an invisible hand
By Stephen Roucher
RIM BOOKS
This first artist's book by photographer Stephen Roucher includes architectural street photographs made between 2012 and 2022. It consists of black and white photos, mostly from Wellington Central commercial buildings, all captured via old, analogueview cameras.
These images of older architectural styles — modernism, colonial, Art Deco, Edwardian, etc. —and photographic techniques, such as exaggerated black vignettes, are often interspersed with subtle elements of our modernity: advertising, graffiti, power lines, all bringing us back to a fairly contemporary urban fabric.
Devoid of people, these photographs often have an eerie, apocalyptic feel, with tiny details of quirk and charm; sometimes offering a masterclass in composition and observation but always acting as exquisite postcards — written by the invisible hand of the past, as…
