How Photography Became Part of My Life

Photography has always been present in my life, long before I ever picked up a camera to seriously shoot my own projects. I grew up with a deep awareness of this craft. I still carry the memories of my father shooting on his vintage, purely mechanical film Zenit camera, and later, watching my older brother develop his own path as a photographer. You could say photography was woven into the fabric of my daily life. It was always there, right in front of me.

But when I finally decided to start creating my own frames not that long ago, I knew one thing for certain: I had absolutely no interest in shooting what everyone else was shooting. The internet is flooded with the same repetitive images: portraits of people, snapshots of pets, or generic street scenes that don’t make you pause. I didn’t want to capture the obvious. I wanted to find a deeper connection to the environment, and so I was natraully drawn toward the quieter, heavier world of urban geometry and architectural lines.

How I See the City

This brings me to the core of my work, including this recent series I shot in Portland over the course of several weeks. When I look at the urban landscape, I see something more than buildings. I see the sheer grandeur of concrete, and I see a profound clash of eras. To me, a city is a massive, living organism.

There is a strange, humbling comfort in looking at the walls of both historic structures and newly raised modern architecture. It makes you realize a simple truth: this city existed long before you arrived, it exists right now in this exact moment, and it will remain here long after you are gone.

Cities evolve, but they also decay and transform. The old eras constantly rub shoulders with the new. I use my camera to freeze these moments because I am acutely aware of the passage of time. A day will come when the structures we look at today might be gone, altered, or replaced entirely. By documenting the raw geometry and the massive presence of these buildings, I am preserving a specific layer of history before it slips away.

Finding Photos Before the City Wakes Up

If you want to capture the true, undistracted essence of a city’s architecture, you have to change your lifestyle and your schedule. My creative process depends heavily on one specific routine: I go out on “hunts” during the early hours of Saturday mornings, right as the sun begins to rise.

There is a practical and psychological reason for this. At dawn, Portland is still completely asleep. The streets are empty. By removing the crowds, the traffic, and the daily chaos of commercial life, you eliminate all the mental noise. It’s just you, your camera, and the structures. You can actually walk in the middle of the street, look up, and analyze the lines without being rushed or distracted.

When it comes to technical execution, my biggest advice is to pay attention to the quality of the light. Many beginner photographers think they need harsh, intense sunlight to create strong shadows in architecture. I prefer the exact opposite. I chase the early morning sun because the light is incredibly soft.

When the sun is low and gentle, it creates a completely different mood. Instead of pitch-black shadows that swallow all the details, soft light allows you to capture the delicate transitions of tones. I look for the subtle play of reflections in massive glass windows or the soft gradients of light bouncing in the narrow gaps between tightly packed buildings. That is where the magic happens. You don’t need a high-contrast midday sun to show texture; the morning light reveals the shape and depth of concrete far more elegantly.

What Makes Me Press the Shutter

A lot of people walk past a new skyscraper and say, “Wow, look at that modern architecture!” They react purely to the surface aesthetic. My approach relies entirely on internal analysis rather than that immediate “wow” factor.

When I stand in front of a structure, my mind goes backward. I look into its history. I ask myself: What stood on this exact piece of land before this concrete wall was poured? What kind of lives did the people live here fifty or a hundred years ago? How does this new facade interact with the older building right next to it?

This historical context completely dictates how I compose my shots. It helps me find a narrative within a rigid, abstract shape. Some people might look at my photos and see them as simple, minimalist, or even ordinary. But to me, every clean line and every geometric intersection is an answer to that internal historical analysis. It’s about stripping away the superficial beauty of a building to uncover its underlying rhythm and story.