4d Cityscape

[Juvencio Parise]

Inthe visual arts, a cityscape (urban landscape) is an artistic representation, such as a painting, drawing, print or photograph, of the physical aspects of a city or urban area. It is the urban equivalent of a landscape. Townscape is roughly synonymous with cityscape, though it implies the same difference in urban size and density (and even modernity) implicit in the difference between the words city and town. In urban design the terms refer to the configuration of built forms and interstitial space.

From the first century A.D. dates a fresco at the Baths of Trajan in Rome depicting a bird's eye view of an ancient city.[1] In the Middle Ages, cityscapes appeared as a background for portraits and biblical themes. From the 16th up to the 18th century numerous copperplate prints and etchings were made showing cities in bird's eye view. The function of these prints was to provide a map-like overview.

At the end of the 19th century the impressionists focused on the atmosphere and dynamics of everyday life in the city. Suburban and industrial areas, building sites and railway yards also became subjects for cityscapes. During the 20th century attention became focused on abstract and conceptual art, and thus the production of cityscapes declined. American painter Edward Hopper, who stayed loyal to figurative painting, created intriguing images of the American scene. With a revival of figurative art at the end of the 20th century comes a revaluation of the cityscape. Well-known living cityscape painters are Rackstraw Downes, Antonio Lpez Garca, and Richard Estes. American artist Yvonne Jacquette has made a specialty of aerial cityscapes.

From the tallest buildings and wide expanses to the tiniest details of city life, there is so much possibility for what you can create with cityscape photography. The only limit is your creativity (and your walking shoes).

When I am on a tripod with a lot of time to setup a shot, I typically will use Manual Mode to perfect my settings, however, the rest of the time when walking around or tight on time, I will use Aperture Priority.

In cities with tall buildings, the light changes quickly and constantly, and shooting on Manual will have you changing the settings every time this happens or every time you look in a different direction.

Then when you want to fix the exposure, you can just use the exposure compensations (+/-) to dial in the settings. Photos with a mix of dark shadows and bright whites can confuse the camera, so this is when you should pay particular attention to using your compensation.

The rule is to always have your shutter speed be a minimum of one over your focal length. So if your lens is set at 75mm, the shutter speed should be at least 1/75th of a second or faster.

Typically (but not always of course), you will want as much depth of field as you can get in your cityscape photos to get sharpness throughout the frame. However, you need to consider the wind.

Just like any good landscape, composition is one of the most important elements to consider in your cityscapes. When you can mix an interesting location with a fantastic composition and great light, that is when the magic happens.

When using the rule of thirds, this allows you to move the main subject off-center and to create a more effective play between the main subject and the background, allowing the eyes to move fluidly between both.

This will give you the ability to show all of the background while still having your main foreground subject large in the frame. By contrast, using too much of a telephoto view can compress the elements and make your main subject blend into the scene more than you want.

However, I see this messed up all the time. A photographer will find an incredible background and then just wait for any person to walk through to finish the scene. In these cases, the background alone was the better shot.

The more interesting the background, the more interesting the person has to be to complete the photograph. The person has to stand up to the background and add to things, rather than just becoming a random element.

The most repeated statement about photography is that it is painting with light, and ultimately that is very true. Without good light, there is a much tougher chance of your photograph being successful.

For good reason, people harp on the golden hour just before sunset and after sunrise where the warm colors pop, the blue hour just after when everything becomes cool and even, and night photography where cities come alive with light. These are typically known as the best lighting times for photography, and embracing them will transform your cityscapes.

During the most-ideal lighting times such as the blue or golden hour, color can really standout and sometimes it is a shame to remove it. It can make the photos feel more true to the scene, fun, modern, and enhance the inherent complexities of the scene.

If you are looking for a more classic feel to your cityscape images, black and white is often the way to go. Shadows and highlights, lines, designs, and faces will usually stand out more in black and white.

Researching, reading, watching videos, and hiring guides can help you to understand much more about where to go and what you are photographing. Wandering and getting lost is also just as important but having some early knowledge can lay the groundwork for a successful photography day or trip.

There is so much to capture on the street level that you can create grand cityscape-type photographs of all types of things other than huge buildings and vistas. Think about storefronts, quirky details, graffiti, old walls, street corners. The opportunities are endless.

A defining characteristic of cityscape photography is often the idea of perfection. Everything needs to be in the perfect place and the lighting needs to be perfect. All the horizon lines in the photo need to be straight.

While living in Berkeley in the early 1960s, Richard Diebenkorn painted a group of representational canvases depicting views of the city and the surrounding landscape. Here, a street is fronted on one side by a row of low, nondescript buildings and on the other by open fields and empty lots. The horizon line is high, and the palette is dominated by cool hues of green, blue, gray, and white, offset by the sandy patch of earth on the right and a small area of red at the extreme left. Diebenkorn based the painting on an existing cityscape, but he left out all the buildings on the right side of the street, creating a flatter, more geometric composition.

One tip from Jackson: To read an urban landscape like Minneapolis or St. Paul, it helps to have a basic understanding of architectural styles and land use types. For example, looking at the details, size or architectural styles of a house can reveal approximately when it was built. (Locally, attached garages did not become common in Minneapolis until the 1950s; any home with a front-facing garage was likely built after that time).

If landscapes are a visual concept that reifies a particular rural community in our imaginations, the cityscape is an ever-changing mix of people and material. A great place to start looking at the cityscape is Gateway Park, at the South end of the Hennepin Avenue bridge. Look around here and notice the large flagpole and read the plaque. Look at the Park Board signs, and try to guess what year they were made based on the fonts and materials. Look around and notice the ages of the different buildings. (Gateway Park was the site of many different attempts by the city to define itself through architecture, yet remained one of the central sites of social interactions (and conflicts) for much of the 20th century.

One of the crappiest most time-consuming aspects of creating a cityscape illustration is drawing in all the itty-bitty windows. Drawing in the windows requires a large amount of patience and an understanding of perspective. With these windows, I drew lines that intersected, then I filled in the intersections.

Next, I needed to put trees in my cityscape. I have heard it said that one should not draw individual leaves, and normally I disagree with that statement. However, in this case, I realized that drawing itty bitty leaves would be sensory overload, and I needed my buildings to take center stage. So, I experimented with a new tree-drawing technique. First, I drew a few strokes to represent the trunk and limbs:

See the darker areas on the bottom? Those are there because I went over the ink again with a second wash layer. Ink wash works a little differently than watercolor because an ink wash is all about increasing opacity with additional layers of the wash.

I also used the dip pen to make shadows, as shown on the building, cutting through windows. I did this because they were in one of several reference photos that I examined, and I liked the interest the shadows added.

Lindsey, this is just amazing! I read your blog post in its entirety and came away with two thoughts: how incredibly talented you are and how I wish I could draw! I cannot imagine how thrilled Emily must have been when she saw this!! Such painstaking work and I love how you broke the explanations down so well. There are just no words to tell you how awesome you are!! I am addicted to your blog for sure!!

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