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.

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. If you’re looking for info on the miniclick photography talks, please click here.

Whilst in Japan, between commissions and arranging camera hires, we did actually get time to have a nice holiday. Generally when I’m on holiday I don’t tend to photograph the traditional tourist spots and sights. I can just buy a postcard pack for that. I stick to photographing architecture, details and little bits and bobs that I know will remind me of the place I’m in. You can get an idea of this on this blog post, of my holiday snaps of Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. Anyways, it’s a good job I wasn’t looking to photograph the traditional sights as I soon realised I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near them – it seemed like everyone had a camera and everyone wanted their photo in front of this spot or that sight. So, I decided to roll with a small project called “People shooting People”. Here’s some of the results…

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. If you’re looking for info on the miniclick photography talks, please click here.

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. If you’re looking for info on the miniclick photography talks, please click here.

In November, I headed off to Japan for a couple of weeks, partly as a holiday but also incorporating a couple of nice commissions for Conran & Partners. Japan, for a long time now, has been a place I’ve been eager to visit. I can now say it’s a place I’m eager to return to (so if anyone wants to send me their on commission – give me a shout). Surprisingly to me, and I’m sure to those who knows me, I didn’t shoot that much architecture out there with the exception of the buildings I was sent to photograph. To be honest, I found that side of it a bit overwhelming and could easily have turned the entire trip into a grand architectural tour. I did try to get to Ando’s Church of the Light outside of Osaka, with photographic intentions, but it was closed the day I had free. Anyways, I concentrated on shooting handheld with my new Lumix GF1 and all the shots here were on that camera.

This post is all about the stills I shot, but I also did a lot of video work to. That’s to follow. In the meantime, this is what Japan looked like to me…

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. If you’re looking for info on the miniclick photography talks, please click here.

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.

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.

And it rained.

A lot.

You can see how happy I was that it rained here.

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.

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.

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.

After spending a few days in Norfolk, photographing 1960’s housing for the Festival of Architecture, Norwich & Norfolk (FANNXI) I dropped by Clerkenwell Design Week on my way through London, back to Brighton. I only had a couple of hours, but I had my kit on me so I thought I’d take a few snaps whilst there.

After checking out the House of Detention (a former Victorian prison being used as an exhibition space for designers and artists), I headed to London Fieldwork’s Spontaneous City. “A poetic and eccentric experiment for birds in urban green spaces”…

After that, I wandered round to Clerkenwell Road to stop by the Step Inside Bar by Chetwoods Architects for the World Festival of Interiors. Chetwoods converted a former petrol station into a pop-up bar…

Finally, I stopped by the Farmiloe Building, a Victorian former commerical building, to say hello to a couple of clients and friends exhibiting there.

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.

Earlier this week, fellow photographer Ian Rudgewick-Brown and I decided to take a day off and have a peek around the 2012 London Olympic Park, just to make sure everything is coming along nicely before they potentially take several hundred quid out of my account for all the tickets I applied for.

I’ve been to a lot of building sites in my time and I have to say this one is looking pretty good, still with a year to go. Hopkin’s Veledrome is done, Wilkinson Eyre’s Basketball Arena is looking good, the Village is coming along, Populous’ Stadium looks ace with the black seating and white steel and Zaha Hadid’s Aquatics Centre will be great as soon as they take out the cheeseblocks. For the first time, I was genuinely excited about Anish Kapoor’s ArcelorMittal Orbit Sculpture as well. Like the Shard, Londoners should try getting used to the skyline now as it is going to be huge.

On the way back we swung by Stanton William’s Hackney Marshes Centre as well, which is one of my favourite London projects from the last few years.

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.