From the Ground Up: Architecture Photography on Film

One of the best things about traveling to an unfamiliar city is being surrounded by different and unique architecture. Away from the rush of our usual routines we have time to wander slowly, and gaze up from the pavements at the tops of tall buildings. Some of our favorite architecture photos from Lomographers are taken from this angle – from the ground up. Let’s take a look back through the archives and uncover some hidden gems of architectural photography.

Black and white shots of modern architecture are quite common, so we love to see our community members mixing things up. Lomographers @suizidekid and @aka_papu keep it monochrome, but use Lomography Redscale for these striking images of architecture in Berlin and Vienna. While @siprexo captures buildings on Instant film, adding another interesting layer to these photos that beautifully focus on form and lines.

Another way to put a twist on the genre of architecture photography is by making multiple exposures. It can’t have been easy for @-dakota- to get the perfect exposure for these shots but it's fair to say she nailed it. The results are again familiar in some ways, but through the use of multiple exposures she creates soft impressionistic images of the buildings she photographs.

@grindhousegirl also uses multiple exposures in her photos of buildings around the City of London and Canary Wharf. These areas together make up the center of London’s financial district, and feature an array of architectural styles including remains of the Roman city. However these days the area is most synonymous with iconic skyscrapers like The Shard, The Gherkin and The Scalpel. @grindhousegirl captures these locations on film with the Diana Mini and the La Sardina. Her multiple exposures create a disorientating perspective.

Something this camera angle renders better than any other is an immensense sense of scale. From this viewpoint at street level the buildings seem ominous as much as they are beautiful in their symmetry. Whether it’s a huge metropolis like Hong Kong or a relatively small city such as Vienna, these photos make us feel very small. The details like washing hanging from balconies or figures in windows only adds to this overwhelming feeling of the enormity of cities.

Over the years Lomographers have captured all kinds of architectural styles on film, from the post-war German brutalism photographed by @scorpie to Italian gothic and classical architecture of Siena, Italy, by @tsingtao.

@tsingtao also used the Horizon Kompakt, a camera more often used for wide open landscapes, but beautifully employed here to give a unique view of the historical city.

As we can see from the photos here, even within the constraints of a single camera angle, the possibilities for creativity are seemingly endless. So whichever city you find yourselves in next, we hope you take the time to look up and maybe snap a few photos of the buildings and sky that surround you.

Thank you to all the Lomographers who posted these wonderful architecture photos on their LomoHomes. Keep them coming, we love to see them!

written by alexgray on 2022-12-17 #culture #gallery #redscale #community #architecture #lomo-lc-a