The art of architecture

Stripping back a building to its key elements is something Sharon Tenenbaum is highly skilled at – both in camera and in Photoshop, as Ailsa McWhinnie discovers

- Ailsa McWhinnie

When Sharon Tenenbaum stands in front of a building, or a cityscape, or a detail of a structure that has caught her eye, she doesn't see what 'normal' people might see. Instead, her photographer's perception kicks in, and immediately her eye begins to strip the scene of anything extraneous - her vision allowing her to see the bare bones of the construction and how that can be applied to an image.

That the Vancouver-based photographer has a background in engineering doesn't come as a huge surprise. Her area of expertise was environmental engineering, and it's a career she followed for some seven years before photography came calling. Feeling unfulfilled in her job, she handed in her notice and went travelling around south-east Asia with a point-and-shoot camera her father had given her. 'I had no clue about photography at the time,' she reveals, but that little camera opened my eyes to a different way of seeing the world.'

When she told her boss she wanted to leave her job, he 'thought I was joining the circus,' Sharon says, laughing. But he bought me a laptop and told me to work from home until my photography took off.' Splitting her time between photography and engineering this way meant Sharon could ‘sleep at night knowing the bills were paid’. She continues, ‘It gave me the peace of mind to be able to pursue my art without having to think I need to make money from it.’

Developing a style