I’m completely in love with Instagram (even though Facebook bought it) and whilst the odd shadow and pictures of my evening pint or bikes is all well and good it’s quite nice to have a recurring theme. One of those themes is scaffolding. I seemed to be taken towards images of temporary structures so started my own little hashtag – #scaffoldlove (not porn, definitely not #scaffoldporn). There’s something quite interesting about temporary scaffolding structures in terms of their graphic form and also the way in which the structures work and are so legible.
Not ridden on one obviously but shot rather nicely by Andy Waterman with film for Privateer Magazine. Very nice indeed. Must go there again soon. The rest of the set can be found over on his Flickr page.
Superbly shot and edited little video documenting the construction and installation of the Room for London on top of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Unfortunately embedding isn’t allowed so you’ll have to view it over at Vimeo.
I bloody love art on the walls and I love having my work on someone else’s walls too. So what better way to satisfy both desires than swapping a print with someone who also has some nice work to offer? Agree a size, offer a few images, send to your printer of choice and BOOM – print swap!
First one up is this wonderful image from Jim (or Brighton Jim as I call him). It’s quick preview as it’s downstairs at the framing shop being framed ready to go on the wall above my desk.
I swapped him this one but in colour. I’m open to print swap offers.. email me.
I recently got hold of a copy of – John Pawson – A visual inventory – which is incredibly cheap at around £20 on Amazon. After reading a Guardian article about the book I was intrigued as to the quality of the content of the book, essentially a series of snaps and observations from one of the most minimal Architects working in the UK. His last book, which I bought whilst I was still at University, was called Minimum and, as per it’s title, was about as minimal as you could get. If I was entirely honest it wasn’t my thing at the time.
When I got the book I was struck by the richness of the imagery and the sheer variety of images from his travels around the world. In some ways the words and captions as well as his opening text were equally as powerful. The excerpt below from the introduction is for me a great description of the power of imagery as an Architect.
Part of the daily compulsion of photography is that it allows me to see what I saw over and over again. A camera is essentially and eye with a memory and I would be the first to admit that I am obsessive where this facility for recall is concerned. Since first acquiring a digital camera, I have accumulated over a quarter if a million image files. On the one hand, there is an attraction to photography’s speed and immediacy. Where the process of making a building is usually measured in years, an image can be captured in a fraction of a second. But more pressing for me is the sense that if you don’t record everything, moments slip away and are lost forever. Maybe I am particularly sensitive to this because architecture is a relatively permanent medium, involving enduring arrangements of stone, glass, timber and metal. My instinct is to translate things into a form I can hold onto and come back to – even letters and odd lines from books. You never know when a picture capturing the texture of a wall in Syria in the midday sun might be just what you ned as a reference to convey and idea to a client or colleague. When a member of a team returns from a site visit full of enthusiasm for a building or detail they have seen, my reflex response is always, ‘show me the photograph’.
I’m intrigued by the idea of a daily compulsion to photograph, to record, to capture or to retain or even amplify a memory. It’s a theme I have started to become more and more interested in after seeing family albums from my childhood as well as images of my Grandparents as young adults. The recording of images has massive significance in this context for later generations and I’m hoping won’t die. I’ve also tried to engage in this following my 365 project in 2009 and more recently by starting to collate prints of each year in boxes and maybe albums going forward. I like the idea of snaps also and that not too much artistic or overt meaning is overlaid in the first instance which could otherwise stop you taking that photo. Surely better to snap some friends, that interesting light, or that texture on the pavement that would otherwise be missed and entirely forgotten than to hold back as it’s ‘not good enough’. The message I get from this book is almost certainly – take more pictures!
Pawson seems to summarise a unique way of seeing through his book that in some ways I feel only an Architect could do. He’s not a photographer as such but he is using the medium to his advantage and again that medium is informing how he sees, his compulsion makes him see so much more and he has seemingly become acutely aware of his surroundings. He clearly has a real intrigue, eagerness and passion for seeing which is so well described here. It’s incredibly inspiring to read through and delve into the image captions. The work also has all sorts of meaning for an Architect reading and is incredibly thought provoking. I read the book in two sittings to process the first series of images before going back for more. I think I’ll be dipping in again and again in the future.
The smallness of human life is graphically expressed in this graveyard, in the low stubs of the headstones dwarfed by the towering tree trunks. Perhaps unexpectedly, the effect of this monumental contrast of scales is a feeling of comfort – the secure tranquility of the final resting place overseen by these massive forms, whose benign nature seems to be underlined by the little wooden nesting box on the central tree.
