La Defense in HDR, Paris - Architecture photography
La Defense, Gan Eurocourtage building seen from pedestrian bridge. HDR image of 3 photos. Use of HDR for external architecture photography.
A few weeks ago I met up with Serge Ramelli (www.photoserge.com) and we went for a casual shoot and chat. He had spotted a corner of La Defense which he wanted to check out again so I went along, it’s always great to get with professionals who know what they’re doing and learn something new.
I quite liked the “eye trail” of pedestrian bridge and the reflections in the building. Aside from that, the fact that the entrance to the building is off-center actually is quite nice on the photo since the entrance is the in the center of the photo but the building is to the left.
Well while we were talking about life, the weather and many more things, we were shooting and, well not many photos were great, but this one was quite nice so I am posting it here. I think it’s a great example of how HDR can be invaluable for architectural photography, without the use of HDR it would have been impossible not to burn out the lights on the bridge since the exposure is quite long.
I did have to straighten out the perspective since as the building to make it straight.
Architecture photo tip:
– If you don’t have a tilt shift lens, shoot with a wide-angle and correct the perspective in photoshop. It’s tedious but it’s important. Strange pyramid shaped buildings make great photos look mediocre, unless it’s an effect you purposely want to create.
Martin Soler Photography 
Love the colour and light in this one Martin… Very nice…
I agree about correcting the perspective up to a point. I think that it’s possible to overcorrect the perspective lines. It’s only my opinion but I think the building looks a little unnatural without any convergence at all, since it’s clearly a very large buildliing. Lovely effect with the lights balanced by the sky. The HDR worked very well for this shot.
Thanks Avital, when doing architecture or trying to represent a building having convergence immediately makes the photo look like an amateur. The proper architectural photography lens is the tilt shift lens which remedies exactly this problem without having to loose quality. The thing is when you see a building you don’t “see” the converging lines since the mind compensates for that. But thanks for the comment yes the HDR is pretty light.
Wow, magnifique perspective et composition ! Un HDR magnifique ! C’est du TOp niveau !