This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see more of my work.
I’ve been lucky enough to be commissioned to photograph on the Olympic Site a couple of times in the last few months, concentrating on Allies & Morrison’s Press Centre Buildings. This has been really interesting, to see how the site has developed over time and we’ve been able to have a bit of a look at the other buildings on site on the long, long walk back to the entrance / exit gates on the way out. Hopkin’s Velodrome is as elegant in real-life as it is in it’s photos, Populus’ Main Stadium is far more impressive than I expected from the vis work and Zaha Hadid’s Aquatic Centre looked stunning before those additional cheeseblock seats where wheeled in (which, we should all remember, are to be removed).
I went over there yesterday for the Diving World Cup and took my trusty Lumix GF1 with me so I could take a few snaps. It’s a bit odd to be photographing architecture on such a small camera, with no tilt-shift lenses or tripod, but quite liberating. Here’s a few examples…
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see more of my work.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see more of my work.
Last week, Conran & Partners commissioned me to head over to the Design Museum to document the exhibition they have on at the moment marking the life and work of Terence Conran. From the Design Museum’s website… “The Design Museum marks Sir Terence Conran’s 80th birthday with a major exhibition that explores his unique impact on contemporary life in Britain. Through his own design work, and also through his entrepreneurial flair, Conran has transformed the British way of life. The Way We Live Now explores Conran’s impact and legacy, whilst also showing his design approach and inspirations. The exhibition traces his career from post-war austerity through to the new sensibility of the Festival of Britain in the 1950s, the birth of the Independent Group and the Pop Culture of the 1960s, to the design boom of the 1980s and on to the present day”
There’s still a bit of time left to see the exhibition as it runs through until 12th April. For all the info click here. Happy (slightly belated) birthday, Sir Conran!
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see more of my work.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see more of my work.
I recently posted some work I did in Tokyo at Roppongi Hills for Conran & Partners on my blog. Well, whilst there they also commissioned me to shoot their retail project at Futako Tamagawa (also in Tokyo). This project is the first phase of what will eventually become a very large mixed use scheme and by all accounts has proved to be very popular in the city with architects visiting it quite regularly to check it out. As soon as I arrived, the very polite security guard saw my tripod and camera bag and whisked me off into the depths of the complex to issue me with the press pass I needed for the day. I cannot possibly explain how cold I was when shooting this – Tokyo had gone from being pretty balmy (I shot the Roppongi project in just a t-shirt) to arctic in a few days. That said, cracking project to shoot.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see more of my work.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see more of my work.
Back in November I headed off to Japan (you may have seen me rattling on about it once or twice, or maybe three times). Whilst there I had a couple of shoots to do for Conran & Partners, who have worked quite extensively in and around Tokyo. One of their largest projects out there is at Roppongi Hills; a mixed use site incorporated housing, managed apartments, offices, retail and leisure facilities. C&P briefed me in the UK and put me in touch with Yohjiro Gotoh, from Design Index, who was to be my “fixer” out there. Gotoh-San helped me out with permissions and some of the equipment hire I had to do as C&P had asked me to shoot some video of the site whilst there to. I really enjoy working abroad. It’s full of new challenges, but is very exciting. Plus it’s almost like a holiday… Below are some of the images from the final edit of the Roppongi shoot, as well as the video I shot for them. Click here to see the other project I shot for C&P in Tokyo, at Futako Tamagawa.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
Back in March I shot the new Small Batch Coffee Shop in Hove for Chalk Architecture. Since opening the shop has been a huge success, both in terms of the amount of people enjoying their coffee and for the design awards it’s been nominated for (including a WAN Interiors and Design Award). It’s also lead to another shop opening, this time in central Brighton underneath MyHotel in Jubliee Square. When I first moved to Brighton this area was a wasteland and it’s remarkable to see how it’s changed so much, largely due to the Stirling shortlisted new library.
