Salford Quays Architecture
If anyone wants to learn about shooting architecture “up north”, I can think of not better place than Media City at Salford Quays.
This trip was a 1-2-1 with a fellow professional photographer who shoots gigs for a living – he wanted to spend an evening learning about architecture and tilt-shift lenses. So we met around 4:30 and worked through till well after sunset, taking in all kinds of views and angles.
Kit Used on this trip
Click on any of these pictures to learn more or purchase
Canon 5D Mark 4
Canon 70-200 F2.8 IS
Canon 17mm TSe
Canon 90mm TS
Manfrotto 055 Tripod
Waiting for the sunset
So to start we captured these flats – I’ve shot them many times before, but never with the Canon 17mm TSe lens. To get them in I had to take 2 portrait photos – one shifted low, the other high – and stitch them together to get this final shot.
It’s a far more architectural look than the stretched versions I did with the 17-40 back in 2006!
Not quite a sunset
As it got darker, we didn’t really get the dreamy orange sky, but a nice pattern in the clouds formed over the BBC buildings.
Looking the other way, east towards Old Trafford, was a bit more ominous. Here we used the railings to give a dramatic lead into the shot.
As the sun was going down, the red light in the imperial war museum came on, so grabbed this shot with the 70-200.
The Lift Bridge
Back in the 2000’s this was the main feature and still a great thing to shoot. It’s a lift bridge, the deck’s pretty long, 100 yards maybe, and lit beautifully all the way across.
We got a few shots of it – this one is a pano of 2 shifted shots, taken later on when the sky had darkened.
This is a HDR pano – so 6 photos in total, blended to 2 HDR photos – then the 2 HDR photos blended to a panoramic. It meant the bright sky could be retained along with detail in the deck and structure.
This is right at the side of the bridge, a shift panoramic of 3 vertical photos. It’s REALLY wide!
Imperial War Museum
This is a really boiring building in dull light, but after dark, it takes on a totally different feel. The lighting is cool, almost blue, with the red “eye” peering out at you.
This is 2 shots blended to a panoramic – taking in the little lights on the steps. A nice touch.
You get a great reflected view of it from across the water, outside the Blue Peter studio.
This is a 90mm Tilt Shift lens photo – with this I was using tilt to increase depth of field, so tilted towards the building. It is a bit fiddly to do, but the lot does seem quite sharp!
This is the opposite effect – with the tilt away from the building to make the near parts more blurry than you’d get from most lenses.
Classic Reflections
The main draw of this location has to be the reflections after dark – colours and shapes in the architecture double up when you have water, and there are acres of the stuff here.
This first shot is from the BBC looking over to the Lowry
This is from below the new cafe looking down media city to the swing bridge
This is from the water’s edge near to the tram stop, the golden thing is the restaurant, the blue the Lowry
Media City from near the Lowry Tower – this is HDR of 3 photos s0 I could keep all the light detail AND get some sky glow
6 shot HDR of a little sculpture by the water’s edge
Experiments…
This is a photo using the Lensbaby – a cool little lens from a few years back which you can bend and squeeze to make really strange shots… works well with lights
This is a replication of a shot Dave described of Canary Wharf – the 90mm was tilted on a vertical plane, so the BBC tower was sharp, and things left and right of it were blurry. Hard to get right, you had to use focus, tilt and aperture to control the width of the sharp area!
The Lowry to finish
And finally… the original reason I went to Salford Quays back in the early 2000’s – the lowry itself.
This is a 6 shot HDR pano using the black line of brick on the pavement as a lead into the photo
