12 iconic architecture photographers paving the way forward

To celebrate the inaugural Head On Exposure Awards, we are highlighting just how diverse photography can be. Find out more and enter the Exposure awards here.

Architecture photography can bring a building to life, turning concrete and plaster into poignant and touching reminders of the value of the spaces we live in.

The best architectural photographers step beyond merely documenting the everyday, instead capturing moments of livelihood and life within the world around us. The photographers on this list are some who epitomise their craft.

One of the leading photographers in the world, Hélène Binet (Swiss-French) is a star of the field. Her practice focuses on illuminating the essence of spaces, using the interplay between light and shadow to create effortlessly beautiful architectural forms. Binet works solely with analogue film, believing “the soul of photography is its relationship with the instant”. Throughout her 30-year career, she has worked closely with leading contemporary architects such as Daniel Libeskind and Zaha Hadid, following their projects from commission to completion and evoking the history of the buildings she photographs.

Tim Griffith (Australia) has made a name by crafting outstanding residential and commercial architecture photography. Griffith’s images capture these structures’ energy, innovation, and visual impact, from sleek civic centres to cutting-edge housing spaces. His work Viewhill House, perfectly evokes this, echoing the abstract sensibility of the architect’s design by documenting the house through abstract and unique angles. His approach merges cinematographic and photographic elements, creating a sense of wonder and excitement elevating commercial space perception.

From outside to in, interior architect Telka Evelina Severin (Sweden) is pushing the boundaries of how we view architecture. A designer and photographer alike, her unique mix of skills has prompted her to create stunning and vibrant images. Severin plays with spaces, finding uniquely designed interiors before mixing them with lively and colourful design elements. She is heavily inspired by colour, shape and composition ideas, crafting eye-catching images that feel like they have been lifted from another world. This boundary-pushing photographer is not one to be missed.

Perhaps the first architectural photographer, Eugène Atget (France) pioneered the field. Determined to document all of the architecture in Paris pre-modernisation, Atget would wander the Parisian streets for hours at a time, slowly and methodically recording any and every building he deemed to be of eminent status. His practice spanned over 30 years, from the late 1890s until he died in 1927. He produced thousands of images and became the building block for all architectural photographers to follow.

Geoffrey Goddard’s (Australia) command of colour and shape creates arresting images that hold the public’s attention in rapt focus. He examines the formal characteristics of buildings, often contrasting them against the surrounding environment. One such example is The Crossing, where Goddard playfully juxtaposes the harsh, box-like structures of the natural environment against the wild and energetic palm tree striking out above the architecture. Goddard’s work turns ordinary buildings into futuristic worlds, creating a sense of ambiguity between the real and the constructed.

Damien Drew’s (Australia) photographs capture architecture in a state of degradation, showing buildings often overwhelmed by the natural environment. Within his photographs, the buildings are dead or dying, caught in neglected dilapidation. This constant thread of decay and silence evokes the feeling of a melancholy passing. His work, Shikoku no seijaku (Shikoku Silence) demonstrates this perfectly. In it, a large structure towers above the tree line. However, no life emerges; instead, a blanket of stillness and peace descends upon the building; there is no sound in the image; everything is still. Drew’s ability to evoke such melancholy from his subjects is a testament to the power and emotion within architectural photography.

Julius Shulman (America) pioneered architecture photography as we know it today. Shulman, a pioneer of the field, approached architecture photography as a means of interpreting the world around him, not just as a means of documenting it. He innovated the use of human scale within Architectural photography, using human subjects as a foil to express the scale of the buildings he depicted. His most famous work, Case Study House #22, balances the harsh architectural lines of the building against the more fluid forms of its inhabitants. Shulman transformed architecture into a living space and also transformed architectural photography as a whole.

Fernando Guerra (Portugal) is responsible for the extraordinary documentation of architecture and sharing it with the world. Guerra has been responsible for the large-scale appreciation of contemporary Portuguese architecture over the last two decades. Guerra has become an architectural trailblazer after forming FG+SG with his brother over 20 years ago. His work masterfully captures contemporary architectural forms in his native country, using the lines and shadows of buildings to create an emotional resonance with the audience.

A leading figure in architectural photography, Max Dupain (Australia) is a monumental figure in the field. Practising throughout the 20th century, Dupain was one of the early proponents of modernism in Australian architectural photography. Dupain’s goal was to dispel the “cosmetic lie of fashion photography or advertising illustration” instead of using his architectural photography to document the world as a series of everyday interactions. He acted as the introduction of graphic contours, light contrasts and other key photographic techniques in the Australian photographic scene.

Sydney-based photographer Chris Round (Australia) seeks to document the manufactured landscape. His practice focuses on documenting architecture as a contrast against the landscape, exploring the balance between humanity and nature. Round’s work has an understated quality, doing little manipulation and instead looking for structures that create naturally striking scenes within the world around him. Find out more.

Dianna Snape (Australia) creates personal and intimate depictions of contemporary Australian residences. Snape focuses on how people interact with architecture, using architectural lines to focus on the intimate spaces inhabited by people. Her 2021 book ‘Architecture at the Heart of the Home’ offered an intimate portrayal of buildings’ role in how people live. Snape’s architectural photography engages in a private and very personal examination of houses, looking to capture the ‘heart’ of the house in the residential buildings she documents.

John Gollings’s (Australia) work offers one of the most unique and in-depth accounts of Australian architecture over the late 20th and early 21st centuries. For over 40 years, Gollings has meticulously documented Australian architecture. From large commercial ventures to tin sheds and toilet blocks, he has meticulously created an image of Australian identity through buildings. His long-term prolific capture of Australian cities has repeatedly led to multiple buildings photographed by Gollings, capturing the development of modern Australian architecture as we know it today.

Want to find our more about great photography or, better yet, have your own work to show us? why not submit your own architecture photography into the Head On Exposure Awards. Find out more here.