Reality is distorted, and photographs correct it.
When you look up, the parallel sides of tall buildings seem to converge into the distance due to perspective.
A large format camera, as used to take this picture, can correct the verticals back to parallel for a more stable-looking architectural picture.
But in shots such as this, the camera is too close to the buildings to completely correct the lines. As a remedy, the image has been scanned and a second correction is made digitally to finish the effect.
Digital and film are working hand in hand here because the camera wasn’t able to complete the correction, and a digital correction alone would have degraded the image quality dramatically.
An interesting paradox of architecture photographs is now uncovered – what we call ‘corrected’ is actually a highly processed and distorted view that never existed in reality.
Below are a few examples from my series of Houston architecture images ‘Dueling Towers’. Fine-art pigment prints using high quality metallic paper are available for collectors - contact me for more information.
