Photographing Wright

[Mark Hertzberg]

I have been photographing a variety of Frank Lloyd Wright buildings this week as I accompany a Road Scholar architecture tour in Racine, Milwaukee, and Spring Green. I posted a few photos earlier. I have now posted a whole variety of different ways to look at some of these buildings to my website, www.wrightinracine.com

Mark Hertzberg

[SDR]

Thank you. I'm not sure who uses a fish-eye lens, or for what purpose; it seems clear that architecture is ill-served by that lens, though some interesting images might result. I suppose the only way to
photograph the Great Workroom ceiling would be a collage, of separate shots taken in the center of each bay ?

On pages 130-131 of Monograph 2 is a large black-and-white of the principal elevation of Unity Temple. Here's a beat-up c. '72 Ford parked in front; its distortion may result from its being found in the
extreme lower right corner of the image. Note the elliptical front wheel: a line drawn through its long axis would presumably point to the center of the photograph. Is this distortion called spherical aberration ?







The shape of the car suggests that the image is drawn out horizontally, there . . .



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But this HABS elevation drawing doesn't seem to show a much different proportion to the building elements:






I wonder why the drawing omits the very large rectangular urn near the center of the composition . . .

[Mark Hertzberg]

I agree that literal documentary architectural (or other) photography is ill-served by a fisheye lens. I was looking for something other than a literal, expected documentary photograph for a title slide for something...a photo that would grab the viewers' attention. I tried the idea. It didn't work. I put the picture out in public anyway to give people something to look at and think about. I suppose that one could also argue that telephoto lenses that compress space or lenses wider than "normal" lenses should not be used to photograph architecture. Isn't trying the unexpected part of what all of this is about? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but we can only find out by trying.

[SDR]

Yes, certainly; I didn't mean to criticize -- only agreeing with your own assessment that the photo didn't do what you wanted it to. By all means, try everything: that's the way new wonders are discovered.

I can imagine a kaleidoscopic photo of some sort made into a repeat pattern -- perhaps for the endpapers of a hardbound book on the subject ?

Sorry to hijack your thread with unrelated discussion of Unity Temple. I thought the distortion might be of interest . . .

SDR

[Mark Hertzberg]

No apologies needed. The distortion in the Ford (and oh, how ugly cars were then!) is strange. I don't see it in the front wheel by the dents. The seemingly elongated car may be the angle of the photo of a two-door with a seemingly longer trunk or back end?

[SDR]

I went looking online for a comparable shot of the same car, for comparison, but haven't succeeded so far. Plenty of angular views, of course. Ford products of the day had gobs of overhang, front and rear, and were made to appear long and low -- but not this low !

SDR

[Mark Hertzberg]

Looking at the condition of the car...maybe it is low because there is someone in the trunk...

[SDR]

Heh-heh -- maybe.



Here's the same body, with slightly different trim.


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[Roderick Grant]

The Johnson shot looks like a magnified image of a virus. As architectural photography, it doesn't work'; as art, it does.

[clydethecat]

I suspect the cars appear distorted because the buildings were photographed with a View Camera, using shifts and tilts to keep the straight lines straight.