Micheal Wolf is a German-photographer who is well known for his architectural photography skills. He captures the city life through 'portraits of cramped apartments, unending skyscrapers, and crowded subway cars.' In his series Architectural of Destiny, Paris Rooftops and Transparency City Wolf's images of Hong Kong, Chicago, and pairs are representations of the reality of thousands of humans living in that kind of life.
'Architectural of destiny'- In this series, Wolf captures photographed Hong kong tall buildings in a way that they are portrayed as 'abstraction, never-ending repetitions of architectural patterns' The images focus on the vertical lines of the building excluding the shy and the ground.
The first book that contains the images from the series (Hong Kong: Front Door/ Back Door was published in 2005 and one of the reviews states that the book's 'representation of an overpopulated city emptied of its human presence' and praised 'the visual intelligence of wolf's photograph
Below are some of the images from 'Architectural of destiny',
source: photomichaelwolf.com/#architecture-of-density-2/19
Michael Wolf's Tips for Shooting Urban Landscapes.
According to Tersigni A. (2016), he claims that since capturing the intensity and expanse of urban landscape beyond stock images skyline is difficult, he suggests that it is helpful to get landscape photography tips from an expert.
In this blog, I will look at photograph tips of Micheal Wolf's work and try and use the tips to shoot my own images.
1. 'Network and legwork to access exclusive locations'
In Tersigni interview with Michel wolf, he explains that finding a good viewpoint of a building is 90% of the challenge. Access opportunities vary from the location as in Hong Kong Wolf shot the images as he was in his long hikes and he would look for interesting spots that were close to the mountains while in Chicago it was difficult as the area is flat so he had to get to the top of the buildings and shoot from there. "It is all about contacts and networking” Wolf explains to Tersigni. He says Paris was the most difficult of the three locations to get access to. His wife helped him get in touch with the priest of the two churches in Paris and he was able to get up onto 6 or 7 churches that gave him 360 degrees view.
2. 'Consider your environment'
In the series (Architectural of Destiny) Wolf shot with a 4X5 film camera while in Chicago he switched to digital since Chicago was windy and his tripod would be vibrated hence his photos were mostly ruined.
3. 'Wait for the right time.'
Wolf never shoots throughout daylight. He explains that the dynamic vary is way too massive, you get no detail within the shadows, and therefore the lightweight is incredibly hard. For architectural of Density, he says it was necessary to consider the meter-wide gaps of the buildings wherever there’s plumbing. If there’s harsh sun in those gaps, they turn black, and therefore the image doesn’t reveal the maximum amount of information he wanted.
"In Chicago, I always got up on the roof just before dusk and shot from around 5:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. I was interested in this Edward Hopper effect of people working alone in an office, in front of their computer, thinking. I like overcast days, they just make everything a bit softer.”
4. 'Photograph with a concept in mind'
Photographing is not all about location but also the concept is very important. In his three series, he had clear ideas of what he wanted to achieve at the end of it. For the Architectural of Destiny series, it is all about the experience of living inside as we can see that the images are cropped that you can not see the sky or the horizon. The cropping in his photos is important to his vision.
Reference list.
This is not research you need to research this work properly and add critical commentary and references as you have been shown repeatedly in class
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