Architectural Market

[Gary Ferguson]

Anyone any observations on the current state of the commercial architectural market? My own experiences here in the UK are pretty dire, admittedly I'm more focused on component suppliers to the building trade, but the business has just fallen off a cliff.

[bavanor]

Gary,

Working in the architectural world here in Seattle, WA, I have seen our workload decrease substantially since late July early August.  This is especially true on the residential side of the architecture business.  And I don't see this changing for a few years.  The jobs to find now are with the public (ie, cities, states, universities or federal projects).  I think we are going to see a lot of architects try and ride this recession out in one or more of these types of projects.  

My suggestion would be to try and find out public jobs that are in design phase or about to start construction and see if the specifications for those jobs call for a photographic documentation of the construction process.  A large city, state or federal project could keep you busy for a year or more documenting the construction.  I have not personally ever specified for photographic documentation, but there is a section for this and if it is in the specs, then the contractor has to fulfill the requirement.  

Don't know if this helps or not but that is how I see the environment from the architects side.

Aaron
http://asbritton.blogspot.com/

[rainer_v]

i think its hard to answer because there is no architecture market which can be described as one thing.
to answer your question depends from which market your work is coming from. i dont care much about these houses because i havent shot any of this kind of buildings before too.
for sure the houses stuff will decrease , allthough we in germany havent had this market similar than in the US. in Spain they have build 1.000.000 unnessesary houses too, but i even doubt that anybody needed good done architecture photographs from this speculative and c***f** houses  ( thats how they mostly look there and many many  are even empty,- you shoot one of them and you have enough to sell the other 1000000 all over the country,  cause one looks as the next ). i have to admit even to hate them since several years lot for ruining some of the best and loveliest landscapes in Spain for nothing except to drive the prices of all other houses in crazy hights and to make some, few people rich .... so probably i never was the right photographer for them, also i nearly never saw good photographs of this kind of houses,  i think the investors would done the hell but invest in good photographers,- the houses sold from alone because the buyers believed to double their investment in at least 3 years. than came the end of the price and house flood and it came so fast that no one tried to sell better with good photographs because it was obvious that nothing was going anymore. at least the next 5 years, but i believe that many of the empty houses will end up as nice ruins. than i will photograph them  

bigger architecture projets are normally  longer term plannings so they wont be affected so rapidly, same about museums, public projects and so on. public projects even might increase cause several governments will try to help in spending more money in constructions- ( although some government dont want to show in bad times that they  spend "unnessecary" money in expensive looking publications for not beeing criticezed to waiste taxes ... .  ). i have some  investment fonds as clients who invest in ( large ) estates, which seem to spend very carefull money at the moment, but i wouldnt make a rule out of it.
myself i am usually busy on several tracks and i still dont have a clear idea how the crisis will affect my commercial work or not, at the moment i dont feel it, but as i said, i am busy on different tracks ( art, architecture, museum) so it could come little bit delayd to me if the things run bad. honetly i am more concerned about a real big financial crash in the near future ( which would mean that we just see the introduction of the big bang at this moment ), but lets hope. and after this crisis has passed lets hope even much more for our ecological envorinment and future,- honestly this makes me much more fear for me and my children.

im general i see that much more people want to come in architecture photography than some years before, i think mainly because its cheaper and much more easy  to do with 35mm cameras smaller jobs than formerly in the film days. this has a deep and fundamental impact as i think, because its ( probably ) much more diffficult to come in commercial business than some years ago, cause 100 times more photographs are been taken of each project and "cheap" clients often will be satisfied with "cheap" images,- which simply werent available so much in the pre-digital times.

i am shooting at the moment a new museum in munich which is looking spectacular. you cant imagine how many people come and take shots. maybee 50 persons take their shots at home each day ...  
its really funny but serious too, allthough i dont see that this might affect my work this months, in general the availabilty of "gratis" shots will have a big indirect impact for the whole photo world,-
probably more than the slow economy ever could have.

[pixjohn]

I can attest to cheap DSLR killing the architectural market in CA. Since moving to a leaf Aptus from 4x5 I have come across more and more low ball photography. The clients have started to not care about quality, and more about the cost. This started way before the housing market crashed.

