I’ve often been told by architect clients that I’ve seen more architecture than most architects.

The difference is, I’m not an architect, I am a Photographer of Architecture.

My eyes don’t necessarily appreciate the technical detail, spot the mistakes, or see the architecture that could have been or the architecture that is, the way an architect would.

As a photographer I see other things. I’m not married to the idea that the design works. I turn up for the first time to witness layers of beauty, atmosphere and moments. I see how the architecture serves its inhabitants, the landscape and the community it occupies, in real time.

I go about recording these ingredients (as if on a treasure hunt) as a series of moments, a picture story containing a broader ideal, a single-minded proposition, as seen and experienced by me. The camera can record what it sees, that is reasonably self-evident. The brief I give myself, and what my very talented clients expect, is to record how it feels to be there.

The spirit of place.

And so, it’s with fresh eyes, I arrive early and leave late, and there’s a bit of making it up as I go – it’s that in the moment creativity that excites me. I’ve been to hundreds of other shoots before this one, but never this one! So, I arrive at a shoot armed with decades of experience as a photographer but each time I show up anew, present. Seeing and feeling the newness of this moment and this place.

How do you show up with fresh eyes?