Behind The Lens | Rory Gardiner

Behind The Lens | Rory Gardiner

London and Melbourne-based photographer Rory Gardiner captures light, materiality and form in a way that transforms his architectural photography into artworks.

PHOTOGRAPHY | Rory Gardiner WORDS | Emma-Kate Wilson

Aires Mateus designs some of the ‘most delicate’ architecture Rory has encountered—their approach seamlessly blurring between old and new.

Sensitively photographed, Rory encapsulates the playful restoration of the heritage Missionstrasse House in Basel by Buchner Bründler Architekten.

Rory Gardiner has established a name in the global design community, working with some of the world’s most renowned architects.

Growing up in Melbourne, Rory was introduced to architecture photography at an early age. “My dad was an architect and a keen hobbyist photographer,” the photographer reflects. “When I was sixteen, we did a road trip through New Zealand where he introduced me to the camera. From that point, I just became more and more obsessed with photography.”

Blending the lines between landscape and build, Rory captures the big ideas of French architect Ludwig Godefroy’s Mexico project, Casa Mérida.

While finishing his photography degree in Melbourne, Rory was short-listed for a photography competition in London. This one-week trip turned into something more permanent, and he never flew home. “I lived and worked in London for the best part of a decade, and at first it wasn’t easy to establish myself there as the standard of work is so high,” he says. “The breadth of the creative community in London blew me away - something I’d underestimated before moving there.”

Photography seemed like a very therapeutic way for me to process the world, and to this day, I maintain it’s the only thing I’ve ever had any natural ability at.

– Rory Gardiner

Having a base in London quickly led to global projects in North America and Europe and also extended Rory’s network reach to like-minded clients worldwide who are interested in rethinking the image. “There are often formulas and well-trodden tropes in architecture photography that can feel stale, so it’s refreshing when clients are keen to push the envelope,” the photographer says.

Rather than conceptualising the singular architecture shot within his photography, Rory instead aims to build a narrative—setting the scene through a 100% analogue process. “There are no screens on set,” the photographer points out. “This forces me and the people I collaborate with to engage directly with the camera itself, focusing on the image we are building together in real-time, rather than unpicking it from behind a computer.”

Thinking back over his career, a dream project for the photographer is one that invites a new perspective on location and scale. “I get excited about interesting urban contexts, particularly when the project offers me the chance to show the breadth of structure that it sits within,” Rory says. “Similarly, I get giddy when a project is set deep in the wilderness and lends itself to images that meld both the natural and built environment together.”

“The 7th Room by Snøhetta is one of the most remote locations I’ve ever worked in,” Rory says. “This hotel in Swedish Lapland really made you feel like you couldn’t be any further away from daily life.”

Photography seemed like a very therapeutic way for me to process the world, and to this day, I maintain it's the only thing I’ve ever had any natural ability at.

– Rory Gardiner