Illinois Center | Before and After

This example is also a result of time constraints. Our clients often don’t have time to wait days for the right sky, the right moment for traditional architectural photography. In this case, the day I had to shoot was fully overcast. When shooting architecture on an overcast day there are two things working against you. First, the most obvious, is the all white sky. Unless for a very specific reason, all white skies are not usually preferred. In this example I replaced the sky with a very light blue – this makes the composite believable. The second, less obvious, challenge of shooting on an overcast day is the soft light. Typically architecture details are accentuated by hard shadows – the kind you would find on a nice sunny day. Because this image was shot with almost no apparent shadows I had to increase the detail in the midtones throughout the image.

Before

Straight out of Camera.

After

Replaced sky and tonal detail added.