Comments on: Showings and DVD Release Announced for Shulman Film

By: Josh Lee

Josh Lee — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 03:21:11 +0000

IIRC, Shulman’s argument for using people in his architectural photos was that those pics became alive with people in the pics.

I kind of see these type of pics today with people in the pics, although they tend to be for multiple units like condos. On one hand, you might argue that they might backfire because it makes the place less neutral with the ability to appeal to everybody if there’s a person in that pic that looks nothing like you. But, on the other hand, those staged pics are selling a lifestyle that viewers might respond to.

Whether or not such pics are effective, we aren’t seeing them for SFHs because of the cost to hire the models for those pics while the multi-units are able to spread out the costs of hiring models if they choose to go that route.

By: nick

nick — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 21:07:01 +0000

note to Larry : these are historical photographs, not ‘retro’ – Shulman’s most noted works came from his partnership with Robert Neutra in the L.A. area . . .

By: larry

larry — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:50:22 +0000

I’d never thought about the fact that he was such an advocate of using people in architectural shots, but you are right, many of his shots have people in them.

I’d like to discuss this with him. I think the people in his shots have a serious dating and distraction effect because of what the people are wearing. To me everything about having people in shots distracts from the architectural statement. When there’s someone in the shot, like the one above, I spend all my time looking at the people and in this case wondering were they came up with such costumes.

By: Josh Lee

Josh Lee — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:11:19 +0000

I remember hearing an interview with Shulman, and he talked about the importance of using people in his architectural shots which you can see in his most famous photo, the one pictured above.