The “fitting” architecture of Moscow City – with 2 Photo tips!

I was walking around the ultramodern neighbourhood of “Moscow City” (or the Moscow International Business Center) and enjoying the blue autumn sky reflecting on the skyscrapers when I noticed something funny.

When looking straight up from between the Imperia Tower and the spectacular Evolution Tower, they look like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, which are just about to come together.

In reality they are not quite that close to one another, and the angle is a bit different, but it was pretty easy to create the effect I had in mind with minimal Photoshop.

So, out of this, I thought I could write down a couple of very basic Photo Tips:

1. Drone photography is becoming more and more popular, especially with the spectacular and unusual images you can get from a drone with the camera facing straight down to Earth. But the opposite is also a fun and interesting photographic exercise: when you are walking between tall buildings (or trees), try to look straight up with your camera. You can get really interesting results with a wide angle lens, but also a standard lens will allow you to focus in on some particulars without having a very distorted perspective. The image above was shot at 44mm so basically a 35mm or 50mm lens will do the job just fine. You can also try using a telephoto lens to get some interesting-looking geometries and-or abstract shapes that will (hopefully) both confuse and fascinate the viewer. You don’t need a super-telephoto lens. For instance this image I took of Evolution Tower was shot at 82 mm.
2. Unless you are doing a photo-reportage work and asserting that you are documenting reality, I find that there is absolutely nothing wrong in using Photoshop (or any other such software) to get the image you had in mind when you took the photo. In this case the post-processing was really minimal: i cut out some of the sky between the two skyscrapers and rotated the top one I few degrees to “get a better match” of their shapes. A little care should be made so that you don’t notice a “clear cut” in the sky. To do so you cut the top part of the image, paste it (and it automatically gets put on a new level) and move it to where you want it. Then create a level mask (for the top layer) and with a very large and soft brush paint some black right at the edge where the top layer goes over the bottom one.

If you want to know a little bit more about Moscow City (and long exposure shots), you can read all about it in one of the very first posts I ever published: Moscow City Panorama, where I discuss how I made the image below.

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Would you like to take part in a photowalk or a photo tour of Moscow or any other Russian destination with an English (and Italian, Spanish and French) speaking photographer (me) showing you the sights, the best time and viewpoint(s) to capture them in your images and helping you improve your photo technique with practical tips? If so, do get in touch and we’ll be happy to create an unforgettable, tailor-made experience for you!