The Architectural Photographer Re-Defined.

What does an architectural photographer actually do?  The obvious answer is they photograph buildings, but I’ve found the job to be both more complex and on the whole much more interesting than this implies, though it can also be mundane. Most people are interested in photographs of their own buildings, or buildings they are thinking of buying. However, if the offerings of most estate agents are anything to go by, the general public is likely to have a very low opinion of buildings as the subject matter for photography. Everybody is familiar with some iconic structures, Buckingham palace, the Eiffel tower, the Taj Mahal, but not so many outside the construction industry are actually very interested in pictures of other buildings.  

Leeds Market 1970

In the past, it seems that the work of the architectural photographer was usually to document buildings which were regarded as important. Their clients were the great and the good who wanted their new city hall, mansion or factory recorded in all its glory. Guillermo Kahlo, a photographer whose work I saw recently in an exhibition at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, was paid to photograph the ‘cultural patrimony’ of Mexico just before the 1910 revolution. His sepia pictures of self-important government buildings were quite as dull as officially ordained photographs are, far too often.  Senor Kahlo’s work was only exhibited as complimentary to the main exhibition, which was the paintings of his daughter, Frida.

The process of creating the high quality, large architectural prints which many clients wanted was labour intensive even into the 1990’s. It involved very bulky camera equipment (the average SLR was not regarded as being up to the job) and many hours in darkrooms. Digital photography has ended all that, now many more people can take reasonable photographs of buildings, manipulate them using Photoshop and print them to whatever size they like.

Google the term ‘architectural photographer’ and you will find a number of websites featuring interiors and exteriors of beautiful, architect designed houses and offices. Interiors are notoriously difficult to photograph and this is one place where the skills of the professional can really be telling. Not only is indoor lighting a problem for the inexperienced photographer, but the wide angle lenses
 which are needed to photograph the room as a whole, rather than just a series of corners, can cause considerable distortion which is both off-putting and misleading. Estate agents take note.

The New Library, Alexandria, Egypt

My first big job as an architectural photographer was in Milton Keynes, where the palatial shopping building in the city centre had just been completed and the units were filling with shops. I had the task of recording each let unit, both inside and on the periphery of the building, once they were up and running.  While some may say this is documentary not architectural photography, I would argue that the same skills are required. Photographing plate glass windows and stainless steel framed shop-fronts presents many of the same problems as photographing a glass clad, multi-million pound office building.

My career has been mainly within the building industry and involves a great deal of ‘documentary’ photography, most of it working with construction professionals who need photographic records of the condition of buildings or parts of buildings. Accuracy is the key. For example, a factory unit on the Wirral had problems with the metal panels which clad the building. My job was to individually photograph and record the exact location of every single panel, whether defective or not, as well as record every defect in close-up. Photographic prints had to be clear and detailed and the job required accurate record keeping. Digital technology makes this highly tedious aspect of such tasks much easier, but these pictures can’t be taken with a mobile phone, however many apps it contains! The images need to be detailed and accurate in the first place, which is where the skill of the professional comes in.

The easiest job I’ve had I probably don’t remember because easy is far less interesting, but the trickiest was photographing major refurbishment works taking place in an old-style shopping centre in Weston Favell, Bedfordshire. The weather was atrocious so the exterior shots were gloomy and I didn’t dare to climb to vantage points to find better camera angles. Indoors the air was full of dust and the builder’s floodlights combined with ceiling strip-lights to create a dingy yellow colour cast over everything. I was also required to photograph into deep, shadowy pits, where health and safety forbade me to climb down and my flash was totally ineffectual, making accurate recording of anything almost impossible.

The architectural photographer’s job always involves some travelling. Mine has taken me to important Georgian buildings in Edinburgh, sheltered housing in Morcambe, the roof of a major Manchester hospital, seaside homes in Torquay, millionaire’s homes in Jersey and as far afield as Gibraltar and Warsaw. The most boring task was documenting crumbling boundary walls around a huge Liverpool housing estate, when there are so many better things to do in that fascinating city! The most interesting, so far, was spending hours, mainly on the roof, looking at the extent and complexity of the construction work for the Crowngate development in the historic centre of Worcester. Each one of these jobs required many accurate photographs, some jobs need hundreds.

Crumbling Concrete - detail

Thus far I have never been asked to make a building look important.  I’m quite ready to do so should the need arise! Accuracy is the main requirement of each job, not guesswork or digital manipulation, what is needed is a completely reliable record. Photographs are not just record keeping exercises; they are used in dispute resolutions and litigation. Whether I’m shooting the recladding of apartment blocks on the Mediterranean or a decaying bridge in Calderdale, the client wants to see exactly and often in minute detail what is there, down to the last hairline crack and drip of condensation. They aren’t concerned with how pretty it can be made to look.

When I did my photographic training, there were a number of students obsessed with the latest equipment, whereas I’ve always regarded cameras as mere tools of the trade. Much better a reliable, top quality tool that you know well enough to use instinctively than the latest gizmo that you find you can’t work out how to use once reaching the site, to your client’s disadvantage. I’ve used the SLR Canon EOS range for years and haven’t touched a rising-front camera, the type I was originally taught was the only tool for photographing buildings, since I left college. The versatility and accuracy of a good quality digital SLR makes it the choice of most professional photographers and these days the architectural photographer is no exception.

So the job of this architectural photographer is not exactly what historical precedent might suggest. Guillermo Kahlo was a good photographer and produced the images his client required. I do the same, but these days the clients’ requirements are somewhat different. Impressive or romantic images are seldom needed, accuracy and detail are and with the aid of new technology, today’s architectural photographer can provide this too.