MID-CENTURY MODERNISM

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I was staying at a hotel in Caracas, Venezuela a few months ago, and when I looked out across the street I was taken by a tile design on the side of an apartment block. I immediately thought "late fifties" era Modern, and as I got closer I read the inscription, "E. Tamiazzo, Hecho En Caracas, Oct. 1955".

No doubt most of the city dwellers walk by that piece everyday without noticing it. It often takes fresh eyes from outsiders to appreciate the qualities of particular cities. I did a search for Tamiazzo, but nothing came up under English Google results. Maybe a Spanish speaking person can help me out with a bit of information. The remarkable thing about this mural is that the individual tiles were only a few inches square. It must have taken a long time to create the wall art.

When photographing artwork on buildings, a good way to present the artwork is to make the structure darker than the mural. The structure is necessary, to show the viewer the context of the artwork, but it should remain secondary in importance. Place your camera on high contrast, and if needed, increase the contrast afterward in an image editing program. Most of the time you are looking for a gritty, high contrast scene, especially if you are shooting in a city environment. If you are a RAW shooter, you can also try the "clarity" tool in Photoshop Raw converter. This tool will keep light levels relatively stable, but will increase the graphic appearance of the image. As in my above sample photo, try to arrange the composition in such a way that the building also acts as a design element with vertical or horizontal lines.

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