Circles and Straight Lines

We were recently asked to photograph the newest location of Modmarket in Denver, a restaurant specialized in gourmet, healthy, whole ingredient-based fast food.  To complement the health-conscious concept of their menu, (and effectively softening the hard, sterile look and feel that modern design can often have) they’ve directed much of the focus of their interior to sustainability, and the repurposing of available materials, both natural and industrial.  The most noticeable example of this is the large presence of “beetle-kill” lumber throughout, that is, timber taken from local forests containing a mass devastation of it’s pine trees from the infestation of the Mountain Pine Beetle.  With over 4 million acres of forest affected in Colorado and Wyoming, using the blue-stained lumber as an alternative building material is one way to make the best of an otherwise bleak environmental situation.

photo: The Denver Post | RJ Sangosti

Pine Beetle Damage

Most people draw inspiration from many sources.  Before I had an even remote interest in photography I was pursing a life in painting and xerox art.  Years later I find direct links to those times appearing in my work, and it, in an almost reverse-inspiration, rekindles an interest in what got me to this point so far.  When I was an 18 year old art school student, a woman in class introduced me to the work of Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Franz Kline.  From all our conversations I started to become aware of spirituality in non-religious art.  Ironically, that was the same year I began to study commercial art.  Though the two seemed to be about as opposite as it gets, the orderly, accessible, polished practicality of commercial art also found its way to what I eventually ended up producing on a daily basis.  But my exposure to the abstract expressionists began an exploration of early modern art, going back to the De Stijl movement and Cubism, and inevitably an observation of how it influences much of my photography today.  Though the beautiful work of modern photographers like Helene Binet, Fernando Guerra, Bill Timmerman, Tim Griffith and Iwan Baan inspire and define the bar to me daily, painters also find their way into my representation of a clients’ work with a great deal of subconscious tribute from my end, and authority from theirs.  They offer compositional relief to much of the highly perspective-based views of architecture.

Mondrian 1929

Linden Guesthouse, photographed for Arch 11

Tempe Urban Living, photographed for Baldinger Studio

Nat'l Museum of Marine Corp Chapel, photographed for Fentress Architects

Center for Global Learning, photographed for Miller Hull Partnership

Academic Instruction Building, photographed for BWG Architects

Rothko

Rothko

l-r; Franktown Ranch - Sexton Lawton Architecture, Clyfford Still Museum - Allied Works Architecture, Clyfford Still Museum - Allied Works Architecture

Driving to Ft. Collins from Denver is, unless it’s after a large snowstorm, always great.  On one side of I-25, looking east are the plains and big sky and on the other, to the west, the Rocky Mountains.  While on a recent scouting trip, I finally made myself take the time to stop by a building I’d seen from a distance countless times.  It was often, at best, a regularly extended glance as I began my ritualistic panic of looking for, and always missing, my exit when coming to town for a project.  Since I was in the area earlier than usual, I had to time actually stop and see what this building was.

RNL designed the Environmental Learning Center for Colorado State University, the City of Ft. Collins and the Colorado State Dept of Parks and Rec.  In addition to housing several school and municipal offices, the site also allows students and visitors walk the grounds and experience samples of the various local Colorado environments.  A great time to pull out the iPhone and see what was possible photographically, and of course a way to inevitably wind up screeching in to my scouting meeting, with not a minute to spare.

Later as an architectural photographer, “photographic-truth” became much more of an issue and one that has stayed with me daily.  I was looking at some early work and comparing it with a more recent project.  Both were considered a success to the client, but there were certain, almost polar, differences in how they were approached.  One had over 20 supplemental lights added to it (the earlier shot) and the more recent shot had none.  Which was the “truer” image?  I don’t know.  One was used to sell a property, and one was to document design and become a part of the designer’s portfolio.  I can easily say that without all the added lighting in the earlier shot, it would look almost nothing like it does in the final image, but they were both equally composed, edited within the camera and decisions like angles, camera height, focal length, time of day, and what to leave in and out of the frame, were made.  Versions of “truths” specific to every photographer that are created whenever a shot is composed.  The earlier project, had minimal post-production/digital work done to it, and the more recent, an extensive amount. Going back to the architecture photography of even the 1940′s, I think it’s ironic that the more natural-looking images took an equal amount of time/work, as the heavy-handed, opulent and glorifying shots of a building or interior  (in terms of lighting, or these days, in digital post-production).

The approach is ultimately a matter of intent, not to mention personal preference and artistic license.  What is the purpose of the image?  Is it being lit for the sake of lighting and to show one’s own lighting abilities and photoshop skills, or is it to communicate design?  And lastly is it “true” to the designer’s vision?

What is “truth”?  I suppose it can be argued that it depends on who’s version of it you’re referring to.  We live in a time when, more than ever (an election year, no less), truth can be spun and should be questioned.  As it is, it’s quite a sensitive issue, as no one wants to be accused of being untruthful.  To narrow it down some, I can talk about what I know best, that is, the medium of photography.

For me, personally, photography has never been an endeavor done for the sake of itself.  I enjoy it, and have been doing it a while, but I don’t know that if I didn’t have a personal interest in what I was shooting, I would’ve stayed with it.  I just don’t have the attention span.  It doesn’t always need to be architecture, though it usually is, but without a love, fascination, concern, fear, respect or real appreciation for what I choose to shoot, photography can feel somewhat empty.  When I started out in photography, as a fine-art photographer, I wasn’t too concerned about truth.  I only cared about making an impression, and we all know how “truthful” those can be.  Very little sense of composition and no knowledge of the use of any kind of lighting, natural or supplemental.  But I knew what I wanted to shoot and what I liked to appear before me on that wet sheet of Fiber Based Ilford, bouncing side-to-side in a tray of Rodinal developer.

Mother and Child, 1993

Mother and Child detail, 1993

…TBC

For this first entry of my new blog, something completely new and overdue for me, I wondered how to get going.

While preparing for our first shoot of 2012, I looked out the window of my office and was struck by a renewed sense of appreciation that I am surprised by every year.  I’ve learned that winter in Colorado for an architectural photographer can certainly have it’s quiet times.  Much more so than at any other time of year.  And in the wake of  how extremely busy 2011 was, with it’s frequent 20-hour days and adrenaline-fueled deadlines, the silence can seem truly deafening.  Then again, it doesn’t take long to realize that there are opportunities to revisit things that might have been overlooked during the busier times, or that are unique to the December thru February months.  And though there are days when I think I’d give anything for a beautiful 85 degree day, there is a different kind of energy that just doesn’t exist during the summer.  And it starts with the winter daylight (a beautifully warm, rich, soft and low cross-light) that reconnects you with a landscape at rest.

Nature never stops, and while what’s in front of us may appear brown and dead, there is a peaceful quality of life in even that.  And with envy, and gratitude, I realize that nature never stops producing beauty.  It could serve well, to strive toward becoming more like it in that way.