Tamron Blog: Photographing Bavarian Villages

As well as petrol heads heading to Nuremberg, Germany is also a delight for landscape photographers and architecture fans who enjoy a quiet walk around picturesque towns and villages. Bavarian architecture is quite recognisable and when you add forests as backgrounds, you can soon start to capture images that have a Hansel and Gretel feel to them. 

The scenery in Bavaria can be dramatic with huge peaks rising from the hills and forests below making them perfect for landscape fans and their wide lenses but equally, those who prefer to capture shots of interesting architecture won't be disappointed. 

The trusty Tamron 16-300mm lens accompanied us on our trip as travelling light while still having the reach of a telephoto and scope of a wide-angle lens in our kit bag was the name of the game (why carry a bag full of heavy kit if you don't have to?). The wide-angle end of the zoom was used to capture sweeping shots of the villages with houses/street scenes filling the frame while the telephoto end was handy when we needed to zoom in on detail and compress perspective.

When you stop in an unfamiliar village or town, it's always worth checking out the local postcards to see what previous photographers have discovered. Of course, with the internet available almost anywhere you can also do your research online, either before you go or at your hotel before you head off for a day of exploration. 

It's also worth actually having a look at the building in front of you before taking too many photos too quickly. Study the building. What makes it so interesting? What caught your eye? How do the colours and textures affect the look of the building? How does the light affect the colours and textures? Are there interesting patterns? Will the setting you're using or the sun's angle create a different mood? Is there water nearby that will present interesting reflections? How do the surroundings affect the building? Do they add or detract from its story? There's quite a bit you can ask yourself before hitting the shutter button!

No discussion of architectural photography is complete without at least mentioning converging verticals but in all honesty, they're not something you have to worry about too much as they're easily rectified in Photoshop. You can also take the photo from further away and use the telephoto end of your zoom, or telephoto lens if you've packed it, to make the subject appear closer, or you could crop the final print.