A resource for working professional photographers and design industry professionals featuring news, commentary, equipment resources, and original articles
Hi everyone, Rob here! I just joined the APALMANAC writers rank and am really thrilled to be part of the team that makes this magnificent, unique platform come to life. My brief is to write about architectural photography with an emphasis on post-production, so in the future, I’ll bother you with color management, image blending, and all other kinds of topics you can think of that involve our production process.
While I continue to wait (now, somewhat impatiently) for DJI to release the latest edition of their Mavic Pro series, I thought I’d share a video Dezeen produced about the impact drones will have (or perhaps already are having) on our lives and the way we relate to each other across space and the cities we live in.
Over the past couple of years, I have been following the progress of the Deakin Law Building part of Deakin University in Burwood (Victoria, Australia) which was designed by Woods Bagot. Towards the end of the second lockdown in Melbourne, I had my chance to take a stroll around this building.
Today’s project of the week takes us to a little ‘ole state that we don’t hear from too often — Kansas. We’ll be checking out this lovely house in Spring Hill, right outside of Kansas City, Kansas. It was photographed by Kansas City, Missouri based Architectural photographer Nate Sheets.
So you’ve made the decision to pursue your passion for photographing architecture. Fantastic news! Your dreams of hopping from one beautiful building to another, capturing it as only you can, and getting paid for it are about to come true. But you’ve got one major problem – you don’t have any clients.
I have found Bjarke Ingels to be one of the most fascinating architects who is constantly pushing the envelope in terms of maximizing site potential and what is possible architecturally. Last year, a documentary was released about the design and construction of the world’s cleanest waste-to-energy plant, CopenHill.
Today we’re taking a trip to a place that I’ve been enthralled by for a while now! This week’s featured project takes us to sunny Calpe, Spain to a postmodern apartment complex — the fabled La Muralla Roja. Muralla Roja was designed by architect Ricardo Bofill in 1968 and is esteemed for its bold colors and blocky, labyrinth-like design.
M Asks: I’m getting quite a few requests for shoots starting late April / May. Everyone is pleading poverty, from £120m new openings (who I know had already budgeted marketing) to £10m refurbs. Every quote so far has asked for a reduction in fees. My own view is that I won’t lower my fee (mostly because my expenses & talent are same as pre-covid and I have a gut feeling that if I lower it, it will be impossible to raise later) but I am being super-flexible on pretty much all else.
When I wrote the first part of this series, I intended to only talk about post-production, but the way I tend to photograph projects affects a lot of my post-production techniques. I’m the guy who likes to shoot as many angels as I found interesting enough to photograph, which ends up being a selection nightmare as I sit in front of the computer.
Sanjog Mhatre is an architecture photographer based in India. Now based in the country’s second-most populous city, Mumbai, Sanjog has at the ripe age of only 23 years, already photographed dozens (132 to be exact!) of the tallest and most significant buildings in this supercity of 20 million people.
Aussie architectural photographer Peter Bennetts has traveled far and wide making great photos of architecture — from Tuvalu to Finland, and everywhere in between — but today’s project takes us to Rome where we’ll find the MAXXI National Museum of 21st Century Art designed by Zaha Hadid’s Patrik Schumacher.
One of my first posts featured my visit to one of the first projects ever built by Peter Zumthor: The Shelter for Roman Ruins in Chur, Switzerland. Recently, the Youtube algorithm redirected me to an ArcDog’s video featuring an architectural film of the same project. Although I have not yet created videos, I notice the appeal of them as a media that reinforces the narrative of a project.
A few years ago, seasoned Amsterdam-based architectural photographer Rob Van Esch released a captivating eBook “Staying On Top of Current Architectural Photography Trends” which focused on the recent shifts in the way architecture is photographed.
Rob has written another thought-provoking book that we’re excited to share, “The Value of Architectural Photography, and How to Increase It.”
Today’s featured project takes us to dreamy St Helena, California where photographer Aubrie Pick will be showing us a beautiful Napa gem — Sinegal Winery.
Aubrie is a real photographic tour de force, and a quick scroll down her site will showcase her flexibility and prowess at her craft.
Have you ever had a client ask you to take a photo that looks like a previously made render? I bet that most of us architectural photographers have been confronted with this (at times impossible) task. As a result of quarantine boredom, an interesting thought occurred to me: What if I were to invert this process, trying to replicate one of my actual photographs using a rendering program?
Shew! Can you believe the second birthday of APALMANAC’s first published article is coming up? Call us nostalgic but we’ve been reflecting on our growth — not just as a website, but as a community. It seems as if the shroud surrounding the tiny niche of architectural and interiors photography has been drawn back, revealing an incredible network of people who are eager to share advice, workflows, pricing, and business strategy — and we are so proud to play a little part in helping expand that community.
Meet my new friend Ruksana Hussain, a Dubai based architectural photographer who makes some immensely beautiful images, always complete with interesting light patterns and fantastic form. Today, we’ll be pouring over Ruksana’s time spent photographing The Abu Dhabi Edition.
Over the weekend, Mike Kelley, Tom Harris, and Hall + Merrick’s Kendal McCaugherty went live on Youtube to chat about all things architectural photography related. Quite a few folks have written in asking if it was possible to watch the video after the live stream ended, and where to find it.
Recently I came across a portfolio review video from Rishabh Wadhwa’s YouTube channel, BlessedArch. Together with Mariana Cabugueira Custodio dos Santos, a Portuguese architect working for Zaha Hadid Architects in London, they review and critique architectural portfolios.
While the criteria between an architectural portfolio and a photography portfolio are not one and the same, I believe there are a lot of parallels between the two.
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a portfolio? Normally I would think of a digital portfolio or — if budget allows — a printed book. However, during the quarantine, I made some test prints that were accidentally about the size of a postcard. This made me think: How about making a postcard portfolio?
Rob van Esch
Justin Szeremeta
Veeral Patel
Lexi Taciak
Mike Kelley
György Palkó
Dane Alonso