We live in a visual age where everyone considers him- or herself to be a photographer, and 1.8 billion images are posted online each day. User-generated content has been used in a myriad of high-profile advertisements. Like a lottery winner, the amateur photographer may achieve a one-off lucky shot by being in the right place at the right time. This feeds the illusion that professional photographs can be achieved without any great effort and that anyone can do it. Arcaid Images is a world-leading resource for imagery of the built environment and is used globally by advertisers, architects, publishers and educators. It represents a diverse range of photographers worldwide who focus their cameras on architecture, homes, heritage and destinations. Arcaid images was founded on the work of architect-turned-photographer Richard Bryant, making the photography of architecture of particular interest. The Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards aims to draw attention to the expertise of this specialist, architectural, area of photography. And the World Architecture Festival exemplifies the need for the best architectural photography. Over 2000 professionals from more than 145 countries gather annually to show and appraise each others work. The overriding common language is the photographic image. Projects with better images make strong initial impact, and the more prosaic the building type, the more important it is to capture the essence of the scheme and not merely record it. Photography has long been the means of communicating architecture. The earliest known photograph by French scientist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, taken with a camera obscura in the late 1820s, was architectural. This photograph, taken from an upstairs window of the family home, was a record of the courtyard and outbuildings an architectural subject. The medium may have changed from a bitumen-coated plate to a memory card, but the technology is only a means to an end. It is the interpretation, the eye and the creativity of the photographer that the Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Awards are focusing on. The World Architecture Festival had the vision to see the value of the awards by giving it a platform, and working with the Sto company has extended the overall visibility of the awards. This book seeks to record, celebrate and give a permanence to the first four years of the Arcaid Architectural Photography Awards. Whilst attending an exhibition of images from the awards offers members of the public a time-limited opportunity to share in appreciation of the selected images, the physicality of a book extends that opportunity both temporally and geographically. Lynne Bryant is director of Arcaid Images, Amy Croft is curator of Sto Werkstatt and Paul Finch is editorial director of the The Architectural Review and programme director of the World Architecture Festival.
