Contemporary Exterior Architecture
I intend to take a shot of the exterior main building which used to be ICI and is now called Syngenta on Leeds rd in Huddersfield, I have emailed Jane Denton to request permission, so they can alert their security team, that there is nothing suspicious going on.
I received an email from Jane Denton, allowing me to continue with the shoot, on the proviso that I give her a call beforehand to confirm the time and date I plan to do the shoot.
23/11/12
Today, I called Jane after checking the weather with the met office and told her I am going to attend on Friday afternoon.
The Syngenta building is going to be my project for a still life shot of a number of images that will be stitched together.
I'm not entirely sure that the Syngenta building is classed as contemporary architecture, but while I had this shoot in mind I thought I would do it anyway.
Here's one of my shots, after stitching 3 images together in photoshop. I also added the sky as the one on the day was lifeless, with no clouds, as you can see in the image below.
Plan B
As I am not satisfied with this shot, I have made arrangements with the store manager Alison Burnley at Marks and Spencer in sheffield, a new simply food store which is very environment friendly, to do a shot of the outside of their store showing its living wall and sedum roof... If possible, as I haven't yet been able to attend a reccy I will not know the angle needed to get a shot which will show the roof.
As I have been unable to set a date for this shoot with bad weather conditions through nov-feb, I will just have to go when I am available and there is good weather. Due to other commitments such as work, it makes it difficult when shooting outside to be able to plan so far in advance.
14/3/13
Leaving it a bit late I know, but this is my first opportunity to attend the store for this shoot. I will be back with details of how it went later today..
M&S Sheffield info
M&S Sheffield Shoot
14/3/13
Before setting off to do my shoot of the environment friendly M&S in Sheffield, I firstly checked the weather with the met office, it gave out sunshine today and Saturday, I am unable to go on Saturday because of work, so today it is.
Next I phoned the store manager to check that it was alright for me to attend the site and take photographs of the outside of the building.
I had charged my battery up before leaving and told someone where I was going, as I was attending the shoot alone.
When I arrived there was parking available on site, after parking I did a quick reccy of the area and checked where the sun was going to be going down, as I left it until late afternoon purposely to capture the light as the sun sets, and where I needed to be was perfect for the sun.
I had some spare time, so set up my camera and did some test shots in case i needed to change position.
The store is directly on a main road, which I wasn't expecting, and the side where I needed to shoot was on the road side, making it more difficult to get the shot I was hoping for.
This store is renowned for having one outside wall covered with grass which is growing, it not only provides insulation for the store but helps to sustain wildlife and insects. Where this wall is there is a side road leading to the back of the store which is where their deliveries will be taken, on the other side of the side road is a take away, and their delivery driver was parked there. Since I am shooting with a 17mm wide angle lens the car is going to be in my shot unless I angle it right.
It was now 17.30 ish and the sun was ready for setting, but instead of a lovely sunset like we have had the past few days, I was enjoying cloud and a great big building behind me, where the sun decided to hide behind. It had also been raining on my way over, so I decided not to wait any longer in case it started again.
I set my tripod and camera up and checked my position, I was trying to get the store at an angle showing the grass wall and row of trees planted along the main road. I had very little room and was almost stood in the road, a couple of buses nearly took me out too. It was getting quite busy with people walking past, so I had to wait while they passed, as I was shooting for HDR and if people are in the shot then the converted image will have shadows of the same person as they were walking while the shots were being taken.
The light was nice and so I had my camera set on 100 iso, auto bracketed, on a 2 sec timer, and used a 17mm Tse lens.
The shoot went well, not according to plan but we can't control the weather, I am pleased with my final image which is shown below, and is made up of 6 HDR images stitched together in photoshop and then cropped, straightened and slight adjustments on the brightness, I didn't want this shot to look over processed, it needed to be as natural as the store is, being made from recycled materials and eco friendly.
I was looking for some ironic factor which may criticise the whole recycled material built green store but I couldn't fault it, they have no neon signs etc.. it's all very eco friendly.
17/3/13
I have been going over and over this M&S shot and I'm not completely happy with it, because it doesn't show the growing wall fully, therefore it seems un-finished because it isn't a whole building view. This was impossible to achieve due to a metal fence and gate which sealed off the access to around the rear of the store, there was also a car on the road, which I didn't want to have in my shot.
I decided to research buildings in Huddersfield which were built during the 70's, and narrowed the list down to the Magistrates court in the town centre and the block of flats at the bottom of town called Ibbotson flats, which were named after George Derek Ibbotson MBE (born June 17, 1932 in Huddersfield) was an English runner who excelled in athletics in the 1950s. His most famous achievement was setting a new world record in the mile in 1957. The Ibbotson Flats are listed for demolition in the near future, along with the Lonsbbrough Flats to make way for a new Tesco store. Whereas the Richmond block are to have £2.18 million spent on them to be upgraded.
After checking out the weather with the met office I set off to shoot both of the buildings and later decide which I prefer. I shot in auto bracket mode to create hdr images which I will stitch together.
The weather wasn't the best and rain was given out for sunset so I am hoping that the overcast sky will not look too bad.
I have chosen my shot of the Magistrates Court for my final image, purely because I feel it has an edge on the Ibbotson Flats image. Both images are in HDR and post processing done in siver efex pro 2.
Ibbotson Flats
Magistrates Court
A slight contradiction on why I didn't want the M&S image as my final because I hadn't got the whole building in shot, because this shot is also missing some of the building on the right. The difference here is that I chose to crop this image, as there was an unsightly stair case and white door, extreme right which took your eye away from the main body of this shot, I thought it benefitted the shot by losing them, and I personally favourite this shot from the others.
Here are some other variations of both shoots and I have included a shot where the stairs are in view.
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Six shots stitched together
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Final Image in colour
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My first shot, I wanted to include the grass and trees but moved closer to concentrate my shot on the building.
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This shot shows the door and steps which I later cropped out of the final shot.
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I really like this shot with the curve of the pavement leading your eye into the main image,but I didn't think it was good enough as my final shot, because I couldn't get the top of the flats in the shot from this angle, but I did manage to include the Richmond block undergoing renovation with scaffolding all around the building, in the background.
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