Desde 1999 fotografiando arquitectura
I am Jesús Granada. I trained as an architect at the University of Seville and since 1999 I have dedicated my work to photographing architecture.
I consider both the work of architects and my photographs a legacy worth preserving and spreading. That conviction is what has kept my passion alive for over twenty-five years: I photograph the ideas behind each building — what its author intended to say with it.
I have documented projects in more than forty countries, and these photographs have appeared in hundreds of publishing houses and thousands of publications worldwide. Since 2018 I have been part of the editorial team of El Croquis, photographing monographs of Álvaro Siza, David Chipperfield, Caruso St John, Christian Kerez, RCR, Souto de Moura and Smiljan Radić, among others.
From my studio in Andalusia I manage the documentation, cataloguing and distribution of everything I produce. Every project I photograph remains accessible and traceable in the long term. That is how I look after this work with the same attention I put into making it.
How I work: from commission to delivery
Every shoot begins with the architect and the materials generated during the project: models, sketches, texts, drawings, construction photographs. Before looking at the building I want to understand the question it answers — the context, the brief, the constraints, the originating idea. I discuss with the architect what the photography needs to do: whether it is for a competition, an editorial publication, the studio archive, or licensing to brands. The answer changes the focus, not the quality.
On site I work mostly with natural light and plan days around the orientation of the building and the conditions of its surroundings. María Arias de Saavedra, associate of my studio, leads the postproduction: she has known my material for years and maintains tonal coherence across projects. She began scanning slide plates, then took on the organisation of the entire archive, and today she develops the atmosphere of all my production.
Every project enters a workflow that does not end at delivery: I photograph it, catalogue it, distribute it and keep it visible in this archive. Each photograph holds the idea someone had at a moment in time, and I treat it as such — a valuable object that transmits knowledge and value to whoever looks at it.