PREFACE 前言II

撰文摄影师：埃希亚·鲁Text: Asier Rua

用探索的眼睛，发现建筑背后的故事

USING THE EXPLORATION EYES TO FIND THE STORY BEHIND ARCHITECTURE

尽管在马德里学习摄影八年，但我从来没有想到会成为建筑摄影师。曾经，我更容易被肖像、人物和这种特殊风格所体现出来的各种可能性所吸引。建筑摄影于我而言是何等地缺乏生机、平淡与枯燥。

机缘使然，生命中的某一段时间里，我身边都是一些设计师，他们教会了我如何解读建筑的语言，如何体会客观存在的诗意，如何领略物质的变幻，如何聆听空间的故事，更重要的是，他们教会了我如何洞察映照在空间里的鲜活的生命。由此，我慢慢地、几乎是不知不觉地走上了建筑和室内摄影的道路。从那时起直到现在，我还是为走上这条道路而感到愉快。途中的点点滴滴，令我感触良多，我体会到这种特殊的风格与我的个人阅历息息相关。

偶然的一天，我在网上查找同行的作品，无意中读到一位同行写的一篇文章。我开始反思自己的作品，反思自己如何踏入建筑摄影的领域，反思自己对建筑的理想和标准的观点。在那之前我一直独自前行，在这个领域里耕耘，不曾参照任何同行的摄影作品。这篇文章为我打开了一扇明窗，让我看到之前不曾关注的东西。

这篇文章观点总结如下：建筑摄影作品必须客观，表达的应是建筑师的想法，而不能夹杂任何摄影师的思想。读后我才感觉到自己之前的路子走得不对。文章作者是西班牙一位重要的摄影师，他的观点根植于其多年经验，我考虑过这点。经历过起初的沮丧之后，我开始思考摄影和建筑对我来说实际上意味着什么。我开始写下只言片语，试图不受这位同行的观点的影响，而是作为对自己之前工作方式的一种总结。

我并不认可这篇文章的观点，我的工作是向另一个方向进行的。首先，我需要知道摄影和建筑各自的本质。我惊讶于自己对两个主题使用的“客观性”字眼。摄影作品可以是客观的吗？我实在想象不出，摄影何以作为现实的忠实写照。相机作为一个强有力的工具，代表了诸种可能，但却取决于摄影者。我实在想象不出，由具体的摄影者，在具体的时间、具体的光照、具体的取景和具体的角度拍摄的图片，何以能代表宇宙的部分真实？稍微变化其中一个元素，对同一个影像的解读则完全不同。由此，我如何能为一栋大楼或室内空间拍摄客观的影像？哪个角度，哪个框架，哪种光照，我们能称之为客观？诸种问题，绝无答案。摄影作品原本就含有主观的情愫。相同的时间，相同的地点，不同的摄影者会拍出不同的作品，展现不同的构思，反映出一定程度的现实，而所有这些现实都是真的。

然后我开始思考对建筑的体验。难道我们所有人对建筑的体验都是相同的吗？当我想到这个问题时，我马上回忆起几年前的经历。某天，我回访出生地并决定参观儿时就读的学校。眼中所见令我很惊讶。一切都没有改变。但是，由于我业已成年，感触也截然不同。在我脑海中，这个地方还和我小时候看到的一样，地点没变，但我已长大，人生经历也随之变化。蓦然一个想法闯入心田：对空间的体验实源于个人，因人的阅历而有所不同。如果我们把小孩和大人对空间的体验相比较，很明显，两者感受到的空间规模、比例和高度都不同，但我们成年人对空间的鉴赏力和态度也都不一样。

对于我来说，态度也成为一个重要的问题。以花园为例，我想到两种不同的生活态度所导致不同的生活体验。首先，我想象有一入园者躺在草丛中，或安然入睡，或张开双眼凝视着自然的生机，享受和煦的阳光和沁人心脾的青草芳香。如此之花园体验，实乃“感性”之体验。同样的花园里，另有一入园者，细究花园的每一部分，行走在小径上，研究花的色泽。这又是“沉思”之体验。两个入园者，同入一园，体验却截然不同。建筑亦然，空间感受源于不同的居住者。

建筑不能客观地存在，摄影作品何以客观？摄影光照、时间何以客观？早上8点和晚上7点哪个更为客观？在两个时间里进行的摄影皆是对建筑及内里的真实反映。一天的不同时间里，光线能传达空间物体的不同质感，而所有质感都是真实的。

每一次建筑成像，于我而言都是一个新的挑战。初入行时，对我来说建筑摄影如同生活照那么简单。几年后，当我拍过成千张照片之后才发现自己错得如此厉害。每一次新的拍摄，我都考虑再三，竭力让每一幅作品呈现背后三个不同的故事。我要做的工作，就是把这三个故事的本质浓缩在一连串的图像当中。

故事之一是建筑师的故事。我必须通过图像去解释建筑师的作品、意图和他自己的语言。我必须努力使自己的摄影作品容易理解，要从最佳的角度体现出建筑师的意图。同时，我必须注意不要曲解设计师的想法，以便读者能很容易地理解该项目的含义。

故事之二来自于空间的居住者。居住者可以重新解释建筑空间，在我看来这是最为奇妙的。人们居住在空间中，身边的一切物体，有的陈列在架子上，有的藏在抽屉里。内里铺陈体现出主人的个性和他们生活的方式、爱好。这是一个非常私密的故事。正因为这个故事，建筑才有了鲜活的生命，有了生机，有了创意。

故事之三是“我”。空间氛围、光照、视角、动感、细节都是考虑的要素。我从不移动里面任何家具，空间元素不加不减。我努力忠实于空间的本来面目，在当中寻找灵感。我喜欢依照住宅本来的方式去拍摄作品，在最后一张照片中营造一种有人居住在其中的感觉，让人们想象里面的居住者是什么样的。图中虽无人来人往，但我必须要知道实际上有人在那儿。毕竟，人对人才是最感兴趣的。建筑应该体现人、社会和我们的存在本身。

因此，我仍将继续探索建筑摄影之路，并研究生活在其中的人。

To be an architecture photographer is something I have never planed or thought while I was studying photography eight years ago in Madrid. In my early years I was more attracted by portraits, people and the possibilities of this specific genre. I felt architecture photography was something dead, plain and quite boring.

