Musings on Architecture: It is in the Details

Gang, Diller-Scofidio-Renfro, Mayne, Gehry and Kuma.

There is a lot of blubber in architecture. Blubber aside from referencing whales and obesity, in architecture is mostly about architecture that merely builds the same building as predecessors have for an eternity...but sadly offer a mere twist or crown to suggest something new is at hand.
I have photographed thousands of buildings. I have spent days, weeks and years ruminating about the layers of interest a structure suggests, offers, shares with my eyes. When I engage a structure I always feel as if I am entering my own secret garden. It is a place that is private to my eyes. I sometimes think I am a character in Peter Matthiessen’s search for the Snow Leopard. I am alone in my own intellectual wilderness. I see all but I am alone. I am no longer in my Private Idaho, but in a welcoming seduction of craft and art.

Most often for me, I find comfort living inside the the mind of a tiny child experiencing his/her first carnival, first Disneyland staring up at the vendor with the pink and white cotton candy. The eyes are shining with desire to reach out and touch. The child may know what it will taste like, but perhaps something new will be tasted. That is what I feel like when my camera sees architecture of desire. I know what I see but sometimes my mind is ablaze like Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters in Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. If the design is electric, I am excited to grab even more than the camera can see.

The hundreds of architects I have photographed have provided me with a window into the best designs and ideas the world is seeing today. I will never see everything I need to see. I will bask in the opportunities that were shared with me. The architects listed above compelled me to think about what photography of architecture means to me.

Coming to terms with the values of the design of architecture is an enrichment that can never be underestimated. These designers have unique agendas that have what Christmas brings every year; A gift. They have a sense of sparkle that ignites the fire within. We admire with jaws dropped. Yes other do as well, but this is one of a series of blogs; patience please.

Photographing entire structures is sometimes a matter of understanding the architects/clients agenda and footprint. I alway stress the need to start with the widest angle and like a lion slowly stalking their prey move in for the kill. The game is about swallowing the entire project and move to where the most enriching detail pauses your breathing. Then slowly reverse your steps. The best photographs speak to what you include and exclude. That is the essence of any photographic narrative.

The endgame is to find clarity.

Clarity is the time Dame Kiri te Kanawa (a story for another time) stood aside a piano in this wonderfully London skylit studio one morning. She was rehearsing for a solo performance. I sat across the studio. I sat in my cotton robe with coffee in hand as she rehearsed a section of two arias. The pianist began. Kiri began. I sat engulfed in the purist cultural experience of my life. The soprano genius invoked some of my best visual aha moments. The morning perfection of sound and light has fed my inspired appreciation of photography ever since.