Anyways, Chalk called and asked if I could head over and shoot the new shop. Big thanks to the staff who provided me with free coffee all day (I’m learning to like coffee) and to fellow photographer Harry Watts, Dan and Vic from Conran & Partners, Andrew White, and Kirstin Stride and Lynne Davies from Handmade Brighton for popping in to be my ‘part-time coffee models’.
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, Small Batch has really become a modern Brighton institution – worth popping in if you’re in town.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
Early on in the summer, which seems like a while ago now, I photographed a small project initiated by RIBA London where a group of Part 1 and 2 architecture students were commissioned to design (and build) a temporary bandstand in front of Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank, London.
It’s fairly rare in architecture for students in their early twenties to get the chance to see a design process all the way from inception to production information, construction and completion, so this was a great opportunity for those involved to get this experience. When completed, the bandstand proved incredibly popular with the public, with events hosted on and around it for the whole summer. These images, and the accompanying video, were commissioned by the students involved.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
Back in August, when everyone else was seemingly on their holidays, I had a free day so I decided to pop over to Bexhill to have a wander around the De La Warr Pavilion and check out Duggan Morris Architect’s new wind-shelters which had recently been finished off, in conjunction with Millimetre. Naturally, I took along my kit and took a few photographs of the wind-shelters, after some quick fish and chips and whilst contemplating if wind shelters was two words, one word or in need of a hyphen.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
I honestly can’t remember when it was that fellow photographer (and mate) Adam Bronkhorst and I went for a road trip. Possibly last year. I’m guessing at October, but it could just have easily been March this year. Anyway, that’s a pretty boring debate. What happened was, Adam is putting together a couple of books to be published later this year and he needed to shoot as much as possible for that. I’d been told about this odd psuedo-deco estate along the Sussex coast, so we headed out there.
Anyways, I was incredibly incredibly busy at the time and had forgotten about the shots I took of the estate. I just rediscovered them (at half nine on a Wednesday night whilst listening to the footy on the radio) and thought I’d pop them up on the blog. I’d love to head back sometime and do a proper shoot around the place.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
For the upcoming Festival of Architecture, Norwich and Norfolk (FANNXI) I spent a few days in the countryside photographing the post-war and mid-century housing by architects Tayler & Green. Working almost exclusively in one area of Norfolk and Suffolk, the work of T&G is often criminally overlooked (largely because they didn’t do a great deal of work in London). The housing they built in the 50’s and 60’s is extremely regionally distinctive, in that nothing else in the area looks like it, and it bucked the popular European Modernism trend at the time. It was a pleasure to photograph the work and the short talk that architect Matt Wood gave for residents of one of the estates at Davy Place. As well as forming part of my ongoing personal project, documenting this era of housing all over the country (see posts on Span and Rowley Way), these images will be used throughout the festival and by Professor Alan Powers for a lecture he will be giving on the architects.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
Yesterday (Saturday, if you’re reading this on a Sunday), I went to the Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate in Camden, London with Paula Knee, Simon Kennedy and Aleks Krotoski. The estate, frequently called the Rowley Way estate, is about as good as it gets for me. Loads of concrete, utopian ideals, trees and plants, a community-minded spirit and designed by borough architects (Neave Brown of Camden Council’s Architects Department). I appreciate I’m viewing this estate, and many others of the same era, with slightly rose-tinted glasses and without the knowledge gained from living there, so whilst photographing estates I always try to chat to some of the residents. Ron had been there for 25yrs and was kind enough to show me his home. Although he had some misgiving about the design and, in particular the way the services worked, he loves living there and praised the community spirit. He was proud of his home and to say he lived on the estate. It was a bloody lovely day, ended with a nice chat in a nearby cafe with my fellow photographers and a wander along the canal to Kings Cross in the sunshine, before joining a couple of mates for a few drinks back in Camden. Lovely stuff. Here’s some of my images from the day…
This is the photography blog of clickclickjim, Jim Stephenson Architectural Photographer. Please head to my website at www.clickclickjim.com if you’d like to see my work.
