Circles and Straight Lines

Details have always been one of my favorite things to photograph.  They are personal and unique to each photographer and are a great complement to larger, more informational compositions in helping to tell the story.  They provide us an opportunity to see nature and design on a closer, more intimate basis.

Though I’ve never been commissioned to solely shoot details, taking photos that show the materials used in a project is a regular part of many assignments.  Material selection plays an important part of a designer’s creative solution to a problem, be it for purposes of sustainability, energy efficiency, continuity of materials native to the local environment, reuse/repurposing, and even for the purely aesthetic.

Material details also often give my camera and lenses a chance to stretch their legs beyond the usual 17-20mm focal length range.

Hayden Lake Ferry Building by DAVIS
©Raul J Garcia

2290 House by Arch 11
Stone and Wood
70mm
©Raul J Garcia

Denver Art Museum by Daniel Libeskind
Titanium Cladding
24mm
©Raul J Garcia

Edge House by Studio B Architects
24mm
©Raul J Garcia

Highland Duplex by Sexton Lawton Architecture
Wine Cork Backsplash
37mm
©Raul J Garcia

After receiving news from friends at my son’s basketball game of a recent photo spotting, I was sent the seen image by our friends and client, the Clyfford Still Museum.

Our great association with the Clyfford Still continued in late 2012 and included a photograph we were asked to create specifically for the upcoming show titled “Red/Yellow/Blue (and Black and White): Clyfford Still as Colorist”.  After the appropriate paintings were hung by staff, we found the best composition from the farthest point in the gallery, so as to accommodate all three of the pieces with as little lens distortion as possible.  Since the ad’s format would be vertical, the vast foreground of floor provided excellent space for the designer’s text.

©Raul J Garcia

Then after a large bracket of exposures, came all the color cards.  (I actually remembered to do this, this time)

Assistant Peter in ghost-form with color card

2 Peters with 2 color cards

We were thrilled with the finished piece designed for the museum by McGinty Co

Ad for the Clyfford Still Museum’s Red/Yellow/Blue Show
Design by McGINTY CO

Definitely one of my favorite images and one I can relate to, just wish I knew who to credit…

In the mean time, at this early hour, there are still many Photoshop layers to go in the building of this bridge between idea and a final image.  That fact brings to mind the sense of nobility in the kind of statements you’ll often read people make during interviews like “I like to get things right, the first time, in-camera instead of relying on the computer to do the work for me”.

Having started with 4×5 film cameras, I sometimes wonder if I’m working my computer or if my computer is working me.  I accepted the fact years ago, though, that I do use heavy and extensive amounts of Photoshop, ironically, to try and make things look natural, as they were seen in person, and most importantly as the designer intended.  It helps provide me an alternative to the time spent in ultimately creating the array of random shadows or theatrics from artificially added/temporary light sources, as well as valuable hours that accumulate hiding/removing or adjusting things that can be easily taken out in seconds, digitally.  So until our cameras match the dynamic range of our eyes, or unless I come to a point where I’m asked to produce a mere 4 or 5 photographs throughout a single day of shooting, I remain in admiration of those able to make these noble statements, and continue use of my beloved Mac when needed.

Working layers for salon project

Salon Reception
©Raul J Garcia

Working/layered file for Arch11 303 Canyon exterior

303 Canyon Dusk
©Raul J Garcia

In photography, we work as one part of a close collaboration with light, intent on transcending the two dimensionality of a traditional image.  We use it to show moments of beauty that we take for granted, or to express thoughts or emotions we’ve attached to subjects, showing their sublime quality.

Aspen Fire Station HQ by Studio B Architects
© Raul J Garcia

Franktown Ranch by Sexton Lawton Architecture
©Raul J Garcia

Light is all-giving.  It creates color, visual texture, drama.  And if we’re lucky, we come to discover that we’re getting to see the world on it’s terms.

