Buildings and Patterns – 2

Looking through my photo collection it’s slightly alarming the number of images that I’ve taken trying to capture patterns, especially on buildings 🙂 Here are a few more to go with the previous post:

This is facade of the Grand Hotel in Riva Del Garda at the northern end of Lake Garda, Italy. It’s situated in a busy square with cars parked at the front and satellite dishes on the roof but after some heavy cropping I liked the resulting pattern of windows with the balcony at the bottom. I also like the fact that there’s one open window in the top row so that the pattern is not quite perfect. 🙂

The roof over the Great Court in the British Museum, London makes for some interesting patterns. Designed by Norman Foster, it’s now the largest covered public square in Europe. I feel that the roof pattern is more pronounced in black & white.

These houses are in Chepstow, Wales. We’d gone to Chepstow Castle and I was trying, without success, to find something to photograph when I happened to look out over some of the battlements and saw these houses. I was immediately drawn by the pattern and colours.

Patterns don’t always have to be on buildings. These graves are in the St. Mihiel American Cemetery and Memorial in Thiaucourt in the Lorraine region of France. I suspect that these soldiers once lined up just like this on the parade ground.

Buildings and Patterns

Repeating patterns can often add interest to what might otherwise be mundane images. I found that this was especially true of buildings and architecture. The photos below were taken during the period that I lived and worked near Birmingham in the UK.

This is one of the upper floors of the new Birmingham Library. The photo was taken from the public balcony overlooking Centenary Square and the colours of the decoration on the building contrast nicely with the blue sky.

This one was taken from the same place as the previous photo but looking in the opposite direction. I liked the way that the windows of the building were acting as a mirror. The panes of glass looked very regular and perfect but the distortion of the reflection shows that this isn’t the case. ( The building in the reflection is the Alpha Tower and I was slightly surprised to learn that it’s Grade II listed 🙂 )

There are two patterns in this photo. In the foreground is the 19^th Century Birmingham Town Hall now used as a concert venue. In the background is the Alpha Tower again and I liked the contrast between the old and modern patterns.

This photo happened by accident. I was a little early for my train home so I went up to the car park above Snow Hill station in Birmingham to see if it was a suitable location for rail related shots. It wasn’t but I did get another reflection photo. I especially like the slight “circus mirror” distortion effects in the reflected image.

I walked past this large apartment complex every day on my way to work. During the 2014 World Cup in Brazil there was obviously one optimistic England fan living there and I liked the way that the flag broke up the slightly austere look of the building. This side got the sun in the morning and I had been trying, without success, all week to get a sunlit photo at that time of day. By the end of the week I got fed up and just took the photo anyway. It was a good job that I did because that evening England lost 2-1 to Uruguay effectively knocking them out of the competition and the following morning the flag was gone 🙂

 

Technical comment – In my experience it’s often difficult to get into the perfect position for taking photos of buildings. Usually you’re too high or too low or off to one side which inevitably means that it’s going to be necessary to correct the perspective. It’s worth experimenting with your favourite photo editor because I think that it can make a big difference to the final image. On the right is a version of the second image above without the perspective correction and I don’t think that it’s as good.