Publish or perish
Behind the scenes of an architectural photo-shoot, things are not always as polished as they seem…
Back in my uni days I remember my professors would complain about the pressures of academia. They quite often used the phrase “publish or perish” to describe the dual pressures of research and teaching.
I really enjoy teaching so at one point I did entertain the notion of doing a PhD and entering the academic world. After meeting with a handful of supervising professors I quickly decided it wasn’t for me. You spend three to five years of your life undertaking a line of research that may or may not align with your values and you’re not even guaranteed a placement at the other end. I have tremendous respect for those intrepid researchers out there that have tackled their PhD.
“Publish or perish” has also made it into the world of architecture. Just when you think one of your designs has been built and the owner is about to move in, there’s one last major hurdle. That is the architectural photo-shoot and while it’s not a PhD, it’s certainly a marathon of a couple of days setting up, shooting and then decamping.
My most recent photo-shoot was in March this year and I was delighted to have local photographer extraordinaire Lulu Wells on board. We were also lucky the house was set up temporarily as an Airbnb rental so there was some furniture in place. After getting a quote for a stylist around $5000, I decided to take on the job myself with a little help from my friends.
Luckily one of my mates owns an outdoor furniture company and he kindly lent me some of his showroom items. Borrowing Dad’s van I hit the road for Artarmon for collection the day before the shoot.
The landscaping wasn’t finished so I asked my mate who has a landscape business if he could help out with some guerrilla gardening. Luckily he could spare some of his crew and had some plants ready for a job that were still in their pots.
My mum used to own a gallery and so another quick trip to her house to collect a bunch of art for the walls and then finally to my house for a few designer items that I had in my house and then we were set to put it all together.
Borrowing my wife (a film director), we spent the wee hours of the morning before the shoot to style the place as much as best we could. By the time Lulu arrived I was already profusely sweating from playing removalist/go-for boy.
While the sun didn’t shine as much as we would have liked, we took photos of the downstairs area only to realise the sun was passing beyond a point where we wouldn’t catch some cool shadow effects on the upstairs courtyard wall. We had to drop everything and take the shoot upstairs and had only moments before the sun went beyond the wall. Back downstairs then back upstairs Lulu was done by midday and off to her next photo-shoot.
Meanwhile, we had to undo all of what we had done in the house, including the garden. Another marathon of to-ing and fro-ing the next day, I was starting to empathise with removalists and wondering if I shouldn’t have just used AI to add all the entourage!
So all up three days of lugging stuff, lots of sweat and a little help from my friends, the photos were delivered the following week courtesy of Lulu. All that effort for 17 photos, some of which still haven’t seen the light of day. Next time you’re flicking through one of those glossy architectural magazines, spare a thought for those behind the scenes. It’s not a PhD but after it all I definitely felt more on the perish side of publish!