I now have to say 50% of my clients have gone out of business, the other 40% of the marketing and art directors have been laid off and the last 10% say they don't plan on shooting anything for the next 2 years.

[Gary Ferguson]

Read somewhere that every single non-partner architect in Iceland has been laid off. Every single one! Here in the UK surveyors are wondering how they can provide reliable commercial property valuations when there are zero sales taking place to give any kind of current market price comparison.

No new P65+ for me I think!

[SeanBK]

There is one market that should still be not that much effected is in proposal of Architecture work. Where the scale model is shot & superimposed in the background of future neighbourhood. Though AutoCad program does offer that ability, but the final rendering is rather devout of texture & real feel to it. Hence the photo composite imparts more realistic proposal, which everybody favours.
   Hang in there.

ps. Gary here in States, surveyors & Title company are very busy, updating the new drilling wells owned by Oil Companies. My Brother-in-law is busier than ever with just Oil Companies leased properties, they bought too many new properties at throw away prices, that's why they can't reduce the gas prices.

[free1000]

Anyone any observations on the current state of the commercial architectural market? My own experiences here in the UK are pretty dire, admittedly I'm more focused on component suppliers to the building trade, but the business has just fallen off a cliff.

I think you answer your own question when you mention the UK building trade. The UK building trade has been dropping off a cliff for a long time now, so component suppliers will be badly affected for the next couple of years. You may need to find another sub market. You have to keep in mind that the UK in particular and the world as a whole has been in the most almighty property bubble. This has meant that normally rational people have borrowed from their future earnings to buy internal fixtures and fittings of such sumptuous luxury that roman emperors could have wept with envy to have them. I am thinking of the ad for a bed that states 'is a bed really worth £60,000' and the baths carved from solid marble for £10,000, but it works it down the chain all the way to the level where quite ordinary people have thought nothing of spending £40,000 having a kitchen refitted (or of spending £10,000 for a cooker). These days are gone probably for ever.

As Rainer said, there isn't really an architectural market, but a collection of different sub markets.

I have to say that many of the markets I used to consider serving are now simply not paying enough to hit my break even rates.  The companies concerned have plenty of money, they just don't have to spend it on photography because there are so many photographers prepared to work for the minimum wage. I know one guy who was photographing hundreds of buildings for a large property company (with immensely deep pockets I might add) and he was charging £1 per picture delivered. He was running around and shooting 100 in a day to make it pay... or so he claimed.

Just like investment you need a number of different markets to serve to keep going through ups and downs of particular markets, but the next couple of years are going to be tough. I personally know of a handful of people laid off from architectural practices recently, and I've had one project cancelled by an architect citing 'the credit crunch'. When architects are losing their jobs, photography will be about the last thing on most of their minds.

Things will get worse for architectural photographers because many people want to get into this area, and the more people are laid off from eg: architectural practices, the more they might have the idea of having a go at it, now its so relatively easy to get going with digital equipment.

Its a good time to have other income streams either up and running or planned, both inside and outside the chosen area of photography.

[edwinb]

Its a good time to have other income streams either up and running or planned, both inside and outside the chosen area of photography.

In the car photography market for some time there has been a movement to taking manufacturing models of cars and putting them into a light enviroment with the high quality background shot required and creating the image in a photorealistic way. this saves the thousands for building the car and I see no reason why arcitectural photography will not follow suit. The good news is you can utilise photography skills to create the image the same way you position light, cameras, etc. If you havent done so then maybe you could download   Hypershot free trial and check where you can offer this combination of creativity and technology, in the car market I heard comments like " as big a change to the industry as the digital camera"

Edwin

[rainer_v]

In the car photography market for some time there has been a movement to taking manufacturing models of cars and putting them into a light enviroment with the high quality background shot required and creating the image in a photorealistic way. this saves the thousands for building the car and I see no reason why arcitectural photography will not follow suit. The good news is you can utilise photography skills to create the image the same way you position light, cameras, etc. If you havent done so then maybe you could download   Hypershot free trial and check where you can offer this combination of creativity and technology, in the car market I heard comments like " as big a change to the industry as the digital camera"

