Customer Reviews

Professional Architectural Photography (Professional Photography Series)

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Professional Architectural Photography by Michael Harris is a wonderfully informative and beautifully illustrated "must-read" book for any photographer who desires to shoot the interiors and exteriors of buildings. The book is easy to read, concise and to the point, and offers a wealth of information detailing with the art and science of architectural photography. As a professional photographer and photography instructor, I had always desired to try my hand, so to speak, at capturing on film the architectural beauty of historically significant buildings. After reading this book, I can't wait to go out and shoot my own architectural photographs. In fact, I was so motivated by the way the author presented the information contained in the book that I went out a couple weeks later and bought a 4" x 5" large-format view Camera. Trust me! If you think you'd like to dabble in architectural photography, invest in this book. You'll be glad you did! Even if you're not a photographer, but you like viewing photographic images in home remodeling or architectural magazines, this book will teach you much about (and give you a better appreciation for) architectural photography. Who knows? It may even launch you into a new career.

I'm an architect and a beginner photographer and was looking for a good, comprehensive book on architectural photography so I could photograph my jobs for my portfolio. This book has a lot of good technical information, but deviates from the topic many times (in my opinion). For example, there's a sections on the architectural history, the role of the architect, aesthetics in architecture, etc. I don't need this and I think this is been covered extensively in other books. I don't mind if this information is there, but the topics covered could have been given more depth and examples, rather than spending time on tangential subjects.

Mostly, I bought this book because I need to understand the intricacies of lighting interior spaces to get the most beautiful photograph I can. Just when the chapter on lighting was getting good, the author recommends the reader buy his other book "Professional Interior Photography" for more information -- bummer.

So, for someone interested in reading about the subject and related areas, this seems like a good book. For someone like me looking an in-depth book only on architectural photography, I'd recommend to keep looking.

If you're interested in architectural photography as a profession, you will probably gain some valuable insights from this book. While few of the photographic examples used are what I would call "stunning", the author provides a very methodical and thorough approach to learning the craft. And while certainly not a how-to book for inexperienced photographers, Harris has done a good job of defining the issues and explaining the technical solutions that are inherent to architectural photography.

Everything of importance is explained, from film selection and filtering, to complex exposure formulas and specialized equipment.

A warning though: if you don't have a basic understanding of Geometry, you might have trouble applying some of the concepts in this book (and thus trouble producing attractive architectural photographs). More than any other genre of photography, architectural photography is a thinking man (and woman's) game. You don't "seek out" or "sense" a beautiful photograph so much as carefully manufacture them.

This book tells you that is almost imposible to do architectural photography without a view camera. If you are thinking of becoming an architectural photographer and you don't have the money to get a view camera this book is not for you. I am working with an excellent professional architectural photographer who does most of his asignments in digital photography. This book gives you very little information regarding to that. Not a source of inspiration for me.

JC