Architectural Photography Almanac
A resource for working professional photographers and design industry professionals featuring news, commentary, equipment resources, and original articles
A few weeks ago I met up with the guys from Fstoppers and we released a ‘Critique The Community‘ video focusing on real estate and some architecture photography. For that video, Fstoppers readers submitted images and Patrick Hall and myself sat down and rated them. This time, I wanted to up the ante a little bit and take it more seriously – hard to believe, I know – but I think we made a very informative and helpful video as a result.
What do clothing, music, cars, houses, and architectural photography have in common? They all go through trends; many of them arguably cyclical in nature. Rob van Esch is an experienced architectural photographer based in Amsterdam who recently created the e-book “Trends in Architectural Photography” which focuses on the recent shifts in the way architecture is photographed.
What happens when you are so obsessed with a perfect result that you neglect finishing the piece altogether? What happens when you spend an extra half hour on set perfecting an image only to miss the great light happening elsewhere? Why don’t interior designers ever photograph things at night (they used to!), and for some reason, Elon Musk absolutely refuses to credit artists when he “borrows” their work.
I recently teamed up with Patrick Hall from Fstoppers to critique some real estate and architecture images for the once-a-year critique I do with them. These images are submitted by the Fstoppers community and while we focused on and asked for people to submit real estate-based images, I still think that this critique is valuable if your primary interest is in architecture and interiors photography.
Vlad Feoktistov is an emerging talent based in Sochi, Russia, who makes his living photographing homes, hotels, and neoclassical Stalinist resorts, among other things. Vlad’s story is somewhat unique in our field and I couldn’t help but want to share it with everyone. Vlad and his career serve as a reminder that there are opportunities around us no matter where we are located and that architectural photography is a truly global phenomenon.
In a contrasting approach to my post about intentionally shooting during bad weather, photographer Heather Conley delivers a great vlog-style narrative video discussing her approach to selecting a shoot day based on weather. Heather is a successful architectural photographer based in Connecticut who has worked for a wide range of clients photographing a variety of project types.
Every single photographer has rescheduled a shoot due to weather – that’s just a universal truth in this profession. But I don’t think you should reschedule when bad weather is predicted – I think you should embrace it and accept whatever comes your way to create more interesting photographs.
In order to be a great architecture photographer, one must, well, understand architecture. One of my favorite high-quality resources on the web that has helped me understand our subject matter better is Youtube channel “The B1M,” which bills itself as the definitive channel for construction – and there is plenty of interesting architecture talk to be found there as well.
I recently returned from a trip to China where I was tasked with photography an epic resort – and I don’t use that word lightly. With hundreds of rooms, private villas, and drool-worthy penthouses, it was an assignment I won’t soon forget. I’ll get around the posting a full trip report when I come up from air after another whirlwind travel schedule, but here is a taster of what’s to come.
Photographer Trent Bell and architect Eric Reinholdt recently teamed up to make this video and and the result is a rare insight into both the mind of an architect and a photographer. Eric as designer and Trent as his long time photographer have a great relationship and it shows; and the insight provided by their creative relationship is very valuable.
One of the most recognizable buildings I had the chance to photograph for my book New Architecture Los Angeles was the Broad Museum, a beautiful project in downtown LA designed by Diller Scofidio+Renfro. As it’s literally one of the most photographed subjects in the entire city, I wanted to make sure I created images that were actually different than everybody else’s.
It’s an email I get weekly. “My name is John and I work for this massive publisher, and we love your image of that thing. We’re creating a book for our client, and want to use your beautiful image as a spread in the book – can we get permission?”
I’m always happy when publishers, corporations, or individuals want to use my images in their books.
I recently participated in an open forum on Reddit, the self-proclaimed “front page of the internet.” The idea of the thread was “ask me anything,” a popular interview-type format where readers submit questions about anything under the sun for the host to answer.
As a child of the internet, I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for forums, listservs, and any type of community-driven gathering space as they are where I really became familiar with photography and learned how to operate a camera.
Over the past few years, my gear bag has been reduced to the absolute bare minimum. This is to make my traveling life easier, to reduce weight so my herniated disc doesn’t flare up every third minute, and to keep breakage and repair troubles far away – after all, the less things there are to break, the less things break.
It’s a struggle that every creative professional deals with all too often, especially early in your career: chasing invoices, non-responsive clients, unauthorized usage of assets, the list goes on. Here I’ve compiled some of my favorite links and videos that will help you light a fire to get paid for your work – and if nothing else, will inspire you to re-write those contracts so you never get yanked around again!
Mike Kelley