This photography outing was motivated by several things coming together.

I've long been on a quest to learn more about the beautiful architecture of Buffalo, read bits and pieces in couple books, strolled through the city and its suburbs, yet, I feel I am barely scratching the surface.

I've also looked ahead in the Buffalo Niagara 2014 calendar and saw Terry Cervi's photograph of the Kleinhans Music Hall, further feeding my architectural curiosity.

So out I went ready to scout around the music hall. I suspected the conditions would not be the best. There was not enough snow any more for a nice winter scene, neither was it warm enough for the pool around the hall to be full of water. But I went anyway to explore future possibilities. I arrived about an hour before sunset and enjoyed walking around and looking for different angles.

Grover Cleveland SchoolColonial / Georgian Architecture Revival

After I was done at the Kleinhans, I moved a block north to the Grover Cleveland School lot. That idea came to me as I was exploring the Kleinhans Music Hall location on Internet maps, looking at 3D models, and looking around. I got to Grover as the dusk was settling in and the sky was darkening, better balancing the brightness of the sky and the illuminated building below. I waited another 15 minutes before putting the camera back on the tripod. The clouds that were rolling over the building worked for me nicely setting the building off from the sky above and adding a dose of drama.

For architectural photographs like this I really like to get the perspective right, with verticals remaining vertical and not making the buildings look like they're going to fall over. I stayed all across the yard to fit as much in as possible. With the camera pointed straight at the face of the building I was getting way too much of the uninteresting post-winter lawn and not enough of the beautiful sky above. I backed off my ideals and turned the camera ever so slightly upwards to get more of the clouds knowing that if I left enough space on the sides and did not tilt the camera too much I could fix the perspective later on the computer. And I am happy to say that it worked out because this is a gorgeous building and I am glad to have it in my collection now.

After photo shoots like this one I always like to read a bit more about the architecture of the buildings, about their history, and share some of that on my site along with references to the materials I found useful. While Internet is a wonderful thing, when it comes to local architecture, it seems to be flawed significantly though. Copy & paste is way too easy and information seems to propagate from one site to another, leaving doubt about accuracy due to lack of independent sources. At times, different Internet sources provide different version of history. I have started leaning more and more on old-fashioned sources like books. It would seem that publishing a book is challenging enough to make it worth while to cross check sources. No, I will not claim that books are always right, especially when it comes to subjective opinions of their authors, but they seem to have a better chance than the Internet, or at least many of the free resources.

Have fun learning more about your back yard!

Equipment used:

Nikon D600, Nikon 24-85mm Nikkor Lens, Manfrotto tripod (055MF3; replaced by 055CXPRO3 with the convenient Q90 column) and Manfrotto Ball Head (496RC2), Think Tank Speed Demon Waist Pack, Petzl Zipka Plus 2 Headlamp (always in the bag just in case), Jackery Bar 5600mAh (usually o hand to keep the smart phone going), SanDisk Extreme 32GB SD Cards, Nikon Capture NX2.

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