MPB Meets: Architectural Photographer Karina Castro

Architectural photographer Karina Castro discusses her background in cinema, literature and her influences. Read on to find out more about Karina and her work.

MPB: Can you tell us a bit about how you got into photography?

KC: It all ended up as an extension of filmmaking. I was very encouraged by European cinema—Béla Tarr, Michael Haneke, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Werner Herzog, Robert Bresson, Ingmar Bergman, and other filmmakers. At that time, I used to watch four movies a day at the local movie theatre and had moved from Portugal to Italy to have a formal education on the history of Italian cinema. Based on my strong visual sense, it was clear to me that I could become a filmmaker and that photography was one of the many fields that I had to be proficient in. After collaborating at the Italian Cinematique, I decided then to follow my path by starting studying photography and working as an assistant photographer in a studio. This had a tremendous impact on my image-thinking approach. That was my starting point, I became so obsessed with photography that today I'm a photographer.

MPB: What was your photography journey, did you start out on a specific type of photography that eventually led you to a more architectural style?

KC: Focusing on space came very naturally. I have always created bidimensional images of physical spaces and landscapes in my mind as a way of trying to tell a story in film—it was a natural part of storytelling. Moreover, I grew up in Portugal, a country which has a strong cultural sense, interest and sensibility for architecture.  I never saw architecture as merely a built environment, but rather as part of society—part of human-kind, a research of social theory, with an important role in sociological and psychological fields. That is what interests me here as a photographer. Who are the people who use these buildings and spaces inside my images and what are their responses?

MPB: There are plenty of angles in your work, which you seem to combine with organic shapes. Is that a deliberate choice?

KC: Yes, I do consciously use composition and different elements to create contrast. All my images are created with maximum control, and I rigorously organise each millimetre you see inside the image before shooting. What comes across at the end will depend on the project and expressive feel I am trying to achieve.

MPB: What do you use to shoot?

KC: It is based on the project I am working with. I can use a 24x36, medium format, large format, or even polaroids as I did when photographing the physical space in Ramallah, Palestine.

MPB: Is there anyone whose work you draw inspiration from?

KC: I am a passionate reader, my mind gets very stimulated by literature as the voice of Thomas Bernard, who has a great sense of humanity in his writings. I simply cannot avoid reading, I walk from one shelf to another, consuming old papers regarding Hellenistic culture and its literature, art-historical references, philosophy, sociology in a very rigorous and methodical way. I am thinking, for instance, all my readings, music evenings and strong interest in visual communication go directly to the consciousnesses—it is all about the essence that lies beyond each discipline.

MPB: As a woman, what's your experience of being an architectural photographer? How accessible is the genre?

KC: Gender stereotypes influence very much on people's choices and are barriers to women’s career progress—and so, mine. I still nowadays experience resistance, but it makes me a tougher woman. Women are still underrepresented in different fields. In the media industry, for instance, it is very clear that women architects, philosophers, image-makers and so on still have very narrow space to participate and share their thoughts. I think it is important that we as a society encourage and increase women's participation. That is the key to promote gender equality.

Read more interviews with the top women of architectural photography.