Siobhán Doran

A series of images from the book Houses that Sugar Built gave this Irish photographer a category win at 2024's Sony World Photography Awards. Niall Hampton finds out more

- Niall Hampton

Coming to photography as a second career is no bar to succeeding in it – some might argue that having had a life outside the medium actually makes you a better photographer. Siobhán Doran became an architecture and interior photographer after an established career as an architectural designer, starting her photography practice after having enjoyed studying for a part-time photography degree. Since then, Doran has built up a varied portfolio, publishing photo books of iconic London hotels The Lanesborough and The Savoy, alongside commissioned and personal work.

She came to wider prominence last month by winning the Professional Architecture & Design category at the Sony World Photography Awards 2024, for a series of images of ancestral homes in the Philippines. Photographed for a book project, Houses that Sugar Built, Doran was granted access to a range of properties in the three main sugar-producing provinces of the Philippines – Iloilo, Negros Occidental and Pampanga. From the 1800s to the 1930s, sugar was a major cash crop for this island country in the western Pacific Ocean and many opulent ‘commodity houses’ were built on the proceeds of sugar cultivation.

Commenting on Doran’s ‘Sala Mayor’ series, chair of the judges of the Sony World Photography Awards, the independent curator and photography consultant Monica Allende, said, “One of the things that the photographer would like us to (do) is to reflect on how we perceive this historical period and how we understand history was like at that time.”