Photography and Architecture

I have had a number of interesting conversations about photography since the launch of this website, all of which have been thought provoking. In one conversation, I was asked if photography was a tool for me to understand architecture, and how much of what I shoot is intended as inspiration for my professional life. My spontaneous response was that the two were separate, but after a moment’s reflection I realized that my response was too reflexive and that it isn’t true at all. There is a direct relation, which led me to think more concretely about what the relationship between photography and architecture can be.

The worlds of photography and architecture are inextricably entwined. When I hold my camera, look at my subject, and visualize the framing and composition for a photograph, an element of architecture is always part of my reasoning.

Architects use a wide range of personal experience and professional knowledge to design and develop their projects. To the extent that photographing my environment contributes to that experience, there is a residual influence on my professional life. The reasoning behind the original question is not without some truth.

I think, however, that the opposite is much more relevant. An education in architecture provides tools that are important in the making of a photograph. Even after years of working primarily with the more technical aspects of architecture in a decidedly non-artistic manner, the lessons from endless hours spent in architecture design studios and critical reviews still resonate.

The two elements from architectural design I think are the most important are an understanding of space and volume, and an understanding of composition.

The relationship between spaces and volumes is a basic ingredient in good architecture. This includes everything from the dimensions of a room to the understanding the space on a city street to ensuring good sight lines from a window. These three- dimensional concepts have to be translated for representation in two dimensions on a sheet of paper, much in the same way three-dimensional space is represented in a photograph.

Composition is more abstract, and often builds on an intuitive understanding of mathematical ratios and proportions. It is ultimately founded on the same principles of composition a painter might use in order to lead the observer’s eye along visual paths within the work, but which in photography has to be discovered within the relationship between the spaces and volumes that are the subject, sometimes made all the more complicated by the serendipitous element of motion.

I try to make use of these principles both in the choice of subjects and the way they are arranged in the final photographic image. That is the challenge I set for myself every time I take a picture.