A scouting day?
this depends mainly on the size of the building. the largest project of a single building i have shot was the new bangkok airport. a building complex wiith a size of 1,4 km x 0,8 km, including 140 mtr high towers, side buildings , terminals, connection ways, main terminal ( 800 x 250 mtrs 40 mtrs high ) and my briefing was to show all buildings in empty state as well as later after the opening of the airport. problem was that all parts of the building have been finished at different times and than immediately been modified by the users. so there was NO time when the shooting could be done except some hours or even minutes before the changes at the site started. cause so many firms have been involved no central planning or schedule was available, all firms had their individual dead lines. shooting such project without scouting or planning and without having a clear idea what i would like to do and which views are needed would not be possible, at best it would be am accumulation of shots which would not cover the most important shots, because the short time frame when these shots could have been done would have to be missed on a building of that size and complexity.
no chance to see in the morning what could be done and what not.
the shot was done in four phases , all together 22 weeks on location with 200 finished motifs (!).
the first phase took me 7 weeks and i ended up with app. 30 shots, due to very bad and foggy weather, conditions on site and because for earth movings the whole building was covered under a thick layer of yellow dust, which needed the first rains ( summer in bangkok ) to be cleaned. the amount of scouting time was quite huge and for me this time was absolutely necessary.
recently i made a re- shoot of the sony center in berlin.
this is a complex of many buildings including one tower in berlin. the ensemble follows a basic geometry which is created a bit as a puzzle, formed by the individual buildings which contain the main form elements as well. it plays with mainly two forms:triangle and circle.
to find out in which relation this forms have been planned and in which relation the buildings form the entire ensemble in correspondence to the singular buildings and facades is nothing i can explore if i come to such building and start shooting without thinking before.
there exists already many 100s of photographs of this building, and i havent seeen a single one taken from a view point which has let me to see the triangular basic form of the building complex. i think for two reasons this has not been shown already: its not easy to find an adequate viewing point ( took a 90ft. plattform for that ) and 2. this form needs to be understood before you can search such viewing point and this basic elemental form is everything else than obviously visible, because teh size of the complex.
scouting does not mean for me photographing layout shots. it means that i drive or walk many times to a building, trying to understand the intention behind its design. this way to spend time feels sometimes a bit strange even to myself, because it has more to do with meditation than with photography or with "work" ..... but if i do it i rarely think afterwards its waisted time,- the final shots look different than in projects where i come and start immediately shooting.
with smaller buildings i usually dont see this as a need, there its often more obvious what i want or need to shoot.
also it can take me longer time ( hours .. ) to check out the right position if i shoot design in museal context, which i regularly do.
often i am confronted that i have to deliver two or three shots from exhibitions, which already are photographed by the employed photographers of such museum. the expectations to my shots are high in this case and no one wants me to add two more shots to the existing 50, they expect to get "the" shots from me. it can take me longer time before i start to photograph and to determine the exact position with my eyes, not with a camera, i go around, look under the objects , look over them, think about, change the position, drink a coffee, think about it again, finally the photograph takes sometimes less time than this "scouting" and comes at the end.