Otto Berkeley
Obsidian
I last photographed 30 St Mary Axe -- designed by Norman Foster and Arup Group, and better known as the Gherkin -- a little over two years ago. At the time it would never have occurred to me that the scene might be suitable for a monochrome finish, although I was immediately drawn to the contrasting curved and diagonal lines, the mixture of squares, circles and triangles, and the odd composition that initially made it difficult to gauge how the three elements in the frame fit together. After recently revisiting and reshooting the vantage point -- beneath a lamp along Bury Street, and looking up towards the Gherkin alongside its reflection against the office windows of 6 Bevis Marks -- I knew exactly how I wanted the final image to look.
The end result is a mixture of two-, three-, four-, six- and seven-minute exposures, each of which eventually contributed different elements. The first and shortest exposure was the darkest, and this was used to darken the filament inside the street lamp. As I extended the shutter speed and widened the aperture, the sun began to go down behind the Gherkin, which created a subtle gradation in the sky and a soft light between the buildings, as well as a lovely mixture of tones along the edges of the buildings. To incorporate and emphasise these details, I used the Pen Tool in Photoshop to isolate the Gherkin, the adjacent building's office windows and panels, and the pole supporting the street lamp. Once this was done, I blended in the exposures using a combination of blend modes (predominantly Soft Light, Screen and Multiply), and gradually adjusted the light across the scene using linear, radial and reflective gradient masks. After this, I converted the image to black and white, leaving just the faint warm glow of the lamp, and adjusting the luminance of the blue tones across the image to darken the sky and to brighten the glass in the buildings.
When editing the image in Nik Silver Efex Pro, I needed to make selective adjustments to each component within the image: the contrast, structure and highlights inside the Gherkin were increased, for example, and the reflection of the Gherkin inside the neighbouring office windows needed to be isolated and edited with identical adjustments, but the frame around the square windows and the panels along the edge of 6 Bevis Marks' offices needed different amounts of Soft Contrast and midtone exposure, so these needed to be edited separately. Finally, in Colour Efex Pro, I applied Pro Contrast to the overall image, as well as a sparing amount of the Glamour Glow filter, which helped to soften the light along the edge of the Gherkin and to play up the futuristic and slightly ethereal atmosphere I was aiming for.
I've always been an enormous admirer of fine-art photographers such as Julia Anna Gospodarou and Joel Tjintjelaar, and although I'd never consider my work to be fine art, there seemed to be similarities between how I approached the planning, shooting and editing of this image and the thought process and workflow for fine-art images. Besides the emphasis on geometric patterns and dramatic light at the post-processing stage, the fundamental goal I set myself with most of my projects seems to be shared by fine-art photographers, which is to focus on the drama, the emotion and the elegance behind the architecture they capture, and to try to make the scene their own.
You can also connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, 500px and Google+.
Obsidian
I last photographed 30 St Mary Axe -- designed by Norman Foster and Arup Group, and better known as the Gherkin -- a little over two years ago. At the time it would never have occurred to me that the scene might be suitable for a monochrome finish, although I was immediately drawn to the contrasting curved and diagonal lines, the mixture of squares, circles and triangles, and the odd composition that initially made it difficult to gauge how the three elements in the frame fit together. After recently revisiting and reshooting the vantage point -- beneath a lamp along Bury Street, and looking up towards the Gherkin alongside its reflection against the office windows of 6 Bevis Marks -- I knew exactly how I wanted the final image to look.
The end result is a mixture of two-, three-, four-, six- and seven-minute exposures, each of which eventually contributed different elements. The first and shortest exposure was the darkest, and this was used to darken the filament inside the street lamp. As I extended the shutter speed and widened the aperture, the sun began to go down behind the Gherkin, which created a subtle gradation in the sky and a soft light between the buildings, as well as a lovely mixture of tones along the edges of the buildings. To incorporate and emphasise these details, I used the Pen Tool in Photoshop to isolate the Gherkin, the adjacent building's office windows and panels, and the pole supporting the street lamp. Once this was done, I blended in the exposures using a combination of blend modes (predominantly Soft Light, Screen and Multiply), and gradually adjusted the light across the scene using linear, radial and reflective gradient masks. After this, I converted the image to black and white, leaving just the faint warm glow of the lamp, and adjusting the luminance of the blue tones across the image to darken the sky and to brighten the glass in the buildings.
When editing the image in Nik Silver Efex Pro, I needed to make selective adjustments to each component within the image: the contrast, structure and highlights inside the Gherkin were increased, for example, and the reflection of the Gherkin inside the neighbouring office windows needed to be isolated and edited with identical adjustments, but the frame around the square windows and the panels along the edge of 6 Bevis Marks' offices needed different amounts of Soft Contrast and midtone exposure, so these needed to be edited separately. Finally, in Colour Efex Pro, I applied Pro Contrast to the overall image, as well as a sparing amount of the Glamour Glow filter, which helped to soften the light along the edge of the Gherkin and to play up the futuristic and slightly ethereal atmosphere I was aiming for.
I've always been an enormous admirer of fine-art photographers such as Julia Anna Gospodarou and Joel Tjintjelaar, and although I'd never consider my work to be fine art, there seemed to be similarities between how I approached the planning, shooting and editing of this image and the thought process and workflow for fine-art images. Besides the emphasis on geometric patterns and dramatic light at the post-processing stage, the fundamental goal I set myself with most of my projects seems to be shared by fine-art photographers, which is to focus on the drama, the emotion and the elegance behind the architecture they capture, and to try to make the scene their own.
You can also connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, 500px and Google+.