Harrison Loomis, Architectural Photographer, Allied Member
Harrison Loomis, Architectural Photographer, Allied Member
Harrison Loomis has been making images for 20 years, beginning his journey at age eleven during a family road trip from Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon. After several years in consulting and extensive travels with a camera in hand, the COVID pandemic reshaped his priorities and deepened his understanding of what makes life meaningful and fulfilling. He went on to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Photography and Integrated Media, exploring a range of photographic themes including land and landscapes, the American road trip, and long-exposure film photography experiments.
After assisting an architectural photographer during the program, Harrison committed to building a career photographing architecture and design alongside his creative practice.
A professional and thoughtful approach to every project reflects his deep understanding of photography, light, perception, and storytelling, all in service of elevating appreciation for the emotional value of design and image.
As an allied member of AIANS, Harrison has been an invaluable volunteer, regularly assisting with A/V setup at general meetings and other events. He also served on the committee for the inaugural Barkitecture event and is contributing his creative eye to the 2026 Design Awards Committee.
[email protected] | https://hloomisphoto.com
Q&A
What was your favorite recent project to photograph?
A residential tower in Brooklyn advertised for lease as 60 West Wharf. It sits just north of Bushwick Inlet Park and includes a waterfront park with incredible views of Manhattan. Beyond the location itself, the project has been an interesting challenge both logistically and photographically.
I’m specifically capturing the facade lighting of a mostly glazed building. To balance the exterior lighting with the sky, I need to photograph during nautical twilight in the early morning. In the evenings, apartment lights begin turning on and overpower the facade lights. Each visit is about twenty minutes of fast-paced work — capturing shots, adjusting settings, changing angles — before the sunlight becomes too strong. It’s a rewarding exercise in planning and timing.
How long did it take before you felt comfortable in your role as an architectural photographer?
Photography has been part of my life since I was eleven years old; a passion I pursued as a minor during my undergraduate studies, even while beginning a career in consulting. By my second day assisting on shoots in my Master’s program, I was comfortable with the rhythms of architectural photography — early dawns, late dusks, the glow of twilight against the warmth of a well-lit home, shadows that create depth throughout the day, and ways to emphasize massing and perspective while maintaining visual impact.
On shoots in NYC, I learned to adapt to conditions on active construction sites while working with tradespeople and evolving project environments, like a street being re-paved in front of a charter school on the day of capturing it.
What would be your dream project or a subject you’d love to capture?
Artistically, I’ve been daydreaming about photographing architecture at night using only available lamps or moonlight as the primary light source. I’m drawn to photography that creates a heightened sense of wonder and drama, and night gives architecture a very different emotional quality than daylight. There’s something more intimate about seeing a home at rest rather than staged for the day’s activities.
As for a dream project, I would be over the moon to photograph any part of BIG’s master plan for the Gelephu Mindfulness City in Bhutan.
What do you like to do when you are not working?
I always have a stack of books waiting to be read, often working through several at once across subjects like art, philosophy, adventure, and history.
Otherwise you’ll find me in the kitchen or at a grill. If the weather is nice, there might be ribs or a chicken in the smoker. If the weather is terrible, I’ll make French onion soup completely from scratch, starting with the bones.
What are three facts about you that make you unique as a photographer?
First, I hold a Master’s Degree in Fine Art Photography. I understand the importance of details, how perception shifts moving through a space. I understand the lines in your plans are more than walls; they are containers for life. And your edit notes won’t hurt my ego, the critique process only makes me better.
Second, I approach photography with a mindset centered on acute perception and constant improvement. A large part of good photography is knowing where to place the camera and when it should be there. Because the light determines the mood: whether a scene feels airy and bright or dramatic with contrast and heavier shadows, whether the sun is just rising or directly overhead, even a passing cloud can transform an image.
Ideally, that creates long-lasting and collaborative relationships with clients where we can communicate more while saying less.
Third, I bring a deep sense of purpose and meaning to my work. My photographs are shaped by my relationships, travels, education, and personal experience. Architecture and photography are tied to everything that makes life meaningful, and I draw from life to bring emotional depth to my images.
