The body in photography

Dennis Gilbert

The body may well be back in favour. My arbitrary survey of editors reveals that when they commission new pictures of a building, they tend to ask that wherever possible, people be included. Some say this can be against the wishes of the architect - who no doubt cares deeply for the users of the building, but doesn't actually want them to move in - unless the pictures have been taken.

Including children in pictures of a new school for example seems perfectly sensible, and not 'just for scale': an over-used phrase. However I did see a stylish concrete Chilean school published Recently - without a pupil in sight, and it worked fine. Public buildings and empty museum spaces should benefit from signs of movement and life, but do buildings need the 'help' of people in pictures of them?

We are all aware that often the people are posed - while the construction workers, itching to sort out snags, are held back out of the frame for a few minutes. Apparently, although the journal editors ask for people, very often the pictures return without a body in sight but with several excuses. Without exaggeration, I can confirm that the skill of a film director is needed: a self-conscious body can broadcast the fact, even when very distant. And the actors need to be placed in an unexpected place, not in the logical place to 'balance the composition' [whatever that means]. The resulting picture is a fake: an apparently natural view of building and users, with no distractions caused by the picture making. If it makes the architectural photographer more spontaneous, that could be a good thing, but this is unlikely.

There can be a persuasive straight honesty in a photograph. In particular I look for the picture that is almost overloaded with countless bits of information, yet coheres at a distance; that quietly explains the space, yet has an abstract sculptural power; that makes a building appear etched into the landscape, but move it a millimetre in the frame and the lot is wrecked. Once absorbed by this ideal picture, the viewer can gain some familiarity with the building: is it not possible that this understanding of space might be easier if there was not already a body there?

This was confirmed once when I was asked to judge a photography competition themed 'architecture with people'. Several entries casually broke the rules and were devoid of any humans, but by the end of he judging, we all agreed - instead of disqualifying them - to include several for prizes: the missing bodies in these cases suggested human presence quite convincingly.

We do not generally expect to see people in domestic pictures - here it certainly is a distraction. Exceptions can overrule: could Shulman's pictures in the Koenig house over LA work as well without the people? They are overtly theatrical statements. Today, the blurred figure gliding through a light filled loft has already been well flogged by the decoration magazines. And of course a Bill Hedrich picture of Fallingwater does not need a human to add anything.

The truth is that the commissioning budgets of our familiar magazines are very limited, and if they weren't we might see a more risky variety of photographic opinions, chosen to suit each building [as the writer should be] - and it would not necessarily be the set of pictures the architect might show his clients.

I am not suggesting that there is a relentless kind of cycle to this debate, but every now and then editors drop the words 'gritty 'or 'grainy' and there have been times when a less studied approach was tried. In the 40's the modernist polished presentation of buildings was criticised as disingenuous and deadening, leading to a photo-journalistic approach in some publications. Again in the 60's several photographers were courageously used by magazines to depict and question post-war buildings. These pictures tended to include people, spontaneously or not.

Current examples of unworthy buildings, beautifully photographed, can easily be found: to set a fine documentary photographer loose on them, would not be a bad thing. I am not sure if this proves anything, except that, whatever the subject, the pleasure from the picture depends on the talent behind the shutter and the content in front, not on whether the film has grain or not, or whether bodies are there or not. It is unlikely our well-behaved journals are set for a grunge phase, but we do occasionally need more diagonals or fewer verticals, or the texture of film in place of abstract crinkly tin. A more critical approach by publishers to their photography is overdue: a major benefit would return to them in defining their own identity more clearly.

There are many photographs that lack people but are by no means soulless. Or we could think of pictures that absolutely succeed on the figures included. When I mentioned the question to a journalist just as I was about to photograph an empty stadium, she said 'Oh, I thought it was all about the great struggle: man-camera-building'. Exactly: we need photographers with opinions, and evidence of that struggle, bodies or not.

Dennis Gilbert is an architect and photographer. He has photographed buildings worldwide.