Most frequently used lenses: 28-80 mm, 20 mm, 55 mm Macro that doubles as a normal lens.
Essential accessories: gray card, cable release, tripod.
Favorite film: Fujichrome Velvia ISO 50 (called Velvia because of the "velvety" shadows it produces.)
Showed approximately 100 slides made in the wilderness of the American West and architectural photographs from California Chicago to New York and Greece, Italy, and German.
Use tripod, stabilized with camera bag bungee corded to center post. Don't extent center post.
Know how your camera's light meter works.
Bracket important photographs by half stops.
Make the limitations of your film or lens work to your advantage:
Know how your film responds to light. For example, Velvia renders underexposed areas as black, which can be used to advantage to render foreground objects black (trees, light poles, traffic signals.)
Use convergent distortion inherent in lenses to accentuate building heights.
Consider how the background frames the subject.
Exclude an uninteresting sky from a photograph.
Architectural photographs can be approached as
Use foreground elements to lead the viewer into the photograph and to add the sense of depth.
Avoid placing subjects in the center of the image.
Use "screen effects" in which foreground objects (trees, poles, street lights) are silhouetted against the main subject.
Consider lines with direct the viewer's attention within the frame.
Avoid overly complex images.
Take advantage of early morning and late afternoon light that produces interesting colors and shadows.
In situations where tripods are not allowed, improvise camera supports or simply lay the camera on the floor.
To minimize the sense that buildings are receeding or tilted back, keep the film plane parallel to the fascade and/or perpindicular to the horizon.
Keep compositions simple. Pay attention to leading lines, curves, and angles.
Make shadows work for you. Use the to emphasize depth and texture.
Schmunk doesn't use filters except for occasionally a polarizer.
Schmunk prefers to record on film as realistically as possibly, cognizant of the tendency of some films to render colors more saturated than in the actual scene.