Jim Stephenson, Photography Series #6

Feb 28th – Architecture

Photography drives inspiration. In 2011 we want to encourage creativity and design through the showcasing some of the most beautiful architectural photography around. Inspired designers are productive designers – and your journey starts here!

Architectural Photography Series #6 – Jim Stephenson

Similar to last weeks Photographer, this week we are delighted to present the work of someone who has worked within the field of architecture from in front of the camera, prior to becoming a full time architectural Photographer.

Brighton and London based architecture and interiors photographer Jim Stephenson trained as an architectural technologist before making the step over to architectural photographer a few years ago after fulfilling the role of staff photographer at the practices he had worked for, both in the UK and US. He believes this experience, working within in the industry, gives him an understanding of buildings, the architect’s intent and how to best purvey this in a photograph. Jim works largely in the UK, but has also completed commissions in Europe and the US. His work has been published in the Times, Guardian, Observer and Independent as well as a number of trade magazines such as the AJ, BD, Sleeper Magazine, House Magazine and Building Magazine.

“I have a particular interest in 60′s and 70′s housing in the UK, and am currently completing a private project, in collaboration with Conran & Partners, photographing a Span Developments project in Hove, East Sussex. I’ll also be photographing some of Tayler & Green’s influential housing work of the 1960′s in Norfolk over the summer as part of the Festival of Architecture for Norwich and Norfolk. I work a great deal with Conran, and my other clients include LCE, Park Grove Design, RIBA, Meloy Architects, Deveraux, Reardon Smith Architects, Morgan Carn Partnership, Household Design, and many more”.

Grooveside

Interior

Interior

New English Homes

New English Homes

New English Homes

The Bulb

Interior

Brighton

Brighton

Brighton

Special thanks to Jim for sharing his work with us. As with all out featured photographers, we hope you learn something valuable from his work about composition of work. The photographer has a wonderful view of the built environment: through a lens, and we think this is a great way to experience architecture!

[Jim Stephenson]

Are you an architectural photographer interested in taking part in the Photography Series 2011? Why not drop us an email, we’d love to hear from you!

All photograph property rights within this post, belong to the Habitables content provider and are protected, without limitation, pursuant to U.S. and foreign copyright and trademark laws.

Posted by at Feb 28th 2011

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  • Anonymous

    I just learned that when something is overexposed, you lose detail. Well I knew that already but I didn’t think someone would highlight that as a good thing in a magazine.

    • photographer

      Photographers uses exposure to express different aspects in photographs. Im able to speak specifically for the photographer, but I’m sure someone who is a published photographer with worldwide commissions knows a thing or 2 about how to correctly balance an image to achieve their desired photograph.

      This is a fantastic set of photos, great work Jim!

    • Jim Stephenson

      Hi Alex. Thanks for checking out my work and for the critique, although I would have thought it could have been worded in a slightly more constructive manner… I’m extremely critical of my own work and to my mind there’s only one image here where overexposing has taken out and considerable amount of detail – the ninth one down, where the view from the windows is overexposed by between 1 and 2 stops. I assume this is the image you’re talking about?

      Let me try to explain; I choose to overexpose whats outside the window on almost all my daytime interiors shots by at least 1 stop unless I feel the view outside is the key feature of the room. By doing this carefully, the viewer is still able to see what sort of a view exists (in this case, a very “London” city view) and the room is still correctly exposed. I use lighting in my interiors work, but as subtly as possible. I also feel when a view from the window is completely “correctly” exposed, along with the interiors, the image looks unreal, almost CGI like and at the very least, HDR-esque (something I avoid). It is these areas of highlights and shadows that give an image depth.

      I hope that is of some help in explaining this.

      All the best, Jim Stephenson

    • James French

      Highlights look spot on to me. Nice work Jim.