In a certain period of my life I saw myself surrounded by architects who taught me the language of architecture, the poetry of the objects, the magic of materials, the stories inside the places and the most important thing: the people reflected into architecture. As a result of this I went slowly and almost unconsciously into the architecture and interior photography. It is a delightful path on which I have been walking since then. Through this walk I have reached several conclusions about this specific genre which of course are based on my personal and professional experience.

On a certain day surfing on the web and trying to find the works of other professionals like me, I found an essay written by a colleague. That made me think about my own work, the way I was introduced in architecture photography and my personal view of what architecture should be. I had been working in this field ever since. I had never had any references of what other photographers were doing. This text was a perfect window to my own thoughts, something I hadn't payed attention to until then.

This text summed up the next idea: architecture photography must be objective; it must be a vehicle for an architect's idea. In fact, photographers shouldn't use architecture as a vehicle for their own self-expression. After having read this I felt I was doing something wrong. The author of the text was an important photographer in Spain, so his opinion was based on years of experience and I took it too much into consideration. After this disappointment I began to think of what photography and architecture really meant to me. I wrote some lines trying not to be influenced by this man's opinion but for the way I had been working until then.

I realized that I disagreed with the main ideas of that text and that my work walked in another direction. First I needed to know what photography and architecture were independently. I was surprised by the use of the word"objectivity" referring to these two topics. Can photography be objective? I can't think of photography as an instrument for the faithful representation of reality. The camera is a powerful tool for representation with multiple possibilities which will be absolutely different depending on the person who uses them. I can't think about an image which contains a portion of universal truth in itself, as it has been made by a specific person, shot on a specific second and with specific light, frame and angle. If we modify just one of these elements the reading of the same image could be completely different. So, how could I take an objective image of a building or interior? Which one is the objective angle? The objective frame? The objective light? I found no answer to these questions as I believe they don't exist. Photography is a subjective language. Ten photographers in the same space and time would take ten different images, ten different ideas of that concrete portion of reality and all of them would be true.

Then I thought about the experience of architecture. Do we all have the same experience of architecture?

When this question came to my mind I immediately reminded an experience I had lived years ago. Some day visiting the city I was born I decided to go back to the school where I had studied when I was a child. I was surprised by my perception of the school. All the elements of the class were exactly the same and in the same place, but my visions of then now that I was an adult were incredibly different. In my mind the image of this space had remained as my child vision and now that I was grown up I was living a different experience of the same place. This made me think about how places could be totally different depending on the person who experiences that place. If we compare the experience of a child and an adult, it's obvious, as there is a matter of scale, proportion and height. But we adults also have different sensibilities and attitudes.

Attitude also became an important issue for me. I thought of a garden and two different attitudes of living the experience of a garden. First I imagine someone who gets into this garden and lies down on the ground, sleeping in the grass, staring at the bug's life, and enjoying the heat of the sun and the freshness of the grass. I would say a"touchable experience" of the garden. Then I imagined another person in the same garden, but this one stares at the composition of it, walks along its paths and studies the colors of the flowers, which creates "contemplative experience". Both of them have lived in the same garden but their experience couldn't have been more different. So I thought architecture was supposed to be the same. It is something alive that will be interpreted by the user, and this user is not homogeneous.

So, how could I reflect in my pictures and objective image of the places I was photographing if architecture for me is not objective? Which would be the objective light? The objective time of the day to photograph? Is more objective 7 pm or 8 am? Both are true; both are a true vision of that building or interior. Light will transform the textures of the materials through the day and none of them is a lie.

Every new house I have to photograph is a new challenge. When I first started into interiors and architecture, it seemed to me an easy genre to photograph. After some years shooting thousands of pictures I noticed I was so wrong. There are several matters I have to take into consideration whenever I photograph a new house. I would say there are three different stories in every house I photograph. My work is to condense in a series of images the essence of these three stories.

The first is the story the architect has created. I have to explain through images the project the architect has developed, his intentions and his own language. I must try to get a comprehensible group of images which sum up his purposes in the best way. As well as, I have to pay special attention to not distorting this idea so that the final reader can understand easily what the project is talking about.

The second one is the story the inhabitants of the house have created. This is the most magical one as I see how the spaces have been reinterpreted by their owners, the objects people have selected to live with, the ones they show in a shelf or the ones they hide in a drawer. These objects talk about them, about who they are, how they live, and their interests. This is a very intimate story. It turns architecture into something alive, mutable and creative.

The third one is the story I live by myself into the house. The atmosphere of the place, the light, perspectives, movement and details are my particular worries. I never move any furniture, not even add or eliminate any of the objects I find in the place. I try to be faithful to what I have in front of my eyes and find inspiration on it. I like to photograph houses as the way they are lived, having in the final picture the feeling that the place is lived in by somebody, and give the opportunity to the readers to imagine what this people could be like. Though I never include any human figure in the pictures I need to know that they are there. After all, people are interested in people and architecture should talk about people, society and who we are.

Therefore, I will continue this photographic path in the search of people who live in architecture.