#ArchinectMeets is a series of interviews with members of the architecture community that use Instagram as a creative medium. With the series, we ask some of Instagram’s architectural photographers, producers and curators about their relationship to the social media platform and how it has affected their practice.
Social media has undeniably affected the way we perceive, interpret and share opinions about architecture today. Using our own account, @Archinect, as a site for image curation and news content, we wanted to ask fellow Instagram users how they navigated the platform.
We spoke to Roc Isern, the photographer behind @stoptheroc and @barcelonafacades. With unmistakable pride for his Spanish hometown, Isern uniquely captures the spirit of Barcelonan architecture for a wide audience. Though perhaps no other architect's work has been photographed as much as Antonio Gaudi's, for instance, Isern deftly communicates elements of his work never before captured on camera.
How did @stoptheroc begin, and how do would you describe its method of curation as opposed to your other account, @BarcelonaFacades?
@Stoptheroc started in 2013 as a way of showing my architectural photography from my hometown Barcelona. The style was evolving through the years as well through my use of Instagram, but I always respond to feedback from the local community. I like to express architecture in a minimalist way. I like the perfection of lines, symmetries, patterns and human subjects as they contrast that geometry while also giving it scale.
A year later, I decided to start a new account, @Barcelonafacades, a compilation of façade pics. I saw that my city provided me an inexhaustible source of possibilities, so I liked the idea for this project. I‘m not as regularly posting on this profile as on my main account.
Has Instagram affected your views towards architecture or the way you take photographs?
Yes, absolutely.
From the first day I started using Instagram, I was influenced by the photos of the talented photographers out there. Without noticing, I have evolved my way of seeing my city, as well as how to take photographs and edit them.
View this post on InstagramBarcelona’92 Montjuïc Communications Tower designed by Calatrava was completed in 1992 to transmit television coverage of the 1992 Summer Olympics Games in Barcelona. The 136 m (446 ft) tower is located in the Olympic park, and represents an athlete holding the Olympic Flame. #barcelona92 #Calatrava #architecture #Barcelona
A post shared by roc | barcelona | architecture (@stoptheroc) on
What have you hoped to express through the photos you post?
I would be happy if through my photos I achieve to stimulate interest for the architecture of our cities and especially for my hometown Barcelona.
Is there a photograph you have posted that you are particularly fond of?
Yes, this one:
It was taken in the surroundings of the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona. It’s an unusual perspective of a row of lighting posts that I captured from afar with an extreme zoom, giving the sensation they are almost touching each other.
What are your favorite profiles to follow?
I could provide a lot.
Some of them I admire are @lerichti for his vision of contemporary architecture and the background info he always includes, @george__franklin for his compositions and @serjios for the fabulous tension he sets up between architecture and the people that inhabit it.
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