11-APR-2009
Frontier Mission, Tumacacori National Monument, Arizona, 2009
The Franciscan mission church San Jose de Tumacacori was established to convert the Pima Indians to Christianity. The church was constructed between 1800 and 1823, and was abandoned during the Mexican War of 1848. Today it remains a picturesque ruin, its cracking walls streaked with calcium and lime. I made this image from the edge of the old mission’s cemetery – which inspired me to build it around the darkness of a door that once led from the church to the grave.
12-APR-2009
Santa Cruz County Courthouse, Nogales, Arizona, 2009
The most impressive building in this town which sits astride the US-Mexican border is an early 20th century courthouse, dominated by rhe statue of Justice upon its central dome. However the thing that caught my eye was the clever use of incongruous “half-urns” as decorative devices flanking the statue. From the front, they look like real urns, but when I brought my long telephoto lens into play on this one, I saw that it was only a façade – rounded in front and flat in the back. The play of reflected light gives it a magical glow.
13-APR-2009
Desert View Tower, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, 2009
The most unusual building at the Grand Canyon is the viewing tower designed by architect Mary Colter for the Fred Harvey Company. She built it out of hand-picked stones designed to give the tower an ancient look. It has been photographed by millions of visitors since it opened in 1933, so instead of shooting the exterior, I focused instead on its most architecturally impressive section – the tower interior. Using a 24mm wideangle lens turned vertically, I photograph its soaring balconies and amazing dome, covered in Hopi art. The dizzying view upwards creates an almost mystical atmosphere, as hundreds of prehistoric Indian images inundate the viewer with an overwhelming sense of the Southwest.
24-MAR-2009
Steam heat, New York City, New York, 2009
It was a bitterly cold morning, and a plume of steam rises from a steel chimney bolted to the side of an apartment building in the Murray Hill section of Manhattan. I photograph both this building and the Victorian Church next door as abstractions – using the abstracting power of my frame, the early morning light, and the deep shadows to imply, but not describe, their appearance. I build the image around the cloud of steam rising between the two structures.
07-FEB-2009
Convention Center, Phoenix, Arizona, 2009
I try to express here the immense size, power and architectural grandeur of a lobby in the new convention center in downtown Phoenix. I use a 28mm wideangle lens to spread the scene, and tilt the camera both upwards and to the side in order to force the windowed walls to soar towards the deeply shadowed ceiling. I bind the walls together with repeating diagonal shadows that lay a pattern upon the green stone facing of the monumental gateway over the lobby’s entrance. Geometry, color, and rhythmic pattern join to express the lobby’s overwhelming scale.
02-SEP-2008
The Empire State Building, New York City, New York, 2008
The iconic Empire State Building, once the world’s tallest skyscraper, is one of the world’s most photographed buildings. Instead of describing it here, I abstract it by shooting it with a setting sun at the end of 34th Street. By backlighting the famous building, I make the golden clouds overhead my subject, while the silhouetted structure itself becomes context for nature at work. I hold just enough detail in the shadows to reveal a smattering of lights along the building’s façade. I frame the structure with tilting buildings on either side, creating an overhead triangle of sky that echoes the thrust of the Empire State’s soaring tower. The buildings just in front of it offer an additional layer for scale comparison.
18-MAY-2008
Blacksmith shop, Fiddletown, California, 2008
Fiddletown was a trading center and supply point for nearby mining camps during California’s Gold Rush. Some of its original buildings remain – the most impressive being its blacksmith shop. I underexposed slightly to stress the pitted texture of its brick façade. That texture speaks of age and time, and this building has stood in place for almost 130 years. I layer the image by including the branches of a tree in the foreground, which increases the illusion of depth perception. The black shadows below the overhang and within the windows add to the sense of depth, pulling us into and through the structure.
18-MAR-2008
Quthub Minaret, Delhi, India, 2008
This 240 high foot minaret, finished in 1193, marks the advent of India's Muslim sultans. It towers over Delhi's first mosque. I wanted to make an image that put this historic monument into context. I anchor the image with just the top edge of an ancient bridge that served as an approach to the minaret. The bridge fragment becomes a foreground layer, which I completed by adding some branches from an overhanging tree, filling the empty sky and partially screening the top of the monument. Just as I was about to shoot, a cooperative bird landed on the bridge to complete my composition.
09-SEP-2007
Railroad Station, Shanghai, China, 2007
Sometimes an interior view of a building tells a better story than an exterior view. Such was the case here. I shoot from high over the main concourse of the Shanghai Railroad Station, enabling me to make an image that greatly reduces the scale of the people far below me, and in the process makes the train station appear even larger than it is. I also use a 28mm wideangle lens that stretches my perspective into near panoramic effect. By shooting down on the scene, I give the viewer a glimpse not only of the entire concourse, but also a look outside of the building as well. The image contrasts two worlds – the relatively casual pace and spacing of the people walking below us, versus the chaotic Shanghai street jammed with buses just outside of the station’s window.
05-JUL-2007
New Wing, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, 2007
Perhaps the most striking feature of architect Daniel Libeskind’s new addition to Denver’s Art Museum is its massive triangular forms that make the building resemble a futuristic boat when seen at a distance. The building, opened in 2006, is aesthetically challenging, and dramatically changes Denver’s skyline. I shot it after sunset with a wideangle lens, taking a low vantage point and shooting up at its “prow,” which seems here to slice through the evening clouds that float overhead. You can see a more abstract version of this building in my Abstraction gallery at
http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/82040571.
08-JUN-2007
Buildings, real and imagined: San Francisco, California, 2007
It is not often that one finds an imaginary building squeezed in between two real ones. But such is the case here. Neighborhood artists have enlivened a wall facing an empty lot between two buildings with a painting of another. Three people, each of them one story high, are apparently revamping this neighborhood, one of San Francisco’s most disadvantaged. I composed the image on an angle, altering depth perception, and making the painting seem to fill the space between the buildings. The incongruity of this concept draws the eye, and the vivid colors contrast strikingly to the surrounding facades.
07-JUN-2007
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California, 2007
The soaring atrium of this museum is capped by a signature skylight, which draws both sun and shadow into the building. I abstracted the huge skylight by zooming in on it, and turned my camera until the vast beams became repeating diagonal lines. The diagonals are straight, and contrast boldly to the curved shadows falling on the sides of the wall of the atrium just below them. A cloud-streaked sky creates a flow of counter diagonals on the outside of the building. The skylight and atrium stand as works of modern art in their own way, and I wanted this image to do justice to that art in what I hope will be a fresh and imaginative manner. Swiss architect Mario Botta designed this building in 1995.