Hand in 29th September 2019
Judged 8th October
Judge : Mike Barnard
Cityscapes are often defined as a landscape taken in an urban environment. Cityscape photography is intended to capture something of the essence of city life and can include the breadth of things that make up a city (such as buildings, bridges, traffic, crowds of people).
Googling cityscape images will reveal large numbers of the more typical wide angle shots to include a broad city vista with horizons and skylines. However, there are many other kinds of picture that can be classified as cityscapes, such as interesting patterns created by groups of buildings or an overview of a market, which might benefit from a more zoomed in telephoto lens.
Given this, it is perhaps worth spelling out what is NOT characteristically viewed as ‘cityscape photography’ since just because a photo was taken in a city does not make it ‘cityscape photography’. Thus cityscapes should have a relatively broad vista to include more than just a single building (just as a close-up of a single tree would not normally be defined as a landscape). Similarly, relatively close-up pictures taken of people in streets are likely to be better defined as ‘street photography’ rather than as cityscapes.
Finally, here are a few tips that cityscape photographers have given as a stimulus :
- Consider using night-time shots and particularly in the twilight ‘blue hour’ (just before sunrise or just after sunset when building lights have come on to balance the fading light from the sky).
- Use a relatively wide angle lens for much of cityscape photography (especially broad vista skyline shots or more close-up pictures of groups of skyscrapers).
- Pay attention to the normal guidelines for composition – some of which (e.g. leading lines, symmetry) have a special relevance to cityscapes.
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