Who or what are your inspirations for architectural photography?
I look up to specific photographers for the way they approach their shoots — whether it’s methodical and slow, fast and decisive, chasing natural light, or using flash to create the light in a scene.
Inspiration, for me, is about collecting ideas, trusting they’ll connect at the right moment. It can come from a classic film like Metropolis, intentional lighting, the shadow of a tree cast onto a door by a streetlight, or an art photograph that communicates something about the photographer, not just the scene itself.
Give me a topic or idea, and I’ll find a way to use it as inspiration for my work. For one kitchen shoot, I made a bowl of strawberries resemble The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai.
Who or what are your inspirations for life?
The biggest influence on my life is my family history. It’s remarkable to think about the statistical improbability of your own existence. Had my Jewish great-grandparents not fled pogroms in Russia to settle in New York, they likely would have been killed. Instead, my great-grandfather, Harry, became a tailor.
My grandfather, Joe, later returned to Europe to fight the Nazis and eventually ran several small businesses. My father built a career at a major consulting firm, and I grew up in the suburbs with a path into consulting in New York waiting for me.
With such dramatic history behind my family, the standard path felt too passive, even though I followed it for a time. I began searching for a purpose — something worthy of the sacrifices that made my life possible.
I believe the purpose of life is to build meaning and share it in community. For an architect, that means creating buildings that carry both function and meaning. As a photographer, it means capturing and communicating that meaning to others.
What’s exciting about the work you’re doing right now?
The variety is what excites me most. A few days after photographing 400-foot residential towers in New York City, I’m documenting beautifully redesigned interiors in a historic mansion. There’s so much amazing imagery to be made in the world of design, and I’m just getting started.
Recently, I traveled to Florida for the Kips Bay Show House in Palm Beach, an interior designer showcase. I spent four days working and living among dramatically different design styles as the light shifted throughout the day. There are still a few chairs from that experience I think about — chairs I can still picture myself sitting in while reading a book.
As I’m editing these words, I’m in London chasing the light around the city for a few days before heading back to the states.
What advice would you give to recent graduates entering the field of architectural photography?
Any artistic career is a long game. Consistency will always outlast fleeting interest, so if you are serious, be consistent, reliable, and assist as many photographers as you reasonably can.
Learning how others operate helps you discover how you want to operate. Learning how others see helps you develop your own visual language by absorbing what is useful and — over time — refining your own style.
Good photographs are the price of admission. Personality and ethics earns you a return invitation.
Projects + Images
Grove Avenue Addition - A kitchen renovation included an addition for a tranquil seating area looking outward to the pool and patio. Photographed for Walzer Architecture.
Courter Ave - Kitchen and Dining renovation photographed for Walzer Architecture, and will be published in NJ Home this year. 
Friedman Ranch Entryway - A low concrete wall creates privacy and lines the approach to a midcentury modern home in Marfa, Texas.
Friedman Ranch after sunset - Lights are strongest when the sun sets, just a few pieces of lighting warm the interior against the cold dark of the desert night.
West Wharf with LIC in the background - A new development for the Brooklyn Waterfront, a well-developed LIC in the background gives context to the location as the tower currently stands alone in its corner of the Greenpoint neighborhood, with more coming.
West Wharf Detail - Customized Lighting creates a raindrop effect on the entire facade, this is a detail image of the patterning in late sunrise light. Photographed for KBMLD and Amerlux.
Beacon Ave, Jersey City - Drone Photography at Dawn, a preserved home and new 3-unit building, photographed for Behin Ha Architects. Published in the New York Times on May 20, 2026.
Bank Office - Interior fit-out of a corporate office, photographed for Perkins Eastman. This is the lobby/ reception area, private offices and a conference room line the left wall, with employee desks down the hallway.
Portrait of Naomi Stein of Design Manifest - Photographed in the dining room of one of her projects in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia.
Lookout from Yad VaShem - The ending of Moshe Safdie’s architectural design at Israel’s Holocaust Museum is a light drenched viewing platform at the end of a long, winding, dark corridor of history.