Above all we use it to try and tell a story or part of a story, in a way that hopefully avoids some of the pitfalls all photographers are prone to (such as being heavy-handed), or descriptions like bland, commonplace, boring or pretentious.  I’ve been fortunate enough to meet, and photograph the work of, wonderful designers who embrace this natural beauty.

Chapel of St. Ignatius by Steven Holl
©Raul J Garcia

Fitzsimons Credit Union by Groundworks Design
©Raul J Garcia

Until now, I haven’t shared much in the way of great images by photographers who inspire me with their own use of light, not to mention their composition. But most of all, their style & vision.  That’ll change today starting with this gorgeous shot from the blog of my mega-talented friend Dave Lehl:

©Dave Lehl

It’s 3:51, on the morning of a 3-day trip to Las Vegas.  Sometimes it’s hard to accept 3am as really being “morning”, but I know that on a technicality it actually is.  The fact that I have a large tumbler of coffee in front of me further solidifies the fact that it’s the start of another day, as opposed to when I laid down 3 hours ago, thus having officially separated yesterday from today.

We have an assignment documenting the amazing work of one of our clients over the next couple of days.  And though my mind is far from calm, I’m thoroughly enjoying the silence of my office, the only sound being an occasional gurgling of the coffee maker and the slight hum of the computer monitor.  The bags and cases are loaded, boarding passes printed, and in a few hours, we’ll be at Denver International, stepping onto a plane.  And two hours after that, onto a whirlwind.

Spending the last days of 2012 in Arizona was a time to soak in the warmth of 65-degree, sun-filled weather, family, desert palms, and the combination of a seemingly endless grid of streets mixed with inner city mountains making up my home town of Phoenix.  A place that feels woven into the daily fabric of my life and the way I see my work.

View west from Coolidge, AZ

It was also a time to reflect on the many great projects we got to photograph during the year, the places we were able to visit, people we got to meet, new friends we made, and of course finally, on a tragedy in a Connecticut classroom, that as a father of two young sons, felt more personal to me than any of the other recent and heartbreaking events that have become too frequent an occurrence.

Looking to the new year, with high hopes for both professional and personal growth, January’s calendar looks like a promising start with projects scheduled in several states, as well as in our beautiful Colorado.  But I also carry hopes for our economy, the health of our society, our capacity for love, the education and safety of our youth, and an upcoming year of peace.

View west from Florence, AZ

Gaining another hour of sleep per night, this summer, would be great too.

We recently documented the amazing transformation of a structure that began life as a vehicle maintenance and storage facility, and became the new offices of the Public Works and Planning Departments for the city of Golden, CO.

Redesigned by McMenamin Design Associates, the entire structure was skinned, gutted, and retrofitted with new materials that embrace a program of durability and energy efficiency.  The structural components were left exposed, and the new interior was designed in a way to promote circulation of natural light and airiness, with its opened office ceilings, high walls and bright colors.

One of our challenges included working within the very limited (and not-so-unusual) window of time between the final completion of the project’s finishing details and the move-in of it’s occupants, as well as being conscious to capture the beautiful context of Golden, Colorado and the landmark (School of Mines) “M” on Mount Zion.

To see the complete project click here.

The original structure, used for vehicle maintenance and storage. (photo courtesy McMenamin Design Associates)

The new building for Golden’s Public Works and Planning Departments.

Conference Room

View of lobby from reception desk.

Pedro E Guerrero, photographing Taliesin West (Raul J. Garcia)

My mentor and friend for the last 7 years, Pedro Guerrero, died in his home with family at his side, last week at the age of 95.  Pedro was an accomplished photographer whose career began after studying at the Art Center School in Los Angeles.  Shortly after returning home from school in 1939, he started working for Frank Lloyd Wright, and documented his life, his communal school of architecture (Taliesin and Taliesin West), and his works up until his death in 1959.  He later documented the work and lives of artists Alexander Calder and Louise Nevelson, as well as mid-century architects such as Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen, Edward Durrell Stone and Philip Johnson.

