Rangefinder Magazine
Columns

Insight

April is a time of new growth and rededication to one’s goals. It’s also a time for inspiration; when new ideas combine with tried and true ones to produce elevated effort. April, then, is our time at Rangefinder to help transition you to some higher visual plane by way of inspiration. Two photographic icons are featured in this month’s issue: Pete Turner and the architectural photography firm of Hedrich Blessing. In Peter Skinner’s story about Pete Turner (page 14), you will find only a sampling of the great wealth of imagery Pete has created in his African Journeys, sojourns that began in 1959. What is so striking about Pete’s images is that they are as fresh and innovative today as the first time you saw them. Bold, lavish color and an almost surgical sense of graphic design make Turner’s images awe-inspiring. Lou Jacobs Jr.’s story about Hedrich Blessing is one of a 70-year-old firm that has created some of the most enduring architectural masterpieces ever seen. From the book, entitled, Building Images: Seventy Years of Photographs at Hedrich Blessing, every image is more magnificent than the last, and as the story unfolds, it gets even more intriguing. For instance, HB has only employed 19 photographers in its 70 year history—11 of whom are still on staff. Another HB quirk: the co founder, Henry Blessing, left the firm in 1931, but the company didn’t want to pay to have the stationery reprinted so the name remained the same. With HB’s “apprentice program,” young photographers were schooled in the classical mode of architectural photography—work which embodies the essence of the building and its environment.

Bill Hurter
Editor

On the Cover

PHOTOGRAPHER: Bob Shimer
CAMERA: 4x5
COMMENTS: Bob Shimer, a Hedrich Blessing staffer, photographed this Connecticut residence in 1992 and says of the shot, “I love the intense blue from using tungsten film outside at dusk.”
With headquarters in Chicago and offices in the Detroit area and in Santa Fe, Hedrich Blessing in its 70 years has employed only 19 photographers, 11 of whom are currently on staff. These individuals have shot more than 55,000 assignments and produced in excess of 500,000 images.
All Hedrich Blessing photographers are a part of the company’s apprentice program, which mandates that all photographers serve as an assistant to a veteran HD photographer for two to eight years before assuming primary responsibility for assignments themselves. Their mentoring system may sound old fashioned but it has clearly contributed enduring structure and consistency of quality to what is now a modern company.
Hedrich Blessing’s photographers have transformed the way buildings are interpreted. Instead of taking a generic three-quarter view of a building, Hedrich Blessing photographers were trained to shoot selected vantage points where the design intent of the architect was best revealed.
For more information on Hedrich Blessing, see Lou Jacobs Jr.’s story which beings on page 14.