Connie Zhou
What led you to photographing architecture—how did you get started?
I knew I wanted to be a photographer since high school. I got into shooting architecture in college at Parsons and assisted an architectural photographer starting my sophomore year. Slowly I went off on my own a few years after I graduated.
Can you remember the first project you were hired to shoot?
The first project I shot was for Jody Quon at NY Magazine. It was a story about these empty lots in New York that were casualties of the recession.
I often see your stories on Instagram where you’re shooting consecutive days in a row, how do you balance or allot time for the administrative/”office” side of your work? What kind of support, if any, do you utilize--ie, administrative assistant/studio manager, retouchers, producers, etc.?
Nothing makes me happier than shoot days. :) I prefer shooting consecutive days as much as I can. I’m constantly doing administrative work, day or night. When I’m not shooting, I’m retouching. I did all my own retouching for almost ten years. Now I have a second assistant Mickey, who helps me tremendously with retouching and admin work.
Tell us a little about your gear, is there anything in your kit that’s been a game-changer or you wish you would have invested in sooner?
I like to travel light and keep my gear minimal but efficient. A game changer would be a rig that my first assistant Pierce built for me to block reflections. It’s super light weight but also compact. Not sure how we’ve lived without it in the beginning of our careers. Also the evolution of the Profoto light has made our lives a lot easier.
From what I can tell it looks like you typically work with at least one assistant, can you talk a little about what that process and working relationship is like? How has working with a team evolved over time?
I have two assistants, Pierce and Mickey. I only work with one assistant on set, unless it’s a huge project and two are needed. For almost a decade, it was only Pierce and I. We’ve worked together on everything and have also been roommates for a large period of that time...true story. Three years ago, we were introduce to Mickey who is now my second assistant. Since I’ve moved out, now they live together. We’re all very close! If I shoot something whack I can trust them to tell me. The honesty level is 100%.
I imagine that for many of the projects you photograph, there is thorough planning/production work that happens before the actual shoot. Is this something you handle in collaboration with the client? Is there a shoot in recent memory that required more than usual in this department, and how did you approach it?
The projects that take the most to plan/pre-production are the skyscrapers or anything that require international travel. The most recent project that took a lot of both was shooting the Rosewood hotel in Bangkok for KPF. A lot was required for that project, from getting international drone permits, to hiring local models and contacting nearby buildings to gain access for view shots. With buildings I usually do a google map scout and provide the clients or whomever is on the ground a list of addresses of desired vantage points. From there we try to gain access so its all ready and scheduled when we get there.
Do you get nervous going into shoot day?
Weather is my biggest anxiety, especially when I have to shoot exteriors.
Have you ever felt it challenging to satisfy the client while staying true to your intentions/style/voice? Do you have any personal guidelines for navigating this?
Luckily, I’ve never felt that pressure. Clients hire me for my style and we’re generally all on the same page in terms of how we want everything to look.
Can you think of an instance on a shoot where maybe things got off course, or some unexpected obstacle presented itself? How did you get through it?
There was one shoot that I absolutely loved shooting but it was a big challenge. It was tough because it was a travel project and we were only there for a certain amount of days but most of the furniture for the interior spaces didn’t arrive and some parts of the building were still under construction. It was a dream project but difficult to photograph at the time, you just gotta get through it, weather it’s moving furniture, or photoshopping out the construction later, sometimes you have to make it happen.
How do you combat burnout? What does “work-life balance” look like for you?
Pierce tells me that I take more vacations that anyone he knows. What he won’t tell you is that the majority of the time, he is with me. I’m also lucky enough to have a partner who can take time out of his schedule to spend time with me while we travel. If we have the opportunity after a business trip, we’ll tack on a few personal days for exploring where we are.
Have you ever been commissioned to photograph a project that had been shot by someone else, and you were familiar with those images? How significant was it to get a fresh perspective and how did you approach this?
Yes, if a project has been around for a while. You will always research previous photographs, but I always approach it with my own perspective.
Obviously the internet and Instagram are evolving the ways in which we consume photography, and of course there’s good and bad that comes with this. As someone who is photographing some of the most anticipated pieces of new architecture in New York and beyond, how much do you deal with copyright infringement and do you have any practices/systems in place/philosophies for how to deal with where your images end up?
With social media the lines get blurred, but I usually just let Otto handle that if there are any issues.
You are on the Otto Archive roster, how did that come to be, and are there any places your photographs have been syndicated that surprised you?
I joined Otto when Thea Vaughan approached me. I was previously with Gallery stock but after speaking with Thea, I felt that Otto would be the right fit for me.