Cologne is a city named after a famous perfume. Ok, I’m kidding but truth doesn’t seem to count for much these days. Eau de Cologne though was named after the city by an Italian perfumier who moved there and created it in 1709. Now that is true.
Our trip into Cologne centred around the Cathedral area and once again I was up against very harsh mid day lighting. But it did provide me with the opportunity for some of my favoured architecture photography.
I was fascinated by the shiny steel modern lighting contrasting with the dark and ancient stone of the cathedral and spent a long time taking numerous shots, none of which particularly pleased me. This was the closest to the idea in my head.
It was pretty clear that my friends and members of the tour group I was with at the time were thinking there was actually very little in my head and doubting my sanity as I appeared to take pictures of lamp-posts rather than the cathedral. But the image above is what I’d been after.
We were prevented from walking on this ribbed area of Heinrich-Böll-Platz outside the Cologne Philharmonic Concert Hall to prevent making noise inside the hall – which was a joy for me because it meant I could get a great shot of old and new architecture and leading lines to Cologne Cathedral. In fact by this time my fellow travellers had wandered off leaving me to my madness and my squatting on pavements. This area, however, was just begging for photos from every angle…
I love modern architecture for the shapes and lighting of their construction materials. With a grey featureless sky and glass panels on the Museum Ludwig I felt it would lend itself to a harsh contrast working in monochrome as above.
Then, during the process of working with my software (a Nik filters and Lightroom combo) I felt the blue sheen of the metal panels was looking interesting – hence this version with a blue tint and raised shadow detail.
Ancient & modern – I liked the museum and the cathedral together but the lighting was poor. But it’s always worth taking the shot – I knew it was good raw material for a creative image. This is the original shot out of the camera.
And below is the final version.
You see there is no such thing as bad lighting for photos, only different challenges and opportunities. So it wasn’t a day for vibrant colours and blue skies but it was a day for me to go mad and push the creativity side of things in the digital darkroom and I had a field day!
The stonework of Cologne Cathedral is quite black – a combination of sulphur damage in the last century from household and industrial smoke and from the train station alongside where steam engines belched their sooty smoke over the building – and that gives little contrast when capturing dark buildings against a dark building. Which is why I pushed the contrast in the above image and washed out the church detail.
I’d now spent far too long wandering in this architectural photo feast and I managed to find the others sheltering from the heat in a local bar and joined them in a thirst quenching return to colour…. cheers!
my digital darkroom 