The Architectural Photographer's View

How does someone decide to become an architectural photographer? I can only answer this question from an individual perspective, because although I know a number of photographers, I don’t know any others who have specialised in this field.

 Chronologically, I put my initial interest down to seeing, on a daily basis, a builders’ merchant in Ashford, Kent. I was on a train, passing the back of the yard, on its way to Maidstone and I was fascinated by the view of the heavy side goods, particularly stacks of massive ceramic drain and sewer pipes. The sculptural shapes, the rapidly changing perspective, the light and shade all stuck in my mind and much later I would photograph them. However I was not interested in building, not at that stage. It was the abstract elements which fascinated me.

Still Life, Pipes

The train was taking me to Maidstone College of Art, where I was studying the unusual foundation course taught by Evan Thomas. I began with the vague aim of learning to be a better painter. They didn’t teach painting on that course and although some practical skills, including pottery and photography were covered, it was a great deal more about concepts and co-operation. The whole year was very enjoyable and interesting, but I didn’t know how to apply what I was learning. However I did find that I liked shooting and printing my own photographs.

Eventually I found my way to the School of Photography at Ealing Technical College. Now at any other college, the School of Photography might have chosen to align itself with the Art School, which was on the floor below, but not at Ealing. The tutors, all men and mainly ancient, taught “Professional Photography” and had no interest in being either creative or pretentious.

As it turned out, Ealing was a good place for me, I spent hours learning about the tools of the photographer's trade and weeks in the darkrooms creating my own images. Over three years I learned enough about the technical side of photography, enabling me to get work afterwards and I was quite capable of being creative (and pretentious!) on my own, without any encouragement.

Scaffold, Camberwell

On the course, one of the first projects we were set was to photograph people in a working environment and, perhaps half remembering my fascination with pipes, I clambered onto a nearby building site and waved my camera at the builders. This was quite daring, young women were unheard of on building sites in the 1970's and builders’ attitudes to passing women were even less respectful than today. However the guys were quite happy for me to point my camera and chat and share a cigarette, so my project was a success.



Brickies, Ealing

Soon I was taking more photographs relating to building work and architecture, when I started going out with a student of architecture.

We would walk all around London while he pointed out interesting buildings, architectural styles and features which were all new to me, I didn't know a Georgian terrace from a barracks. Together we produced a project on a community in North London where planning blight was rendering perfectly sound Victorian terraces un-saleable and ultimately uninhabitable, except by squatters. I even attended lectures at the Architectural Association, including some by luminaries such as Buckminster Fuller, Paul Oliver and Peter Cooke.

After I finished my course, we moved to Milton Keynes where I began photographing the growth of the largest of the British new towns. This included the construction, in the town centre, of the huge glass and travertine building which became what was then the largest indoor shopping centre in Europe. A visiting dignitary from east of the Iron Curtain described the Milton Keynes shopping centre as "a cathedral to capitalism" and despite later additions it remains the most beautiful (or possibly the only beautiful) shopping-mall building in Britain. I also photographed housing, landscaping projects and community buildings as well as keeping photographic records of our own renovation of the old house we lived in.

Hod Carrier, Ealing

For thirty years I have continued to photograph buildings and parts of buildings. In in a professional capacity I have conducted photographic surveys of projects in progress and of defects and reconstructions. I have always photographed buildings for pleasure, sometimes simply because an interesting light effect or a semi-abstract view catches my eye. A camera always accompanies me on holiday, for example a visit to Luxor and Abu Simbel in Egypt was unrepeatable and had to be recorded.


So, I never made a conscious decision to become an architectural photographer. It was an evolution involving the combination of an eye for abstraction, an interest in the urban environment and an architect for a partner which has transformed an art student, with no particular career in mind, into an architectural photographer who has tried and usually succeeded in being fascinated by and even loving her subjects.