Architectural Photography

Arrive - Stay - Depart.

Through interelation of Architectural and Natural Elements.

Arrive Stay Depart.

Through interelation of Architectural and Natural Elements.

Jugal Atul. Rana.

India.

M.S. AAD Candidate, 17.

GSAPP, Columbia University.

Acknowledgnements: This Book is the portfolio submission for Architectural Photography Class at GSAPP, Columbia University. I would like to extend sincere thanks to my Professor, Dr. Erieta Attali for the guidance and the help extended by her throughout the semester from production of images to the final composition of this book.

Arrive - Stay - Depart.

Through interelation of Architectural and Natural Elements.

New York City, comprises of five boroughs; Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn and Staten Island, was a city of dreams when I first arrived here in summer of 2016. Coming from an Architectural Background, observing, studying and practicing Architecture for more than half decade, the image of New York City I had surmised were the scaling skyscrapers, Wall Street executives, the grid layout of Manhattan, The burnt Brick Masonry buildings, the subway signs, the Yellow Cabs and the endless crowd. However, that is just the surface of a complex entity, when delved into further, one finds it like a treasure hunt; every other nook and corner characterizing the city uniquely. Exploring the City, apart from what I had surmised was the task that I intended to set upon, capturing the unusual traits of the New York City.

Looking in and around the city with a different lens contrasting the architectural approach of documenting buildings was a journey that connected me to this city and to my hometown Mumbai; which also runs parallel to New York City. Apart from the high rises, the orthogonal grids of NYC, the yellow cabs and constantly running executives, I figured there exists a subtle calmness amongst the constant rush, which runs the city; there is a place to breathe in the city (Not Central Park).

"Architecture has proved to be a very seductive subject for photographers" Jane Alison. Photography is not just capturing images at the click of camera but it is constructing images as like making the final construction drawing for execution on site. The slightest error in the making of that construction document can cause a huge error in the construction of the building; similarly, a random click will just be a random click and not a thoughtful image. The sequential photographs portrayed in this book sketch the journey - the arrival, the stay and the departure in the city with the knowledge of Architecture and elements that make up that architecture to unearth that.

"It may be not possible to get hold of the building atleast not in the way that it might be possible to get hold of a painting and a sculpture. But through photography one might be able to get hold of Architecture. By this I mean, and perhaps the cultural critic Walter Benjamin meant, that while a physical building is owned and used , a photograph of it is able to isolate, define, interpret , exaggerate or even invent a cultural value of it." David Company.

Entire Book comprising of 30 selected images is divided into three parts to portray the journey. In the first sphere of the images narrates the arrival of the journey. The first image is an unwonted representation of arrival but unequivocal representation of the feeling of arriving. Architecture is not just building buildings, which generally constitutes the majority of Architectural Photography but it, is articulation of spatial transitions, natural light, shade and shadow that generates a certain experience or memory in the mind of the user of that space.

These spatial transitions can invoke a cognitive understanding and memorizing of the spaces. The first image is one such example of the experiences generated in the cusp of the mind at the moment I saw and it somehow got associated with the familiarity of my arrival in the city. The image conveys a calm abstraction that exemplifies the profoundness associated with the arrival in the city. It has no landmark location, no landmark building in the background yet it conveys that it leads somewhere and beyond those wildernesses is the city

The passage through the dark tunnel formed by the overhangs of the trees and the sunlight penetrating in through the foliage of the trees guide the path into the realms of the built world.

The series of images in the first part shows the articulation of spaces that blends into the nature and arises in nature.

Progressively, the concrete trees, which nest a fast evolving and depleting species on this planet, the Humans, replace the towers of nature. The four tectonic walls, the doors, the windows, replace the natural rooms of living. Humans, the most evolved species first constructs the entire concrete blocks, scaling sky high, and then punctures them with windows and walls, terming it as to allow the nature to let in; the amazing part of it is the extent to which humans have developed technologies to control their surroundings, good and bad.

From Nature, I do not specifically intend the vegetation but also the other forms of nature and its interaction with the city - water, light and air. Architecture and its interrelation with these natural elements make a space interesting, defining and characterizing it. Architects aspire to achieve this. This aspiration of the coalition of architectural elements with the natural elements is the essence of the Architectural photography that is highlighted in this book. Architecture is never a standalone object but conglomeration of the nature, the social, the political, and the cultural aspect.

New York City is an island and water plays a pivotal role in the Architecture of this city. The water becomes an integral part of the city extrinsically forming characterizing the New York City skyline, as we know it.

The tranquility of the water that is captured with long exposure blurs the line dividing the water, the city and the sky

Natural Light is a vital ingredient for Architecture as well as Architectural Photography. The penetration of natural light can either define the entire space or create a total abstraction of a space, which might be interpreted subjectively. The images on this subject depicted in this book shows the relation of inside and outside in an architectural extent contrasting to the thesis of Architecture being framed by nature in this sphere the nature is framed via Architecture.

Digressing slightly from the psychological experiences, images of the chaos of the city portrays how the city life unfolds around unimportant object and how they alter the daily course of humans without even us having knowledge of it.

The concluding sphere of this book comprises of images, which again embarks on the journey of departure. This departure is unknown. The next destination is unknown and the apprehension of the unknown is the captivating emotions that are being portrayed in these images.

The surrealism in some images is the exact abstractness that I have encountered in my personal transition from one city to another, and from one phase of life to the next, and people in general must have come across, but always moving forward

"If we judge the work of architect according to what Aldorno described as , the ability to articulate space purposefully’ , then photographs have become the measure of that ability. Architecture and photography have been inextricably linked ever since this medium, so perfectly adapted to the two dimensional representation of static space, came into existence. Architecture has colluded with the camera’ s ability to manipulate our sense of space, while photography has been obsessively applied to documentation and interpretation of architecture as a manifestation of culture."