Silvetti and Machado: One Western Avenue at Harvard University
The life of a photographer in architecture is equal to a safari, an urban safari.
The imaginary landscape comes into focus. For a few minutes or a day I am Clark Gable in Mogambo.
It is not the acting or the cinematography that lures me to the screen. It is the sounds of the urban wilderness that alerts my eyes to the limitless unknown: The crackling sounds of man or animal in the midst, the howls of man or animal in the distance. My riveted but vulnerable imagination explodes. The sounds draw me to what I might see, what I need to see. I am on the hunt for an assigned agenda. But I am also hunting for the unexpected.
Imagination is my tool. I use it to explore. I use my imagination to make something more than what exists: something real and new. I explore the possibilities of photography in life and in architecture.
The most profound awakening: Photographing architecture is a brew of the loneliest and most exhilarating moments.
When you make a portrait there is a game that is played. It is fun and rewarding.
When you visit museums there is another game at hand: The viewers engagement in the dialogue between generations of art and artists: That is a great game as well.
But architectural photography is about the quiet luminescence of space. It is about the adventures of an “URBAN SAFARI”: It is a quest to reveal the secrets of history; The secrets of architecture.
Imagine reclining in a toddler’s bedroom: Ceiling mobiles and lights depict the stars of the universe.
Imagine reclining in a planetarium: The galaxies’ stars seemingly perform for our eyes.
Imagine the quiet of sound, the vastness of space, the notion of being alone.
Then there is a whisper. It is a whisper that I alone can hear. Because it is my dialogue with myself. The absurdity and the frightening notion that not another sound can be heard, but my own imagination tangling with the vastness of space and the reality of what my photograph may be?
This is how I stand before a building; This is how I set out to discover architecture.
Silvetti and Machado
I set out to see Silvetti and Machado’s One Western Avenue at Harvard University. It was an early Urban Safari for me. All I had was an address. All I knew was that I was about to see the spectacular. I was hoping, because there are no certainties.
It was something the architects chose for me to photograph for my book. I arrived. I stood alone. Minutes seemed like hours. What was I to make of this “catwalk”, this bridge. I had nobody to talk to: And so I composed.
A few weeks later I was on a train from London to Manchester. Daniel Libeskind’s the “Imperial War Museum North, Manchester, England awaited.
Maritime Museum Manchester England
The train felt a bit like the puttering boat that Bogart and Hepburn road in The African Queen: It was a pleasure to feel the winds in my hair. What would I find? Something spectacular? Or something less than the hype?
The museum sits alone across a bridge from the train station. My english is good, but it “ain’t” Manchester English. I walked alone with few to talk to. A pub and a beer relaxed me a bit. Maybe a fantastic moment was near?
Daniel Libeskind
Alone in a foreign country or alone at a major university, I might as well be on a safari in Africa yet alone an Urban Safari. Safaris are journeys. I always embrace new moments, new travels.
Like all adventures the trick for a successful journey is to return with an accidental capture.
Strolling the streets of New York might be someone’s idea of a carnival life. But it too remains as quiet as a concrete jungle at night: as quiet as a river at night: as quiet as a safari at night. Yet all three have something in common; There is a whisper that alerts the camera to go “snippety snap snap”. The Rosehill building was not a choice, but the angle of repose needed to be realized.
All of the above is akin to my living history.
Rose Hill New York City