Architectural Alleyway – Austin, Texas
I made this photo more for its visual appeal, rather than for documentation. That’s one of the reasons that it’s in color. The more salient reason is that I like the mix of textures, color, and patterns.
There’s also an enjoyable variety of architectural styles, not to mention the graphic yellow arrow, which adds much-needed foreground interest. I also used Capture One in post to make sure the buildings are correctly squared, minimizing any distortion. This is straight forward photography, but adding an architecturally oriented Art-ish effect might make it more like a graphic art piece. Perhaps, I’ll explore that in a future post.
Careful visitors might have noticed that this is the same alleyway where I made a Couple Within Architecture which I posted a few days ago. A change in angle and treatment has morphed an architectural, urban landscape into street photography, not to mention the all-important human element.
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6 thoughts on “Architectural Alleyway”
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atmtx photo blog 
Shouldn’t all documentary photography be in colour? Isn’t colour a part of the information being captured?
I think it depends on what the objectives are. I have two reasons for monochrome.
1. I want to echo the historical black and white city photos from the past.
2. I usually pick color or black and white based on which I like better, maximizing the impact of the image.
But … then it’s not really documentary photography. You’re using B&W for aesthetics, not because B&W is the only technology available. You might as well justify shooting old B&W film.
I never said I was doing the particular genre of documentary photography. I said I was documenting downtown Austin. And, I’m documenting the city the way I prefer to, even if I take aesthetics into consideration.
Next, what’s wrong with doing something for aesthetics? The flat or uninteresting light during mid-day isn’t particularly compelling to me, especially in color.
Finally, photography is a creative endeavor. And, thus, there aren’t set rules on how a project should be done.
I misunderstood your intent. I saw the word documenting and read it as “documentary”.
That’s quite alright. I think it’s healthy to challenge assumptions or intentions from time to time.
We are all doing our little part to add something to the world. Hopefully something positive and worthwhile.