Wisdom and Inspiration
Architectural Viewpoint--An Interview With Elliott Kaufman
By Robert A. Schaefer, Jr.
Feb 1, 2009

All images © Elliott Kaufman

Bronx Borough Courthouse, South Bronx, NY

In November of 2008, I attended an event for the American Society of Media Photographers.  It was there that I was introduced to Elliott Kaufman, a fellow photographer and a teacher at the International Center of Photography as well as Queens College.  We discussed the books we are currently trying to get published, and later that week, I visited his home and studio on the Upper West Side of New York City.  I was particularly interested in his architectural images, and took the opportunity to find out more about them and his photography in general.



Robert Schaefer: A lot of your photography focuses on architecture.  Why have you chosen this direction?  Were you ever interested in becoming an architect?

Elliott Kaufman: I was never interested in becoming an architect but once I started doing photography, I was influenced by design of all sorts. Graphic, industrial, interiors and architectural. I was very taken by the Bauhaus ideals of interaction and interweaving within the various media.


RS: Is there a type of architecture, such as residential or museums, which you prefer to photograph?  

EK: I basically prefer to photograph projects that are actually well designed. Whether it is a bathroom or an auditorium or a museum it almost doesn’t matter, as my orientation is to interpret design. If the design is not there, then, there is not much to interpret, and I have to make up for that somehow.

Bredt House, Staten Island, NY

RS: Do you have a favorite architect?

EK: Not one really, but a few I could name are Calatrava, Diller and Scafidio, Steven Holl, Frank Gehry (for the IEC Building on the West Side Highway in Manhattan), and David Childs (for the Time Warner Building on Columbus Circle in Manhattan).


RS: Tell me about your background.  Were you interested in art
as you were growing up?  How did you get interested in  photography?

EK: I went out on my own when I entered my senior year in college and roomed with a friend who was an industrial Design major at the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts). He had a World War II reconnaissance camera that belonged to his uncle, which I borrowed one day. Almost immediately I knew photography was what I wanted to study and the field I wanted to enter.


RS: Did you study photography formally?  

EK: Not really; I am basically self-taught. I took night classes at the Philadelphia College of Art and had just one semester of photography. I felt that the teaching was too commercial, so I walked out mid-semester and never went back. I also studied typography, print-making and drawing. I ended up working for my typography teacher as an apprentice in his printing shop.

Bredt House, Staten Island, NY

RS: Which photographers have inspired your imagery?

EK: When I was starting out, the contemporary photographers that I looked at most were Andre Kertesz and Henri Cartier-Bresson. The new wave of photographers that were coming out with books at that time also inspired me quite a bit such as Bruce Davidson, Lee Friedlander, Gary Winogrand, Robert Frank and especially Elliott Erwitt.


RS: What about their work has had an effect on you?

EK: They all have a strong visual grasp of their imagery, expressing their own sense of the physical world and making it ironic, humorous, tragic or poetic.


RS: You teach at the International Center of Photography.  Do you find that teaching detracts from your own photography, or does it add support to your ideas?

EK: When you start teaching, you realize just how much you know and how much you can offer to others. Teaching the process of photography while also teaching concept has strengthened my own ideas and brought to the surface many things that I think about but have not—until now—expressed to anyone out loud. I am often surprised at certain things that I find myself articulating.


RS: What has been the most important event in your photography career to date?

EK: When my book, American Diner ( Harper + Row) was published. It arrived at my house the same weekend that my first daughter was born.

Colt Firearms Factory, Hartford, CT

RS: What equipment do you use? 

EK: I now use the Canon EOS 1ds Mark II. I used both medium and large format cameras for many years, but have switched over to digital imaging full time, three years ago.


RS: Do you think that photographers will one day cease to use film and rely totally on digital processes for capturing images?

EK: I think that for commercial purposes digital will take over completely but for the fine art world I do believe that the 4x5” and 8x10” film to C print will remain for a long time to come.


RS: What does the future hold for your work?

EK: I am always trying to find time to do more personal work, but I find it difficult to manage, both the time and focus, when I am busy with assignments. I find that I cannot use both parts of my brain simultaneously.  I usually tend to go to the opposite of architectural photography for my own work just to have a balance of sorts. The abandoned series is a very good example of that. The winter is usually a slow time for me, so I attempt to do a re-focus into the personal work during these months. It keeps me thinking, exploring and experimenting.

Glendale Power Station, Yonkers, NY

I actually just set up a small studio in my apartment to continue to work on a series of sequences that I was doing last year. I am also interested in macro photography as well, as it is an exact opposite of architectural. I have explored using sequential images that I assemble into large grids. I have one that is 1500 static shots of waves that go from morning until night every minute.  The textures, colors, and densities change dramatically and form a composition that expresses movement, time and light.

The series that I did of abandoned buildings actually started with an assignment to shoot the old Bronx Borough Courthouse in the South Bronx. It is a Beaux Arts Building from 1914 and has been vacant since the 70’s. The firm that hired me were doing a feasibility study for a possible high school and needed full documentation. When I arrived there, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the interiors that had been trashed, burned, peeled and weathered. I thought of it as the residue, in a way, of human endeavor.

I spent 4 days there, mostly on my own time shooting with a Fujifilm GX680 on negative film and came away with a series that, in turn, inspired my seeking out other buildings of similar history. I then photographed the Capitol Theater in New London, CT, The New Haven Boiler factory in New Haven, CT, the Colt Firearms Company in Hartford, the Hackensack Water Works in Oradell, NJ and many others. Some I had to get local government permissions and others I had to just sneak into. This continuation of the series was all done with a field 4”x5” camera and color negative film.


RS: These would make a wonderful exhibition.  Hopefully, that will be realized in the future.  


Elliott can be reached at: Elliott@ekaufman.com

More of his work can be seen at: http://www.ekaufman.com