Photography

Photo Walk - Matrix Buildings

So the day after visiting the Van Gogh Exhibition, I ventured out to a different area of Beijing. I only had a little time, so I didn't take many photos, but I still wanted to share a few I liked from the day.

The preset I used for today’s photos is from Lightroom’s Premium Preset area-Black and White, BW04 to be exact. I definitely get a Matrix vibe from this preset and I think it matches well the photos.

By this time, I was kind of getting into using the Lightroom presets instead of my VSCO presets, which I have been using for years. I still really like the VSCO ones, but I started playing around with the Lightroom ones for a change.

Let’s check out the photos…which were taken around the Guomao area of Beijing.

This was the first shot of the day, looking out from the subway station from the top of the escalator. I made sure to line up the building properly, getting as close to perfectly centered (top, left, and right) as possible within that middle window frame.

Another one from outside a different subway station entrance. I wish I had moved a little so the light on the right side wasn’t hidden behind the beam.

Soon after I started walking around, I noticed the window cleaners here, and I knew I had to take some photos. I only had my 17mm lens (35mm equivalent) with me, so I couldn’t get any close-up shots, but I tried to make something interesting.

For the reflected building on the left side, I thought about cloning out the streetlight, as I find it distracting. Maybe it’s just a glitch in the matrix?

Here initially I liked the random shadows showing on the building on the right, but then I also noticed how the wall of the building in the left background was so clean, with absolutely no shadows. I liked the contrast.

Ahh, building lookup photos. One of my most common pictures to take. In these we have one mostly symmetrical and one non-symmetrical. I like how in the second one, the supporting beam in the bottom is off-center, but is balanced by the structure near the top of the building which is also off-center but on the opposite side.

In addition to shooting up at buildings, one other thing you will notice about many of my photos is that I really like shooting up through patterned windows.