An example of one of the short captions that accompanies each image. They’re short enough to not get bogged down in, but long enough to give some background and context to each image and describe what Pawson saw that fascinated him so much. In summary, a beautiful book to own. I think mine will be very tattered before too long. A must purchase for any Architect with even the slightest interest in visual representation or photography.
At first I wasn’t sure whether I would use it or whether I would become bored with it. I’ve embraced it entirely and have, shock horror surprise surprise, become a little obsessive about it. It started out as a way of recording a series of precedent images I was looking at during work time. Rather than save images to a folder on the server and lose any idea of what they were or where they had come from, I would chuck them at the Tumblr. We would then refer back to them later in the day when we were discussing design progress or the development of the architectural language for a series of construction details. Previously I had started to use the Gimme Bar web service but hadn’t connected with it in the same way really. For some reason the Tumblr (with the chosen theme) seemed a better way of doing it. Also as it was public there was a certain pressure to keep the quality up.
architecturepastebook.co.uk – something to dip into for inspiration?
The blog has grown from a semi-personal scrapbook (or paste book) into a slightly more public semi-curated archive of great Architecture as well as the occasional inspirational image. The way Tumblr works is also part of this more social feel to the site as people can “reblog” posts. I can also do the same to theirs which allows me to re-use content I like from others, it’s through setting this up that I’ve really engaged with Tumblr. It’s become a place to record images I’ve seen during the day from the likes of Dezeen, ArchDaily and designboom as well as a few select users and groups on Flickr. Sometimes I will select a series of images from a completed building which I think is worthy or often just a single image that provokes a response such as a texture or composition. Sometimes it’s just nice concrete which I’m a complete sucker for.
I’m intrigued by the idea of a visual archive that can be looked back upon, something along the lines of day books or sketchbooks that I keep at work. I’m obsessive about these and love sketching details or small areas of plans or sections. I think we also suffer from sheer overload of visual information – “Where was that great detail in the magazine from last year? Oh I saw something like that a while ago, it was interesting how they solved it” etc etc. This is my way of addressing that and trying to keep inspiration to hand. The way I post also allows me to keep a link to the original article which I can refer to for further information.
Day books – full of notes, sketches and ideas.
As an Architectural Photographer I’m also keen on constantly upping my game and viewing imagery to critique and make my own work and techniques better. This constant viewing of other photographers work has also made me far more critical of the the visual representation and also the actual architecture that I see. This is also something I’m also keen to document – the stunning image or the play of light that the photographer recorded, the unique angle or way in which it was post processed or the composition of the image and so on.
So, another website to maintain and curate but something that provokes a critical appraisal of work and somewhere to keep it all. Want to add something – an image or a project?
I’m catching up on a few things that have caught my eye recently. I’ve been adding various interesting links to Instapaper and then coming back to blog about them. It’s becoming an overwhelming list but this one definitely deserves a mention. Portraits are especially hard in my opinion and there’s a few people who are good at it but I definitely admire a good one. Pete Zelewski has been shooting a series of portraits around Soho recently. I’ve added a few of my favourites below along with a description of his project. Well worth checking out the rest of his shots on Flickr.
Since my arrival on these British shores many years ago, Soho has always been, for me, the true heart of London. Although historically synonymous with the sex industry, the Soho I know and love today will always be the centre of Bohemian London with its culturally diverse mix of inhabitants living and working in a place that never closes and where anyone can be whoever they want to be.
In early 2011, I began a continuing street portraiture project called ‘The People of Soho’ photographing local characters who I thought captured the true essence of the area. From stylish shop assistants to arty media types, to street savvy students and the casual passers-by, the people I met and photographed were the ones I felt made Soho the unique and vibrant place that it is today.
A lovely little find from my mate Nat. A series of photos which appear to show multiple exposures of buildings before, during and after demolition. The EXIF says a Sony DSLR so I’d imagine they’re blended but still, they have a strange ethereal quality to them and incredibly beautiful. Wonder how they did them from the same spot without having to leave the camera there? Well worth popping over to Flickr to check out the whole set. A few of the best below.
Saw this shot from the top of the 63 bus on the way to work earlier whilst it stopped outside Peckham Rye Station. Definitely had a mild panic trying and get the iPhone camera to work quick enough to grab the shot before the scene changed / bus drove off.
architecturepastebook.co.uk – something to dip into for inspiration?
Day books – full of notes, sketches and ideas.
Tumblr as a visual 
