An interview with architectural photographer and previous Hedrich Blessing apprentice, Tom Harris

“I think it's important to do justice to the building no matter what the design, budget, material, or my personal opinion on whether or not the building is aesthetically or functionally beautiful. There are people whose careers have all led to the completion of the project, and to write it off because it doesn't have a high budget or a flashy spiral staircase isn't fair to the people I work for.”

Tom Harris began his career as an Architectural Photographer in 2009 immediately after graduating with a BFA from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. He started as an apprentice at Hedrich Blessing Photographers where he became a staff photographer in 2013.

He left in 2016 to begin his own studio and in the five years since has become one of the busiest architectural photographers in America.

From small practices to international firms, Tom enjoys collaborating with a wide range of clients including, Studio Gang Architects, Skidmore Owings & Merrill, Gensler, Perkins+Will, Stantec, Partners By Design, Valerio Dewalt Train, John Ronan Architects, and more. He has also been hired to document several Architecture Biennials in Venice and Chicago.

Tom views every shoot as a chance to collaborate with other creative professionals. The photography shoot is a discussion between designer and photographer and the finished photographs are stronger as a result of this teamwork.

Tom's photographs have been widely published internationally and can be seen in recent issues of Architectural Record, Metropolis Magazine, The Architect's Newspaper, and Dwell. The recently published Benjamin H. Marshall, Chicago Architect features Tom's image on the cover as well as dozens of images within the book. His photographs can also be found published in The New York Times, The LA Times, CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Dezeen, and Design Boom.

Hi Tom, I hope all is safe and well with you and many thanks for taking the time to share with our community. 

I've been listening to your YouTube talks with Mike Kelley recently and can I congratulate you on offering some great insight into your world and thought process.

Can you tell us what has been keeping you occupied recently throughout 2020 and what your plans for 2021?

2020 was an interesting year, my wife and I had our first child, a beautiful healthy baby boy, so that kept us pretty busy preparing our home and ushering him through his first months of life. In my professional life 2020 was slower than normal, only around 60 shoot days, but I tried to find the joy in thinking outside the box to get the work done.

My assistant and I made long road trips from Chicago to as far as Denver and Atlanta (12-16 hours of driving) in order to safely make it to shoot destinations with lower probabilities of covid transmission. 2021 is already shaping up to be a good year, work is ebbing and flowing as Architecture firms sputter back toward full speed.

Well firstly, a huge congratulations and how lovely, I you’re enjoying fatherhood and your wife and little one are safe a well.

Now that is dedication in regards to travel, 12-16 hours….you could the whole of the UK in that time.

I discovered your work a while ago but have only recently been engaging with it more, could you tell us what got you started and what your background is and who you got your apprentice at Hedrich Blessing 

I went to school for photography, I have a Bachelor's of Fine Arts with a major in Photography from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. I became enamoured with architectural photography while in school as my work slowly narrowed in scope toward the built environment. I began practicing documentation of architecture in many of Milwaukee's abandoned industrial buildings.

I spent time in the Pabst Brewery, the Milwaukee Solvay Coke and Gas building, and the Peter Cooper Glue Factory slowly working with my cameras and getting to know the process of making a set of images that described a building. I found working in forgotten spaces to be relaxing as I didn't have the stresses of working in a public space and the constant issues that come with that such as security getting upset about tripod use, or blocking spaces for extended periods with my equipment.

At the time I was graduating from college I had heard about this wonderful studio called Hedrich Blessing that had been around since 1929 and had always depended on a mentor-mentee apprenticeship model, working all day with masters of the craft sounded like a dream and I began hatching plans to work there. I helped arrange a photography exhibit at school and invited the photographers there to drive up and jury the show, they agreed and I had my first contact with them at that time.

I showed them around the school and at the end of the show I asked if I might come down to Chicago to share my work with them. We set a time for an interview and a couple of months later I found myself in the conference room of HB with Steve Hall and Jon Miller with all my work spread out on the table, talking for longer than three hours. It was magic.

That was in 2008 and the great recession was slamming into our industry with full force so it took a few months until they had an opening for an apprentice but when they did I was fortunate enough to be chosen to fill that space. I primarily apprenticed under Steve Hall, but when he wasn't on shoots I was frequently out on assignment with the rest of the photographers: Jon Miller, Nick Merrick, Scott McDonald, Kate Joyce, Craig Dugan, and Dave Burk.

I also trained under our master retoucher Bill Oistad, and for one six month stint after he left I handled all the post production for the studio, retouching for all the staff photographers as well as for myself as I worked my way toward being "on camera". After three and a half years I was officially moved from being a photographer's assistant to being a photographer, officially the 23rd photographer to be on staff in the history of the company, still one of my proudest moments to date. About four years after that I decided to leave to begin my own practice, my studio is now five years old.

