You may not know him, but you’ve probably seen his iconic images. His name is Julius Shulman, a wonderful architectural photographer with a fantastic attitude and passion for architectural photography.
The clarity of his work demanded that architectural photography had to be considered as an independent art form. Each Shulman image unites perception and understanding for the buildings and their place in the landscape. The precise compositions reveal not just the architectural ideas behind a building’s surface, but also the visions and hopes of an entire age. A sense of humanity is always present in his work, even when the human figure is absent from the actual photographs.
Here’s one of his most famous images, the Stahl House in the Hollywood Hills. According to Shulman, this image was taken with two flashes lighting up the interior of the property, and then the shutter was kept open for 5 minutes to allow the twinkling lights of Los Angeles down below to show in the image as well:
A documentary narrated by Dustin Hoffman about the life of Julius Shulman has also been produced. It’s called “Visual Acoustics – the modernism of Julius Shulman”. Here’s the trailer: