Posted on May.09, 2012, under Architectural Details

(Nikon D800, 28-300mm at 28mm, Exposure 1/250th sec @ f/11, ISO 200)

On a recent trip to New York City I had the opportunity to spend a little time outside the Guggenheim Museum. It was late in the day and I didn’t have the time to actually go inside so I decided to get some exterior shots. I’ve always been fond of the design of this museum and I wanted to capture some of its details. For me the two things that stand out about this museum is the unique inverted ziggurat he used as the main display area, and the typography used on the exterior lettering. The plain white concrete shapes with the simple black lettering really appeal to me. I was trying to capture something a bit more abstract than just a regular architectural shot so I played with different angles. I liked the angle on this shot, but the image was rather flat coming out of the camera. I used a few different tools in Lightroom 4 to help bring out the texture of the surface and to increase the contrast. Probably the change that had the most effect was bumping the clarity up to 100 while reducing the highlights and blacks. I debated about just making a black and white image, but I wasn’t sure what to do with the bit of blue sky. I didn’t want it dark, and I didn’t want it light so in the end I decided just to keep the bit of blue.

Please feel free to leave any comments or questions you may have about this image below.

Copyright ©2012 James W. Howe – All rights reserved

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