Richard Glover interview - H&E Journal Series

Inside the oeuvre, and mindset, of globally acclaimed architecture photographer Richard Glover.

Photography wasn’t where you started out. It was something you moved into after starting in other areas.

My first sort of vocation was working in advertising. I was there for only a few years, but it introduced me to the broad spectrum of how visual communication is handled – whether that’s still imagery or moving imagery or purely sound… I went through a period where I realised advertising was not quite what I wanted to do. And so I sort of fucked around for two or three years – I travelled. And it was when travelling that I picked up the camera and really started getting a bit more serious.??

And when you returned to Australia, it was full time chasing this new desire for photography?

I came back from overseas with little picture essays and started to pitch various magazines – The Good Weekend, Traveller – and that worked well. At the same time, because I had contacts in advertising, I’d get little funny little jobs – studio still-life or portraiture. I really did anything because I was building my expertise and the direction I might go. And I’d always been interested in architecture and so I gravitated to photographing it.?

You simply courted this direction.

Well, there are certain serendipitous moments involved. I started to photograph the Dairy Corporation Building in about 1989 or ‘90. And one day this fellow just walked up and said, ‘why are you doing that?’ And I responded, ‘because I like it.’ We struck up a conversation, he was the architect and he became one of my first clients – Mark Willett.??

You then move to London – forced to start over but with that, we imagine, the fact you’ve nothing to lose in pursuing architectural photography?

So true. I’m in this big city, I had this mishmash portfolio of all these funny little bits and pieces but people would always gravitate to the architecture and the landscape stuff. And I realised that I just had to concentrate on what I did best …? I was also working at that time with a panoramic format and I used to go out into the wilderness and do these sort of classic ‘Australian’ sort of scenes – I was having a Drysdale moment but also using it in urban scenes and in architecture and in certain circumstances it worked brilliantly. And that helped reinforce my position in London as this Aussie who had some really strong images in this quirky format and people really liked it – they could see how they could also use it as a point of distinction.??

To talk of your London commissions and work is to talk of your wonderful documentation of the creation of what we know today as the Tate Modern.

I got several commissions and several really good clients, one in particular being John Pawson and everything just sort of built and built from there … I got calls and one of those was from the Tate Gallery who were in the process of planning Tate Modern – it was just good timing, a lot of luck, but also me making the most of the opportunities. And we developed a long-term relationship over several years – I followed the development of Tate Modern from the Bankside Power Station into what stands there today as one of the largest modern art galleries in the world.??

It must be have been fascinating to watch this transformation.

It was a tremendous project. Look, they were very strict on health and safety but really I had carte blanche – I could go anywhere onsite at any time. And I created my own brief and then exhibited that when [the Tate] opened at the Royal Institute of British Architects.?

How would you explain that brief, that series, given this sense of freedom you were gifted – creating something for them and equally, for yourself?

Yeah, that’s a good question because I think it’s important, as a photographer, the brief is key. If you’ve got a written brief, well, that’s the starting point. And obviously for designers, if I’m documenting or illustrating their design intent, then I have to think very much from their point of view and how I can visualise their intellectual property. But in an instance such as [the Tate] where they really let me do as I want – it was an art project and I wanted to have a body of work where someone who didn’t know much about this project could step in and follow, to some degree, the linear progression of the transformation. And it was very much a transformation from one particular building to another particular building, you know, ‘how does that happen?’ But then within that there were little vignettes, little moments where you could sort of branch off and explore a little bit more subtly with greater nuance, which might spark other considerations for those viewers.??

This was, ultimately, a project that really announced you as a photographer?

I grew in confidence and while this might sound boastful, I became a well-recognised practitioner in the UK, if not in Europe and also back here in Australia.??

Stepping back into Australia fulltime as you did in the early 2000s — as someone with your eye what did you make of what was taking place here in a broader design sense, an architectural sense? Was there a sense of excitement or were you looking at things and thinking, what the fuck is going on?

I think there is fantastic architecture here – great designs, really thoughtful, hardworking, considered. But I think they’re somewhat let down by the market and the people who are in control of the finances, if I’m going to be really critical.

In discussing a medium such as yours we often talk about a photographer’s or an artist’s aesthetic. How do you view yours? Are there specifics elements linked throughout your work?

I think that’s the wrong way to approach photography. I think you have to develop your sensibilities and you do that through research, whether that’s formal research, maybe even studying formally, but certainly incidental – obviously looking at other practitioners and certainly not just commercial practitioners. When I began I was looking at commercial photographers but I’ve always looked at photographers who aren’t working commercially and then other artists as well, and filmmakers. I think the broader you can research and add to your understanding of the medium you’re dealing with, the better. And I would tell my students, don’t just copy. You can use it as a starting point, but don’t emulate, don’t think I must have to do it like this because that’s wrong. And then this notion of style, what’s your style? I think that’s another trap because if you have a style, then it becomes, oh, it’s Richard Glover’s always doing pictures like this, like this. And that’s wrong because the buildings are different. I have to work with the building, be led by the building and obviously with the brief in the background the whole time, but if I’m just imposing my style, it’s just fucking daft. It doesn’t make sense. So I really don’t like that word. And I think it’s important that any designer ignores it.?

Words by Richard Clune & photography by William Labourier

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