Dirk Verwoerd - on Architecture and Photography

Dirk Verwoerd (More interviews from this person)
Photographer
country:Netherlands
website: www.architectuur-fotograaf.eu

Bio

Since 1982 Dirk Verwoerd works as a professional photographer and is a sole proprietor of Lighthouse Productions. Initially he worked as a commercial photographer for divers advertising agencies and several large retailers. He was granted to work for the Royal Dutch Airlines, which made him able to combine his studiowork with travelphotography. He travelled all over the world and got inspired by the various cultures. His photography for KLM didn’t remain unnoticed: For years he worked for the travel agency ‘Himalaya Tours’, of which the journeys took him to the far corners of the world.

At the moment he works for several renown architecture offices and housing corporations and captures the interior and exterior of new housing estates and renovations. His recent work consists of beautiful photodocuments of the renovation of the ‘Koninklijke Nederlands Munt’ in Utrecht and an extraordinary newly built house in Baarn. Furthermore, Dirk Verwoerd was initiator of realising a book about the life and work of the famous Dutch architect Piet Blom.

Dirk Verwoerd: ‘Architectural photography is something I grew very passionate about and it has become my specialism. It is not just the composition, but the combination with the light and atmosphere that is so challenging and that I find thrilling to capture. I also enjoy adding the finishing touch with professionally editing and refining the pictures’.

:: Photo information and credits: © Dirk Verwoerd

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Kim Herforth Nielsen - on Architecture and Photography

My point of view:
on Architecture and Photography

Interview Date: 24-08-2011

What is the importance of architectural tourism?

Architectural buildings, monuments and artworks are often iconic for a place and determine for a great deal its character. They attract tourists and generate the economic spin-off of a city. You can’t say you’ve been to Barcelona without having seen Gaudi, or the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Cube Project from Piet Blom in Rotterdam, Santiago Calatrava in Valencia, Frank Gehry in Bilbao, etc.

What is the importance of traveling, especially for architects, and humans in general?

Traveling is an inspirational sensation. It broadens your vision by experiencing different cultures, different people, different ways of living. Traveling to another country or continent can change your perception of the world completely. There are many differences between cultures, but you realise we all share this planet and we all have found our ways to live. That, essentially, makes us no different from the other. You can learn a lot from other cultures, whether it’s on hospitality, easy-living, music, cooking or ethics. Although we can learn a lot from the television and the internet, it can’t be compared to being somewhere for real and experience it by yourself. Exchanges of cultures art, music, architecture and food make the world a better place.

What do you think is the added value that architecture creates within a city?

As I stated earlier, architecture can be an iconic part of a city. It is also an expression of a culture’s taste and values. It is much like decorating your living room. You can do this cold and inhospitable, or envive your livingroom with playful colours. Architecture determines how you feel in a place and how you experience the environment. Consider Parc Guell against the concrete blocks from the communistic era and you realise that the way a neighbourhood is decorated can be either depressing or enlightening. It's the responsibility of the architect and the urban area planners to make the best of it.

What is your relationship with architecture? What attracted you to architecture, as a photographer?

When I had to choose what I wanted to study in the mid-seventies, it was either photography or architecture. In that time I admired (and still do) architects like Mies van Rohe, Le Corbusier and Dudok. I love the lines and shapes in modern architecture and I am a huge fan of modern minimalism.

We can say that most of architecture photos of buildings do not include any people. What are your thoughts about including people in your photos? Is it important to photograph a building in use, or by itself?

It depends. People can add value to a picture, when they’re on the right place on the right time. People can give scale and help the viewer to see the architecture in its right perspective as much as they can ruin a picture by being on the wrong place and asking too much attention. Besides that, you always have to be careful making photographs of people in public spaces without asking permission.

What have been your most exciting and challenging architecture photography projects?

I loved working on a book on the life and work of the Dutch architect Piet Blom. Piet Blom is, amongst other projects, renowned for his Cube project in Rotterdam. Together with his son -also an architect- Abel Blom and Jaap Hengeveld I worked about two years on this book. We had to do a lot of research in the N.A.I. (Dutch Architectural Institute). It was a very exciting experience and absolutely a project I’m proud of. I learned a lot about architecture and loved it.

Many architecture theorists and a lot of people think that contemporary architecture is designed in order to be well photographed. Doing this work, do you have this feeling of buildings that are not designed to serve specific needs but are rather iconic and self-promoting?

Well, there are architects that specifically work on the design, wanting it to be an eyecatcher as its main purpose. From that goal they fill in the function which the design could have. There are also architects that distinguish themselves by first thinking of the purpose of and the needs for a design and work on the form when the purpose and needs are clear. As a photographer I much rather prefer the first. I’m not really interested in its function, I want to captivate its unique design. A perfect design allows me to captivate the creativity and inspiration. For now there are still many grotesque projects in architecture that are mainly buildings designed for their function and do not meet the eye. So let’s be thankful for those architects that also meet the eye’s needs.

Most of architects worldwide share the passion of photography for various reasons. At the same time they usually photograph their projects on their own. What special skills and equipment would you say are required for architectural photography? How do architecture photographers do better this kind of work?

In general architects have a strong character and are headstrong. ‘Arrogant’ isn’t really the right word, but most are surely selfsecured. ‘I can design this fantastic building, so I should be able to make fantastic pictures too’. This is not always the case. Capturing architecture seems simple, but nothing is further from the truth. It demands expertise and patience and understanding of the architect’s vision. My goal is to translate that vision into a picture. Being on the right spot on the right time with the right light, with the right equipment: That's the key.

I can get inspired by the works of an architect, but the architect can also be inspired by a photographer. Good pictures can put an architectural design in unexpected perspectives.

What is the difference between seeing a picture of a building or a place and visiting the building or place yourself? How does architectural photography explore the relationship between the perception of space and the experience of space?

In a picture there’s always 'the art of omission'. A picture gives a subjective view of reality. Seeing a building for real can be much more imposing. You can experience the actual height, depth and surroundings. You can walk around it, touch it, go inside, that’s very different and sometimes even better than seeing a picture on flat 2D.

I take my pictures from certain angles that resemble the perception of the space and try to make it as close possible to reality so viewers can imagine the experience of the space. It is important that I capture the atmosphere that fits the building or place. As a writer can describe all the details of a building, I capture it on camera and let the pictures speak for themselves. Pictures trigger the imagination and that’s what it’s all about.

At the end, can you please provide your personal proposal for 10 buildings (constructed and visitable) which you think as the most important worldwide that someone must visit anyway?

The works of Santiago Calatrava in Liège and Valencia, Barcelona Pavilion - Mies van Rohe, Cube Project Rotterdam - Piet Blom, The skyline Rotterdam, NAI and Sonneveld house Rotterdam, The Ship Amsterdam - Michel de Klerk, Alhambra of Granada, Angkor Wat - Bayon - Cambodia, Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Familistère Guise - Jean Baptiste André Godin, Centre Pompidou Paris.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.