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Assignment: Practice Your Exposure Skills on a Piece of Architecture

For your first assignment, I’d like you to photograph a piece of architecture — either in whole, or a piece of architectural detail. This is the first assignment I’ve been giving my students for years and one of the main reasons is that buildings are stationary — you can return to them as often as you like at different times of day and in different weather. Your “building” can be anything you like: the dog house in your backyard, your local city hall, or perhaps your favorite hot dog stand. Visit it several times and see if you can’t find the true personality of the building. Don’t worry about creative exposure yet — just get a good basic exposure in the automatic mode

I photographed this detail of the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park, New York. I’d been trying to get a good shot of the entire building all day and then just as the sun hit the horizon, its last rays ignited this bit of detail and I knew I had found an interesting shot. I quickly shot several exposures, but this was one of two or three that I really liked. Taken with a compact digital camera at 1/57 second, f/6.5, and ISO 100.

Remember to visit www.pwassignments.com after you complete this assignment and share your favorite photo! It’s a community of enthusiastic photographers and a great place to view what other readers have created. You can also post comments, and read encouraging suggestions and feedback.