to the studio to process the image.
I use Capture One Pro.
It's a great software that comes with the digital back.
It allows me to make a lot of minor changes before going into Photoshop.
After I finish an image, I normally send it to the clients
and ask if they have any comments.
Sometimes they want to remove simple things in a shot like a fire sprinkler or smoke alarm.
They will actually red mark it for me in a jpeg file and send it back to me.
Then I can do the Photoshop for them
In the end I will just download all the images to them and they can get it from there.