Free roaming in Hamburg with epic summer sunrise light
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A few weeks ago I needed to go to Hamburg for meetings and all business stuff. However I was staying near the Harbour area - with the famous red buildings. So a change to do some architecture photography again. This is still something I love to do as it is very difficult and getting good compositions and light is always a challenge. Well the light was there … so the rest was on me I guess.
Getting up early wasn’t easy after a day of travel, but when I opened the curtains in the hotel I knew I needed to go out and do breakfast afterwards. The light was epic, it was this kind of soft but birght summer sunlight. So its a bit more white than lets say spring or autumn sunrise light where this is more yellow/orange. This light was more to the white side of the spectrum with it being “cold”. You know when you know, you know.
Anyway perfect conditions to go out. The first shot to get into the rhythm was right outside the doorstep, a white building against the blue sky with the reflective sun. A very cool first shot but I struggled a bit with the composition. It was the first shot so trying to figure this one out.
Moving on I got another idea how to shoot that building and framed it against some trees which works but it’s not the best. That was to come a bit later. The only drawback was that I was just a bit too late to start with my walk as it was 7:00h going into 7:30h and by then people, cars and the streets came to life. In the end that was a challenge. However when I arrived in the harbour area with its beautiful red buildings the streets there were still quite quiet. So all good.
The cool thing of these red buildings being old with specific architecture is also that they are quite close together making the streets quite narrow and with the sun casting shadows and highlights it was really cool light and composition wise. In the end I could have stayed for another hour, but I needed to go back.
So heading back I shot some last more abstract photos, but only one stood out a bit. All in all it was a really good walk and getting some good photos in the bag. Not the greatest photos but the process I really enjoyed and revisiting architecture photography was really cool!
So there you have it an architecture blog yet again. Don’t worry there will be enough birds and nature blogs to come. Let me know what you think about architecture photography and don’t hesitate to leave a comment or an e-mail. Click to view larger in a light box and navigate with mouse or arrow keys. Enjoy!