Incredible, such an honour and a great achievement. Your work speaks for itself and is an inspiration to many in our industry.

Hearing you talking with Kendall McCaugherty the other day about your time within the agency, it is inspiring to hear the thought and attention to detail behind your considered approach. This is something that I'm trying to draw upon in my own work.  

Could you tell us a bit more about your ethos and how you approach your work currently?

I speak about this often, I try to approach every project as if it were the best project I've ever seen.

I think it's important to do justice to the building no matter what the design, budget, material, or my personal opinion on whether or not the building is aesthetically or functionally beautiful. There are people whose careers have all led to the completion of the project, and to write it off because it doesn't have a high budget or a flashy spiral staircase isn't fair to the people I work for.

They put years of their lives into the work in front of my camera and I roll in most often on the day it shines the brightest right before it opens to the public or just after the landscape is complete and the only way to get the most out of everyone is to treat it like it's the best thing I've ever been hired to shoot.

What are the Jay-Z lyrics? "treat my first like my last, and my last like my first, and my thirst is the same as when I came", those are good words to remember as you start every shoot. Otherwise my ethos really just revolves around loving the work, I love the client relationships, we dance to music in the parking lot while we watch the sunset fade into dusk and as the building begins to glow like a lantern.

I love the sudden break in the clouds and the scramble to capture an exterior as an envelope of light swallows the building for a few short minutes and then seals it back into shadow as we retreat back indoors for more interior pictures. I love the percussive pop of my strobes and the smell they have just after they've fired. I love the feel of my tripod as I sling it onto my shoulder for the twentieth time of the day on hour sixteen of a summertime shoot. I love watching my images take on a life of their own as some of them become icons and define the building and as the images actually become the building to all those who will never set foot inside. I love my relationship to the sun, how it only allows what it will on any given day, and that because it has been so woven into the fiber of my being that every brick I see lit with warm, raking light just gives me a little hit of adrenaline as though the time were right and my camera should set itself up to make a photograph.

Lastly, I love that I'm now entering a part of my career where I have my own apprentice and have the capacity to begin to teach what I have devoted all of my 20's and half of my 30's to, I enjoy the process of showing others the way in this unique, exhausting, cutthroat, beautiful form of art that I'm lucky enough to have made a career out of.

I’m tearing up, that was beautiful. I don’t think I’ve had such a passionate response to that question…the hairs are standing up on the back of my neck.

I love what you say about the relationships with your clients. There is nothing better than being on the same page as your client and them having trust in you, the process is so much more enjoyable and you get better results I feel. I understand when clients want to be over your shoulder the whole time, but it does slightly stifle the creative process a little for me.

You’ve been working for many years now in the industry, do you feel it has changed and where do you see the future of photography heading, not only in our genre but as a whole?

I've seen the transition from film to digital, and watch the pendulum sway from the clumsy new legs of a digital medium through oversaturated HDR hellscapes and into a generally very refined look.

With the advent of the camera phone almost everyone now has a higher photographic vocabulary and while some are threatened by the relative ease of making "good" pictures I see it as a wonderful thing. Overall I've seen the appreciation for truly great image makers rise over the last decade, since there is more interest in the photographic process in general there is now more room for a greater number of photographers to exist.

My hope for the future is that we are all able to continue to set standards for the industry and help educate one another on what works for everyone so that all ships rise on the tide of good practices.

I agree, I think it is only a good thing that we’re all pushing each other forward and trying to set new boundaries for ourselves and the industry as a whole.

As a photography community we love a bit of gear talk, could you tell us what equipment you have in your bag and enlighten those who aren't familiar a little bit more about your process.

I think we talk too much about gear to be honest but I'm happy to oblige.

I know but indulge us a little….

I use a couple of Canon 5dsr bodies with three tilt shift lenses, the canon 17, 24, and 50mm tilt shifts. I also have a long lens that I rarely use, but still do a couple of times a year for details or very long context shots.

I spent my first half a dozen years on view cameras, beginning with 4x5s and moving into medium format ones with a digital back. Perspective control is a must for this type of work and I enjoy the flexibility the DSLR bodies give me, so this kit is the obvious choice.

Beyond that I have a couple of Really Right Stuff tripods and an Arca Swiss cube for a head. I use Paul C Buff strobes as well as some ancient hot lights that I only break out when the situation warrants. I light photographs that need additional lighting, I don't when they don't. I could write an entire paper here on lighting interiors but we'll save that for another time.