When I met him in 2005, he was retired and living in his winter home in the town of Florence, AZ.  I came to admire and cherish our friendship from our first meeting, and would always look forward to visiting when in the area.

Pedro’s unobtrusive approach to documenting the pure essence of his subjects without changing them into a blatant display of his own photographic skill, yet still presenting the subject in a beautiful and striking way, was no accident.  It may have been brought to fruition by Wright’s instruction to him on how he wanted his work to be captured, but Pedro mastered it, and he undoubtedly influenced my own approach and view on photographing architecture.

To learn more about Pedro and his work, please see a great NY Times obituary piece written about him here.

I am saddened by his passing, but also grateful for having had the chance to get to know him and become friends with him, for the hours he spent talking with me, his honest, unapologetic critiques/encouragement, and for his large contribution to photography and architecture as a whole.  My condolences go to his wife and family.

We were recently commissioned to photograph a series of images of a house in Northwest Denver for Studio H:T Architects and 5280 Magazine.  Known both as the Shield House (for it’s large two-story, curved “shield” wall on the south elevation), as well as the Erickson House, the project was designed to equally embrace it’s interior presence as well it’s exterior, (despite the fact of being flanked by a three-story, multifamily condominium on one side and a non-historic convent with silent hours on the other).

Our shoot was done in two parts, the first being in early fall, and the second in mid-summer.  Over the two phases of the shoot, we were fortunate enough to have a stylist, the interior designer, landscape architect, project architect and the magazine’s art director to help towards a successful outcome of images.

Architect: Studio H:T
Interior Designer: O Interior Design
Landscape Architect: Three Sixty Design
Photo Stylist: Mindy Pantiel
Art Director: Dana Pritts

While recently in Northern California for meetings, we were able to break away and spend some time walking the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Of note was the striking exhibition we were highly recommended to visit, called Photography in Mexico.  And as so often happens when spending any time in a museum, I was left with multitudes more questions than answers that spun in my head for days, well after I’d left.

Photography in Mexico Exhibition, SFMoMA

We may wonder where we fit in the world, and within it’s context, via our art, our service, our impact, or in contributions that come from a career or vocation we’ve selected or fallen into. It’s probably a healthy thing to question ourselves when it comes to gauging where we are headed as individuals and as a whole culture/society.  In the case of photography, I’ve noticed how easy it’s become to slip into the rush of technological dragon-chasing. What’s the dynamic range of that camera? What’s the signal to noise ratio? How many megapixels? Instant uploading/apps/sharing.  How sharp and in focus can an image be made with the “right” lens/sensor/post-production combination? What about Lytro technology and video? Et cetera, ad nauseam.

Viewing the work displayed in this exhibition brought the relevance of these common concerns into question for me; images, ranging in their initial creation from the late 1800s through the 1980′s, taken with cameras that “lacked” any of the modern technologies and conveniences found in today’s photography world.  No GPS mapping capabilities, no touch-screens, and no built-in HDR here.  Yet they far surpassed most photographs seen today in pure content, alone.  And isn’t that the real dragon we should be chasing?

Pedro Meyer, "The Lady of the Mole and Her Friends", Ecuador, 1982

Images like those by Pedro Meyer, Enrique Metinides, and Susan Meiselas, evoke emotion and drama and a desire to further examine our world of beauty and tragedy.  They remind us of our own fragile mortality and a fleeting sense of the present, and not so much about how close we can examine a photograph for pixel-detail and proper exposure.  The power to inspire an introspection on any given level, for any given amount of time, is something that seems all too forgotten about and all too neglected in much of today’s canned-beauty, compositionally empty, and over saturated, app-modified, Instagram world.

In my humble opinion, whether the subject matter is journalistic, fashion, sports or architecture, Content is still King.

Enrique Metinides, "Traffic Accident", 1971

Susan Meiselas, "2:00pm Holding cell for undocumented female detainees, El Cajon, CA", 1989