Edwin

model photography gave some income in the film days, often is needed huge depth of field to shoot scaled models which you just could get with scheimpflug. nowadays many of this jobs disappeared and are mostly made inhouse from the pr department or some architects themself with p+s cameras, which have very deep d.o.f.
on the other hand many architects are used to work with sophisticated and good 3d rendering programs, they are mostly a very important part of the competition entries the architects have to do to get jobs,- so these renderings have to be good to win the competitions. sometimes they look very very realistic,- sometimes even too much.
architetcs dont need architecture photographers to make at the  end of the construction 3d rendering- looking like images again. the building has to be shown in the natural ambient to show how it looks in reality not to make now a second time a model looking like rendering photograph

[haefnerphoto]

Hopefully, the CGI technology won't affect the architecture photography business as it has the automotive photography business.  While photographs still are taken of cars the volume is substantially less.  One of the reasons I became interested in photographing architecture was that as Rainer stated, "the building has to be shown in the natural ambient (setting/light) to show how it looks in reality", not a computer operator's take on reality.  CGI works and quite honestly I can't always tell the difference between photography and a rendered model of a car.  For the most part it looks different and many times wrong but when the appropriate amount of effort and time are put into the project it can look incredibly realistic.  The two businesses are different but don't be mislead to believe that shooting HDRI domes and backgrounds is a creative endeavor in either discipline.  If anyone really is interested in that area as an vocation let me know, I've got a Panoscan MkIII that I'd let go very reasonably.  Now to address the thread's topic, you won't find a more descimated economy than Detroit but I've found that there's business if you really work hard, have some talent and are persistant in your marketing efforts.  Let's hope that this economic downturn is shortlived, it already is the worst I've seen in my 30 years of business.  Jim

[gwhitf]

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[rainer_v]

There is a double page image in this month's Archive, from Taylor James. A car shot with an urban background. There's an explanation of how the image was created, right in the ad. Basically, not only the car was CGI but also the surrounding buildings and streets. The only "real" part of the image was the very back Layer, the extreme background.

Most of these CGI images leave me feeling empty, (but so do a lot of overly-photoshopped "real" images too). But when you look at that ad, and you see how much was built in the computer, it's downright scary. I wondered the budget, and the man-hours, on building all that.

http://www.taylorjames.com

PS. It's the image that comes up first, with the car, the buildings, and the "scorpion" construction device.

Working like that is probably some Account Executive's wet dream -- to be able to change anything, after the fact, or move things around. And don't you know that these retouchers have mastered the art of billing for Rush.

as a consequence of this photography has to gain and claim "credibility" in the future. i think there will be no space for very visible "photoshopped" images.
soon the CGIs will be made completely, perfect, fast and cheap , but still this is an expensive man- and computer- power hungry work. this will change soon.  
than there will be the need for "authentic" photographs, which transports the alleged reality, which will be received as the counterpart of the "invented" computer image.

[yaya]

There is a double page image in this month's Archive, from Taylor James. A car shot with an urban background. There's an explanation of how the image was created, right in the ad. Basically, not only the car was CGI but also the surrounding buildings and streets. The only "real" part of the image was the very back Layer, the extreme background.

Most of these CGI images leave me feeling empty, (but so do a lot of overly-photoshopped "real" images too). But when you look at that ad, and you see how much was built in the computer, it's downright scary. I wondered the budget, and the man-hours, on building all that.

http://www.taylorjames.com

PS. It's the image that comes up first, with the car, the buildings, and the "scorpion" construction device.

Working like that is probably some Account Executive's wet dream -- to be able to change anything, after the fact, or move things around. And don't you know that these retouchers have mastered the art of billing for Rush.

You'll find This website interesting and also this article and this one

[Dustbak]

Thx! Interesting. There was a similar article in the Dutch magazine PF (professional photographer) about CGI. Coming originally from software development this certainly has my interest.

[yaya]

Thx! Interesting. There was a similar article in the Dutch magazine PF (professional photographer) about CGI. Coming originally from software development this certainly has my interest.

There was always a demand for images that can be used for backgrounds or that can be ray-traced and projected on surfaces, as textures or reflections and these in most cases look better if they were actually captured and not generated on a computer

I have worked as an industrial designer in the past and (mid 90's) and what was then available from Alias-Wavefront and 3DMAX was very limited. I my view there's still a great potential for photographers to expand into this business.

