Architectural photography
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Photo: western face of the Parthenon
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"One of the glories of Los Angeles is its modernist residential architecture, but Hollywood movies have almost systematically denigrated this heritage by casting many of these houses as the residences of movie villains."--Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003) by Thom Andersen |
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Architectural photography is a genre of photography where the primary emphasis is made to capturing photographs of buildings and similar architectural structures that are both aesthetically pleasing and accurate in terms of representations of their subjects. Architectural photographers are usually skilled in the use of specialized techniques and cameras for producing such specialized photography.
Early architectural photographers include Roger Fenton, Francis Frith (Middle East and Britain), Samuel Bourne (India) and Albert Levy (United States and Europe). They paved the way for the modern speciality of architectural photography. Later architectural photography had practitioners such as Ezra Stoller, and Julius Shulman. Stoller worked mainly on the east coast of America, having graduated with a degree in architecture in the 1930s. Shulman, who was based on the West Coast, became an architectural photographer after some images that he had taken of one of Richard Neutra's houses in California made their way onto the architect's desk.
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History
The first permanent photograph, View from the Window at Le Gras by Nicéphore Niépce, was also the first architectural photograph as it was a view of buildings. Similarly, photographs taken by early photographer William Henry Fox Talbot were of architecture, including his photograph of a Latticed window in Lacock Abbey taken in 1835.
Throughout the history of photography, architectural structures including buildings have been highly valued photographic subjects, mirroring society's appreciation for architecture and its cultural significance. By the 1860s, architectural photography started to become an established visual medium.
Much as building designs changed and morphed with traditional forms, architectural photography also evolved with time. During the early-to-mid-20th century, architectural photography became more creative as photographers used diagonal lines and bold shadows in their compositions, and experimented with other innovative techniques.
By the early 1950s, architects were hiring more photographers for commissioned work, resulting in architectural photography being viewed as more of an art form than what it had been considered before.
Notable architectural photographers
Books
- God's Own Junkyard (1964) by Peter Blake
- Learning from Las Vegas (1972) by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour
- The End of the Road: Vanishing Highway Architecture in America (1981) by John Margolies
- Uncommon Places (1982) by Stephen Shore
See also
