This month, I am excited to be the featured photographer in the February 2018 issue of the Marketer magazine. The Marketer is the national journal of the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS), the leading organization for marketing and business-development professionals in the architecture, engineering, and construction industries. You can find them at www.smps.org. The magazine has 7,000 subscribers, with additional pass-along readership. There are about a dozen of my photos in the issue, and it’s exciting to see them in such a high-quality format. Thanks to the publisher, Christ ..read more

North Carolina has one of the few state-owned art museums in the country. It’s a welcome expression of the state’s better nature, especially considering that the government lately has been better known for the infamous House Bill 2, systematic racial gerrymandering, and unlawful voter suppression. The West Building, which houses the permanent collection, is an internationally significant work of architecture. Architect Thomas Phifer designed the building, which was completed in 2010. Phifer is based in New York but has roots in the Carolinas: He holds two degrees from Clemson, and early in his ..read more

I recently visited the James B. Hunt, Jr. Library, on the North Carolina State University campus in Raleigh. The building opened in 2013, and is designed as a flagship research library for the NCSU system. The architect is Snøhetta, with executive architects Pearce Brinkley Cease + Lee (now Clark Nexsen), and construction by Skanska. For a detailed article featuring some of the backstory of the project, click here. I first saw the building in photographs, and I was intrigued by its shape: at once streamlined and blocky, its ship-like form seeming to float on a sea of earth beneath an open sky ..read more

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! I have nothing profound to add about the season, or peace on earth, or the renewed opportunity for hope that each New Year brings. Mostly, I wanted an excuse to use this photograph that I took last year at the Art Institute of Chicago. Nevertheless, I wish everyone a peaceful, meaningful holiday, and a prosperous and fulfilling year ahead ..read more

In Lansing, Michigan, you can visit my in-laws, enjoy creative flavors of ice cream at the Michigan State Dairy, and puzzle over why the state capital isn’t in Detroit. You can also visit the Broad Art Museum on the MSU campus, designed by Zaha Hadid and completed in 2012. I recently visited the Broad (rhymes with “road”). The exterior is distinctive, to say the least, with its sharp-finned, steel-clad envelope, and its evident hostility toward 90-degree angles. Inside are more jagged edges, a few vertical walls that concede to thenecessity of hanging things, and a conspicuous absence of curve ..read more

Today is the 150th anniversary of Frank Lloyd Wright’s birth. I am one of Wright’s many admirers; in fact, for years I have kept a photo of him near my desk for inspiration. Most of the commemorations today will probably emphasize his architecture, and justifiably so. I love it, too. Beyond design, however, Wright inspires for the way he lived. He wasn’t always a role model in his personal life, but Wright had a monumental spirit. He was a fiercely independent thinker, who had no regard for cant or sacred cows. With the exception of a few lulls, he was tirelessly productive, and he was still ..read more

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, as the saying goes, you’ve heard about the recent efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Amid the political arguments and policy discussions, I have heard little or nothing about the effect of the insurance system on people in the creative professions, especially the many of us who are self-employed. It may surprise some people to learn that a poorly managed health-care system could severely hinder progress in the arts. Like most Americans, artists and other creative types need to provide for themselves and their dependents in a country ..read more

In the profession of architecture, my former profession of law, and many others, practitioners need to meet continuing education requirements to maintain licensure. For better or worse, there are no such things in professional photography, but the conscientious photographer looks for ways to learn more of the things that will improve one's work. Like many architectural photographers, I don’t have a formal background in architecture. I don’t think that is necessarily a handicap; if nothing else, it may help me to look at things naively, which can lead to useful discoveries. Nonetheless, I gene ..read more

It's a daring claim, but it might be true. I took these photos at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, designed by Josef Paul Kleihues. Among his achievements, Kleihues is known for his theory of “poetic rationalism,” which sought to add grace and humanism to the sometimes austere geometries of modern architecture. The staircase is a great example of this theory in action. At first glance, the building is indeed rather boxy and geometric, even sparse. (This is hardly a failing, however: there is actually a lot going on with the exterior, and the interior is deliberately spare, the better to ..read more

Where any view of money exists, art cannot be carried on. -William Blake The idea that money, patronage and trade automatically corrupt the wells of imagination is a pious fiction, believed by some utopian lefties and a few people of genius such as Blake but flatly contradicted by history itself. . . . On the whole, money does artists much more good than harm. The idea that one benefits from cold water, crusts, and debt collectors is now almost extinct, like belief in the reformatory power of flogging. -Robert Hughes Much as I admire Blake, I think the wonderfully trenchant Hughes wins this r ..read more