Financial International Center Mall Wuhan, China  Design Architect: Jerde  Interiors: Woods Bagot  

Before each assignment, I always study the architect’s briefs and renderings, and I try to speak with the design team to understand their inspiration and its implementation.  But once onsite, I spend some time walking the project using my research filters, but I also spend some time discovering it with an open mind not guided by briefs and architect’s renderings.  I want to experience it from an unbiased point of view – discovering it for the first time without the filter of research.

On a recent shoot at the Financial International City Mall in Wuhan, China, I discovered an alcove that allowed me to simplify the design elements of the project into a powerful composition.  I learned later that this was also the exact time that covid 19 broke out of the bio labs in Wuhan.  (I never got covid.)  The overall architectural design was done by Jerde Architects and the interiors by Woods Bagot. This view was not in their renderings or in my own pre-visualized shot list.  It revealed itself through my own process of discovery. The decorative elements came together dramatically to define the design theme.  The glass safety partitions reflect their surroundings rather than allow you to see through them clearly.  Their brilliant colors contrast dramatically with the surrounding monochromatic elements.

It would have been easy to bypass this area if I had not taken time to explore and discover the project for myself.  An oft-used quote comes to mind,

  “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.”   Marcel Proust. 

I do research on every project, but I also allow myself to see it with “new eyes”.  Paul Dingman is an architectural photographer based in Atlanta, GA, and he works across the USA and internationally.

Learn more at www.dingmanphoto.com