Bonuel Photography » Architecture

Photo Monday: High Dynamic Range

Miguel — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:00:30 +0000

It’s hard to track down the history behind High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography, but the idea has always been the same: to allow a greater range of luminance between the lightest and darkest areas of an image. So, specifically, this technique was originally used to take photos of indoor scenes with windows or highly contrasted scenes, like seascapes. It’s only in the past 20-30 years that it’s been used in a more artistic way (like mine!).

I learned about HDR photography roughly two years ago on a trip to Paris (an amazing place to learn!!). I’ve dabbled in it for a little while, but it’s only now that I realize how interested I am in the technique. For this Photo Monday, I wanted to share my latest experiments with HDR.

Enough with words. Here are the photos:

The King Car — View Large On Black.

Gotham Lofts Entrance — View Large On Black

Toronto under construction — View Large On Black

As before, there were some photos that didn’t make the cut, so make sure you check them all out on flickr: Photo Monday #7.

Have a great week gang!
Cheers,

It’s Photo Monday!

Miguel — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:00:05 +0000

That’s right! Starting this week, I will be posting a small collection of my favourite photos every Monday. I will stick to a theme as much as possible. Don’t get too excited! This will not be some sort of tutorial on how to get certain types of shots – I leave that to teaching gurus like Scott Kelby. I just want to share some of my best shots and force myself to get out every week.

This week’s topic is the wonderful Humber Bay Bridge in Toronto.

Venice House by Steven Ehrlich

Miguel — Sun, 10 May 2009 17:07:13 +0000

Yesterday I just watched another interesting HGTV show called Top 10 Outdoor spaces. The space that brought the title home was really amazing. It’s an house in Venice, California, designed by Steven Ehrlich in 2003. It’s referred to as 700 Palms Residence in his online portfolio.

Just an amazing space that uses the outdoor to extend the indoor space. As the designers put it in the HGTV show, what’s nice about California is that the outdoor square footage count just as much as the indoor square footage. So a 1500 square foot house can be extended to a 15,000 square foot mansion, simply by using the outdoor space well. This house is definitively a great example of how to do this well.

Here are a couple more photos I managed to find around on the web. I wish we could use the outdoor spaces like that in Canada, but with 6 months of winter a year, we would need to rethink the design a little bit. It’s still do-able though.

Julius Shulman in Montreal – March 28th 2009

Miguel — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 03:02:16 +0000

Oh how I wish i could be there this weekend to get a peak at the new movie on Julius Shulman’s life. A quote from his wikipedia entry:

Julius Shulman (born October 10, 1910) is an American architectural photographer best known for his photograph “Case Study House #22, Los Angeles, 1960″ (seen bellow).

Visit the official website to find out when and where they will be. All I know is that they are part of the 27th International Festival of Films on Art held in Montreal from March 19 to 29, 2009. They will be showing the movie at the Canadian Centre for Architecture at 4pm. Get a sneak peek from youtube here. In the meantime, get inspired by looking at the shots that made Julius Shulman so famous:

A house in Wychwood Park, Toronto

Miguel — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 07:00:58 +0000

I came across this amazing house while browsing my 2008 Autumn issue of International Architecture and Design. This house was designed by Toronto architect Ian McDonald in 2002 and was awarded the 2008 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture. Simply stunning!

Comment from the Jury

This house gives the split-level bungalow type a whole new meaning. The strategy seems to erode and intertwine the domestic structure of street frontage, back yard and neighbouring setbacks within the modest volume of a vintage bungalow, where spaces are brilliantly mined from the site rather than added to the structure. The result is a sequence of compact indoor and outdoor “rooms” that unexpectedly unravel into exquisite grand moments of expansion.