Bank of the West Building, downtown Sacramento

I recently had a shoot of the new Bank of the West Building in downtown Sacramento. The goal of the shoot was to get some good architectural elevations of the building in various lighting conditions.

I started out early in the morning, right at sunrise in order to try to catch a bit of sun on the face of the building. Unfortunately, the US Bank building across the street blocked most of the sun at that early hour. Still, I did manage to get a few decent views.

I used my 24mm tilt/shift lens to correct the distortion that appears when you shoot tall buildings. It's a must have lens for professional architectural photography. The image above was one of the first images I took, and it's my overall favorite from the shoot.

Still, the lighting wasn't the greatest in the morning because of the shadow the US Bank building cast. If I had come a week or tow earlier, I wouldn't have had that problem, but you do the shoot when you have to do it, and you make the best of the conditions you have. 

I had better luck lighting-wise when I came back after sunset to catch the building as its lights came on at dusk. The colors of the building and the sky were fantastic, and I was able to get some excellent angles. I used both my 24mm tilt/shift lens and my 17-40mm wide angle zoom to capture various angles.

Overall, this was a fun, easy shoot, and provided very satisfying images.