Yair

[rainer_v]

There was always a demand for images that can be used for backgrounds or that can be ray-traced and projected on surfaces, as textures or reflections and these in most cases look better if they were actually captured and not generated on a computer

I have worked as an industrial designer in the past and (mid 90's) and what was then available from Alias-Wavefront and 3DMAX was very limited. I my view there's still a great potential for photographers to expand into this business.

Yair

thx. interesting. also remarkable that 90% or more of all the shots in the webpages you linked are car shots. i wonder why it isnt much more used for smaller products. costs?
whats the job of a photographer in this. to deliver the single samples? as backgrounds, products, models and so on? looks as i dont understand how these images are made. worth for a new tread ...

[Dustbak]

The photographer handles the effect of the lighting, the overall composition including backgrounds, naturally other roles are thinkable as well. The photographer in many cases knows what makes sense and what doesn't making him a suitable person to make sure the whole is blended into a really compelling image. The photographer can also only supply the needed images serving under someone that has the overall supervision on a project.

As far as I have been able to find out the images are built in several parts.
The CAD data to render the model
The Material data to get the right textures.
Background images, surroundings.
HDRI takes to get the light at the spot where the object eventually needs to be placed. With these images you can render the light onto the object so it is believable.

It is true that most are car images because they were the typical applications where it started. Currently it is dripling into smaller object photography as well. In the article I read the same kind of procedure is taken as with the cars but for the light a 'HDRI' image is taken from the lighting that would normally have been used for that kind of object. With that lighting data, the CAD data and the material data images can be generated from smaller objects as well. Objects that haven't been produced yet.

Naturally there are several factors that are in play here. You need the CAD data, Material data.I think at this stage it is only interesting for large amount of objects that are pretty much the same and need the same lighting. In the future this might be different.

[yaya]

thx. interesting. also remarkable that 90% or more of all the shots in the webpages you linked are car shots. i wonder why it isnt much more used for smaller products. costs?
whats the job of a photographer in this. to deliver the single samples? as backgrounds, products, models and so on? looks as i dont understand how these images are made. worth for a new tread ...

This technology is being used for smaller products but not as extensively as for cars, for historical reasons but also for costs. A lot of the initial design concepts are still generated by hand but it very quickly moves into using 2D and 3D software. The CAD data that is being generated for cars, in general, is a few levels above most other products, mostly because of the complicated surfaces that at some point and somehow will have to be converted into shaped metal/ glass/ plastic/ composite body parts.

The car industry started using it very early. I recall that we used to leave the SGI computers to run a single rendered image overnight to create a "massive" 1.4MB jpeg that we could store on a floppy disk...at that time architects were using Autocad for 2D ONLY and anything 3D was done with cardboard, a scalpel and UHU sticks...

These days, an image of a flat brick wall can be analysed and then used to create the texture of a building wall or it can be reflected on a car's side panels and so on.

And much like with the pictures of the products and buildings, the higher the quality of that image is, the more realistic its implementation in the final image can be.

Yair

[ctz]

thx. interesting. also remarkable that 90% or more of all the shots in the webpages you linked are car shots. i wonder why it isnt much more used for smaller products. costs?
whats the job of a photographer in this. to deliver the single samples? as backgrounds, products, models and so on? looks as i dont understand how these images are made. worth for a new tread ...

and another one:
http://www.809cgi.com/

there's a "behind the scene" section.
worth to take a look.

c

[Martin Kristiansen]

Seems in the developing world, in my case South Africa, we always battle a little more to keep up and pay our bills but in this case the looming football world cup is helping us. There are massive capital intensive civil projects on the go. It seems as well that the corner has been turned to some extent regarding quality of photography as we are seeing more clients asking for work of a higher standard. Perhaps they finally figured that the cousin with a dslr was not the top of the game.

I am nervous of the future but our very restrictive foreign exchange laws actually protected our banks by not allowing them to get involved in the subprime mess. This may save our butts. We are seeing a slow down but still hope for a 4% growth rate this year. Things are tough but this end of the world that is the way it tends to be.