Fallingwater – Approaching Architecture as Art

We visited the classic house Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright and it was truly an incredible experience. With camera in tow, I was hoping to get a few shots of the interior and exterior. The guided tour took over 2 hours, and was very informative. We went through the house almost in its entirety, but nonetheless, I found it hard to find the shots I wanted to establish a true sense of place for this piece of art.

Typically on guided tours you are ushered along with a group of other people and this was no exception. It was crowded and there was little time to digest the space and then to find meaningful shots. Then there was the lighting problems…mostly dark interiors with blinding light from the outside. It was a cloudless sky with bright sun, in fact the heat wave continued and it was 98+ degrees outside. As you could imagine there were lots of people there although they were concentrated into groups (you had to be part of a group to be there).

I managed to get a few shots inside. The camera performed admirably at ISO 1600. By the time we finished it was 11:30 and the sun was high and really lighting up the coral concrete structure. So we will need to do some shadow/highlight recovery on the overall shots from the walk.

For those of you planning to visit you need to make a reservation, I would suggest a 9 or 10 o’clock and getting to the site early (I think it opens at 8:00AM) so you can take shots of the outside of the building before the sun gets too strong. Of course if you get a cloudy day you are good to go. I will definitely put this on my list of places to return as I really enjoyed experiencing the home…what a place to be able to live.