I like that you mention 'The photography shoot is a discussion between designer and photographer and the finished photographs are stronger as a result of this teamwork.'  Do you feel working with lots of different clients in this way makes your style more consistent or more varied....?

I think my style is very consistent, what varies is the content. Ultimately what you point your camera at and how much you show of it should come from the discussion with the client. Remember you're there to make a set of images that work for them, not the other way around.

The rules are what make a game fun, if you just go out to a building and make as many or as few photos as you feel like making, and of what you feel like making them of... where is the fun in that?

I measure success against my clients needs, the budget they have, and the space itself. Of course I want to make all the photos I want to make, but sometimes the images the client needs force me to think about the space a different way and as a result I make good images I wouldn't have otherwise make and every once in a while they turn out to be the best photos of the set.

Where do you draw your inspiration from and how do you go about creating your stylised look?

I draw my inspiration from my past, my love of architecture, my love of the photographic process, and of the context around the camera at the time that I press the shutter release.

I strive to create images that show the building as close to design intent as possible, and I strive to make them feel like they're made for people, and that they live in a real environment and not in a model shop somewhere. I think it is important to keep context and the human element in mind every time.

I hear that and although there is ownership in creating your own style, the subject still has to be captured in a sympathetic and realistic way….if that makes sense…

Do you have a favourite thing you like to shoot and why?

I personally love exterior work because there are fewer variables that I can control.

It's easy to get bogged down with styling and lighting and when I'm out there with the camera and it is just me, the camera, the building, the sun, and the shadows from surrounding objects... I feel I make my strongest work when I'm working out in that sundial and the light is my dance partner.

I definitely think this is a part of my portfolio that needs work. I’ve shot so many interiors over the years and have created a workflow that works for me, however the variables in exterior work can be challenging. People like yourself make it look a lot easier than it actually is.

What would say the highlight of your career would be to this point?

Maybe my first magazine cover, the December issue of Metropolis Magazine in 2013. It was a photo of a building I loved, Prentice Hospital in Chicago, a Bertrand Goldberg building that was being torn down to make way for a more modern hospital. I took personal time to make the photos and they were just for me, to become familiar with the building and the space it occupied before it never would again. I showed the photos to some people and one thing led to another and they ended up being used by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in their unfortunately unsuccessful attempt to save the building.

This was a case of the images taking on their own life. As more people saw them they were published in more places until ultimately my phone rang and Metropolis was on the other end of the phone asking if I could send over a proof sheet for consideration, they picked one for the cover. All this after one of my mentors once told me "stop shooting the work of dead architects, they don't pay invoices"... I was happy to have been right to ignore him on that one.

There is is nothing better than that feeling of your first cover. The sense of achievement and hard work getting to that point.

Do you have any favourite photographers that inspire you and anyone you think we should be keeping an eye out for?

So many, you mentioned Kendall McCaugherty, she was my first apprentice while I was at Hedrich Blessing. She will be a force to be reckoned with (she already is to be honest) and I think she makes some of the strongest images of anyone, anywhere in the world. I love the work of many of my other contemporaries and I'm so happy to see so many young photographers on a meteoric trajectory, there is room out there for every one of them. 

I love Kendall’s portfolio and definitely one to watch.

Lastly, what has been your favourite takeaway in all the lockdowns?

That contact is so important, and that we are all in this together.

Every time we break for lunch now I bask in the stories and the smalltalk I get to have with my clients and my apprentice. I missed everyone so much. Additionally some of my favorite moments in life are the mornings after big midwestern snowstorms. We all go about our days in and out of our homes with neighbors often in near anonymity, but when the snow shovels come out and the plow jams everyone's cars in with piles of snow, suddenly we are all friends.

We all come together to 1.... 2.... 3!!!! PUSH each other's cars out of their spots, we shovel our walks and then our neighbor's and then our neighbor's neighbor's. We stand around in the sunshine with unzipped coats sweating in the freezing air telling stories about how the "last time it snowed this much I woke up and opened my front door and a four foot drift fell right into my entryway".

I think the pandemic has been a very long snowstorm and we're all waking up and standing on our stoops to tell stories of two hour lines to get vaccinated, and about how exactly we went about washing our onions and cans of soup after coming home from the store early in the pandemic.

I try to live my life in a way that eventually when I'm sitting around at night with my grandchildren that I've got stories to tell them, and there are no shortage of moments that fit that bill from the last year.

I love that!

Thanks to Tom for giving up his time this week for his takeover and interview.

If you want to see more of Tom’s work click on the following links - Website - Instagram