Shutter Mike Photography

I have been dabbling in real estate and architectural photography lately as well as HDR processing.  It is not as easy as it may appear to get the perfect shot of real estate.  So practice is essential.  A friend of a friend was kind enough to let me practice on their beautiful Scottsdale home recently.  Here are a few of the shots after I processed them through Photomatix Pro 4.0.2.

I ran across one of those 10 this, 25 that blog posts that featured this particular blogger’s idea of 40 of the world’s best architectural photographs.  For the most part I did not disagree with any of his/her selections and these architectural photographs are worth sharing.  Here are four of my favorites, but you can check out all 40 images on nerdtreasure.com.

WinterLight

© KPK

Black Hole

© Jef Van den Houte

Notre Dame, Paris

© A.G. photographe

This photograph is a little more processed than most I do.  I was experimenting with processing non-bracketed images in Photomatix Pro software.  Then I made some further adjustments in PhotoShop CS4.  I am not entirely satisfied with the end result and I feel the original photograph could have been shot better.  But it is not a bad effort.

You can see more architectural photography at the Getty Center in yesterday’s post.

The Getty Center sits atop a hill in the Santa Monica Mountains just outside of Los Angeles.  The center is made up of several buildings, gardens and open spaces that sit on a 110 acre site.  You enter into a subterranean parking garage and ascend to the white hilltop structure via tram, emerging onto a plaza with expansive views.  Designed by Richard Meier the Getty Center strays a bit from his traditional white structures.  Although there is plenty of white the  1.2 million square feet of Italian travertine dominate the design.  Glass also plans an important role in the Getty Center.  It is used in abundance and fills the interior spaces with natural light.  The architecture alone is worth a visit then there is the bonus of these buildings being filled with beautiful works of art.

It is free to get into the center itself, but there is a $15 charge to park.  But parking is free after 5 pm and on Saturdays they are open until 9 pm.

Check back tomorrow for more images from the Getty Center.