Black and White Architecture Photography

The View from the Window at Le Gras was a heliographic image created by French inventor Nicéphore Niépce in the 1820s. The oldest surviving camera photograph, it depicts the black and white buildings surrounding the estate of Niépce. By January 1839, the pioneering photographic processes of Louis Daguerre and Henry Fox Talbot were announced publicly, seeing later Niépce’s right to be acknowledged as the first inventor of a process to make photographs permanent. Niépce also foreshadowed what would inspire photographers in the following centuries – chronicling the architecture around them. Though still, unmoving subjects were naturally fodder for early photographers honing the ranges and limits of exposure, the allure of architecture photography continues. From documenting interiors to exteriors, bridges, dwellings and cityscapes, no area of the urban landscape is off limit to a lens that aims to focus on the muted tones of monochrome. Though one can argue it is an echo to its origins, black and white architectural photography can highlight the architecture itself, unpreoccupied by the need to depict color or character. In Artsper’s own selection of works the likes of Claire Giraudeau and Bruno Fournier do just that, with their work emitting a timeless quality from the most unwavering of subjects.