ABOUT
James Morris
Architectural & Interior Photographer
A passionate and experienced professional architectural photographer with advanced technical ability to create powerful architectural imagery that can showcase the most demanding of architectural projects with a creative vision that brings spaces to life with a passion for getting the job done.
"JMP has provided superb professional photography for many of our Goldsmiths, Mappin & Webb, Watches of Switzerland and brand boutiques for over 6 years.
James has been a fantastic support to the Watches of Switzerland Group and has always been flexible and reliable, delivering quality images of our completed store development projects promptly.”
Robert C. The Watches of Switzerland Group
What do I do as an architectural photographer?
Photographs help us to communicate clearly, they help us to contextualise information quickly as well as to evoke strong emotional reactions. As an architectural photographer, I explore the built environment using my specialist skillset to create professional photography assets that help companies to communicate visually, increasing their engagement with their target audience and helping them to set their visual narrative.
Why photography?
My wife tells me I'm very lucky that I've always have known what I wanted to do, I suppose I take it for granted that 'photography' has always been my 'thing' and to be honest, I've never really had thought of doing anything else since I started my journey with photography.
As to why photography is my thing, while I certainly didn't realise it at the time I remember taking photographs when I was a child and loving the process of loading the film, winding it on and the satisfactory clunk of the shutter mechanism being released, constantly looking at how many shots I had left on the film and always forgetting if I had loaded in a 24 or 36 roll, the excitement of getting the film developed and seeing the final photograph.
While I've come a long way with my photography, looking back I can see that photography helped me frame the world, to condense it into a single image that helped me to not only see the world around me but to understand it, to this day I still get the excitement of finding that perfect shot and seeing the world through the photographs I create.
What made you choose architectural photography?
My first explorations as a photographer were varied to say the least, while studying photography at college and then University I did the usual young photographer fare of photographing my friends, having a self-portrait phase, still life photos of flowers and even trying to impress with abstract but eventually settled on the idea of 'space' (not outer space) but the space between things, in my last year of University I started seeing urban parks as these huge green spaces that contrasted with the city and decided to use this as my final degree project to explore these spaces, while it was not 'architectural' it is where I first established a link with exploring space and the manmade environment, this fascination with the built environment was cemented after seeing the metropolis that is Hong Kong in 2012, I've been photographing Hong Kong now for several years and it is within this city where I became acutely aware of how architecture greatly influences our lives.
Fundamentally I believe that architecture and the spaces that we inhabit should form the foundation in our society, these spaces should have immensely net positive impacts on our society and give us all the opportunity to live our best lives possible, I believe in using photography to illustrate these spaces to share the work and ideas of those who create them. Furthermore, communicate the positive effects these spaces have on society.
Clockwise, starting top left : Markeaton Park, Derby | Derwent Park, Derby | Central, Hong Kong | View to Kowloon, Hong Kong
A very brief history
Photography became a serious career option when I left school and went to college, I took photography as an A-Level where I was exposed to a wealth of artists and photographers and remember just being in awe of their work, I carried on learning about photography at a higher level while at University. During my time in learning photography, I just fell in love with the medium, it was then that I decided photography was going to be my thing in life and that I would become a working professional photographer.
After graduation, at the height of the financial crisis I wanted to find some form of employment within architecture photography, but the world had different things in mind with the biggest recession in recent memory I couldn't be picky and looked for work that would pay the bills and keep a roof over my head, the need for money led me to work in-house at first as a press photographer, then into commercial studio photography for a couple of companies until I went freelance specialising in still life in late 2012.
After working in the studio for 5-6 years both as an in-house and freelancer I got a career-defining moment, an opportunity to photograph an interior retail space, while it wasn't a big, nor particularly high paying project it gave me my first step to working as a professional architectural photographer. I then organically started to grow the architectural aspect of my freelance photography work, shooting more and more architectural projects until in 2020 I decided to focus solely on architecture photography.
Anything else?
Apart from the obvious like spending time with friends, family, watching TV or reading etc when I'm not behind the camera I like to play golf (although I require a lot of practice) and enjoy spending time walking with my dog. As a lot of my time is spent working from home, either on pre or post-production and all the admin of running a freelance business, I find both of these activities relaxing as they get me out and about in the open, breathing in the fresh air which helps me to unwind and helps put me into the creative mindset.
