So I've been sitting on this one for a long time - it too comes from the January photos. I was inspired by another photographer who was posting abstract architectural photos on the reddit community and I wanted to try my hand at the style. I really like architectural photography, but it gets boring sometimes because it seems there's only a handful of good angles you can get of a particular building. So this kind of reinvigorated my creativity.
To give some perspective, the roof line of the building is on the left. I've rotated the photo around and to me it looks like a closeup shot of a much taller building with the clouds behind. I really like that. The junction box sitting there is a little distracting to me but it isn't so bad & I'd rather not edit things out of the photo. Not only is it usually obvious to me where my own edit took place but it also goes along with my hang up about being disingenuous in my photography.
I enjoy a lot of the texture here which was my main intrigue when snapping the photo. The wispy, smoke-like clouds remind me of the steam you see coming up from the streets sometimes. The weird metal facade over the concrete is just plain awesome to me - it looks soft and rigid at the same time. The concrete of the building has a nice smooth texture as well.
I'm not sure what to think of the lighting. I think the gray sky behind the white clouds is a little too dark. The building itself looks pretty cool to me and I really like how dark the windows turned out. And the whole photo might adhere too much to the rule of thirds, it kind of gives me that too-clean feeling.
Overall I think I did a pretty good job for a first go at this style!
If your camera supports it you can try registering faces to prioritize the auto focus for a few of the standout players.
If your camera doesn’t have any ibis and you’re shooting with a crop at 200mm I think maybe you’re right that 1600 isn’t quite fast enough. You could go higher or maybe try out a monopod to help stabilize.
There should be a tracking AF option where you can select a focus point and then let the camera track the point but your camera may not have that option either.
If no tracking AF try using a larger point. My camera calls it zone AF where it focuses on one of the 9 boxes made by the lines of thirds.
It could also be a “get good” situation where you just have to anticipate a little of what might happen and try to be ready for shots a few seconds ahead of time. Practice makes perfect after all.
I hope that maybe this helps!