The Art of Building Photography Competition 2016 – the images I have entered

I have just entered The Art of Building competition 2016, the brilliant photography competition run by the CIOB.

The closing date for entries is today, 27th November 2016.

To find out more about this competition head to

http://www.artofbuilding.org/

The competition is described by the CIOB

“The Art of Building photography competition is an international showcase for the very best digital photography of the built environment. It is open to both professional and amateur photographers.”

You can find out more about the competition at

http://www.ciob.org/art-building

And you can find out more about the CIOB at http://www.ciob.org.

I am a member of the CIOB, achieving the designation Member of the Chartered Institute of Building some years ago. I have the letters MCIOB, which sit nicely next to one of my other professional qualifications, Licentiate of the British Institute of Professional Photography. LBIPP.

These two professional qualifications fit happily and nicely next to each other, and are why it was only natural that photographing buildings turned out to be my calling.

You can enter three images in the competition, and this year I chose the images you can see in this post.

I wanted to submit something a bit different.

The first image is this.

Roof tiles, Chideock - construction photography in Dorset by Rick McEvoy

This picture is of the roof tiles on the new roof of Chideock Church in Dorset. I photographed this classical new domed roof to the church for the architect, Andrew Stone. I like the pattern and the colours. This picture was taken using a focal length of 400mm, and at this focal length I have managed to exclude everything else from the image. That just the leaves the tiles in no context at all. Quite an abstract image. Graphic almost. A work of art?

Hamworthy Park Junior School - interior photography in Dorset by Rick McEvoy

The second image is the picture of the windows overlooking the sea in the extension to Hamworthy Park Junior School. Another picture taken for the architect, Kendall Kingscott. Why did I choose this image? It is the light through these large, floor to ceiling windows. That and the fantastic view from the school classroom in Poole, Dorset.

Winchester School of Art, part of the University of Southampton - architectural photography in Hampshire by Rick McEvoy

The third image is of the new extension to the library at Winchester School of Art, part of the University of Southampton. I chose this picture as the lights in the building illuminate the street furniture in the foreground, giving interest and depth to the image.

So these are my three images entered for the CIOB Art of Building Competition 2016.

Rick McEvoy Photography Blog

Sunday 27th November 2016

www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk

A dramatic black and white picture of a refurbished college in Hampshire - construction photography or architectural photography?

This was the first image in my 2016 Portfolio. And one of the last to be converted to black and white!

This image is of a college in Hampshire that has been completely re-clad and re-roofed.

The building is unrecognisable, having undergone a remarkable transformation with the renewal of the external building façade whilst retaining the original structure behind.

I photographed the completed building for the architect soon after completion of the construction works. The client for the works was Hampshire County Council.

There is a new garden which was constructed as part of the works. This is an important part of the project. The garden had to prominently feature in this image, which was, as much as one image can on a project of such a size, scope and scale, the single image telling the whole story of what the building refurbishment.

I like photographing buildings at the end of the construction phase, be they new buildings or refurbished buildings.

There is a remarkably brief moment in time between completion of construction works and occupation where I photograph the completed construction works. This moment is never a clear moment, there is always a blurring of construction and occupation. Always, without fail.

Time is precious and expensive in building construction, and also for owners,  occupiers and users of buildings.

So the time available for me to photograph completed buildings is limited.

But construction photography, and photographing new buildings, is what I do, although it does make me wonder sometimes if I could find something more difficult to do for a living!

i have a page dedicated to my construction photography which you can reach at www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk/construction-photographer/ 

So onto the processing of the finished colour image in Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Before a I get on to that I need to explain that this image is a portfolio image. The colour image that is. This finished image has been edited in Lightroom and Photoshop, so the staring point in Nik is a polished completed portfolio image.

A good starting point…..

What I did in Nik Silver Efex Pro

Presets

I went with the preset High Structure Harsh, as this brought out all the details and textures. This was a quick and significant transformation of the image from colour, into the natural preset, and way beyond. All in a matter of seconds. So that is the major work out of the way in an instant.

Filters

I then applied the green filter as the other filters had badly dramatic impacts on the image!

And we don't want that do we?

The green filter really brought out more of the important features in the image, making it have more impact.

Vignette

The Vignette of choice here was Lens Falloff 2. A pronounced but not over the top addition to the image.

Finishing touches

Then back to good old dynamic brightness to give the image a lift - I pushed this up to 53%.

The processing in Nik Silver Efex Pro has extended the dynamic range of the image, giving it more punch and impact. And this is to an image which has already undergone HDR processing so the dynamic range of this image has really been pushed to give both ends of the spectrum, highlights and shadows, as well as as much of the in-between bits as possible.

Another black and white architectural photography image in the bag…..

I am really happy with this image, as I am producing a separate black and white portfolio.

It has been hard but enjoyable work producing a new portfolio, but having two is a massive bonus to me.

And let's be honest, having 40 colour portfolio images and 40 black and white images is a lot for me to write about. Not that I am running out  it of ideas for my blog, far from it. But to have 80 days worth of posts structured like this has been great.

The list of spin off blog posts is now huge!!! And getting bigger by the day.

But tomorrow on my blog you can read about the next image in my black and white photography portfolio. I am going to carry on with this until I finish my second portfolio, then I can have a break and go on to something different.

Rick McEvoy Photography Blog

Friday 14th October 2016

www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk

The view of the spectacular ceiling in the Siena Duomo – the black and white version

This was an addition to my portfolio collection. I was browsing though my pictures of building interiors in Italy looking for something specific.

And this was it.

I took quite a few shots of this absolutely stunning ceiling, but this was the stand out image. I am not sure how I missed this originally but it got here in the end. How could I have not included this shot? I must have been going through my chaotic phase in Lightroom, all over the place with no structure, no order, no plan.

But that was the old me!

Sorry I went down a strange digression route there…

The colour version of the image I absolutely love.

Interior photography by Rick McEvoy

So working on a black and white version of this is very much something for me to look forward to.

And I am thinking this  should be nice and easy.

So let's start with the presets in Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Lots of the presets worked really well. Not that easy then…… Too much choice. Much too much choice. But with digital photography image processing you have to just go with the one version that works for you, bearing in mind what else is to be done to an image.

This is the image processing in Nik Silver Efex Pro

Firstly those pesky presets. The ones I liked were

• High Structure Harsh
• High Structure Smooth
• Full Dynamic (Harsh)
• Full Spectrum Inverse
• Full Contrast and Structure

I went with Full Dynamic Harsh as this produced the most impact and punch.

Filters

The red filter gave it further oomph, but it was too bright so I dropped the brightness down to -30%, and increased the Dynamic Brightness to 30%.

Vignette

Finally I added a big vignette, Lens Falloff 3

And that is that done. Just three steps to process this image in Nik Silver Efex Pro.

This is such a great picture to turn into a black and white image. There is so much detail and richness in this ceiling, and the contrast of the light and the dark. This fascinates me as an architectural photographer and also lover of architecture. This is why I enjoy photographing buildings so much!

And let's not forget that this image was taken on my Canon 6D. Sometimes I forget that the camera is one of the stars of my image capture process. 

Rick McEvoy Photography Blog

Thursday 29th Septermber 2016

www.rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk