Facades

“The greatest joy for me is geometry; that means a structure… It’s a recognition of an order which is in front of you.” (Henri Cartier-Bresson)

I share Cartier-Bresson’s love for geometry and structure which for me is achieved by photographing buildings. They don’t move (and so focus is far easier) and as for order, whilst there’s great satisfaction in getting everything in its right place - rhythm, balance, straight lines arriving in sharp corners, etc - enormous pleasure can be had in the presence of a touch of dissymmetry.

In his landmark book, Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes describes the concept of the punctum. “It is this element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me. A Latin word exists to designate this wound, this prick, this mark made by a pointed instrument... punctum.” For me it’s the special something - the slap across the face - that stops you in your tracks and captures your attention.

But punctum is a deeply personal thing. An element perceived as punctum by one person might be viewed as a distraction by another or may indeed go unseen. Punctum, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Going clockwise from top left, these buildings were photographed in Rome’s EUR district, Marseilles, the City of London, and finally Westminster, London.