For more than 40 years John Gollings has been the photographer of choice, the go-to guy for scores of architects. A Gollings’ photograph reveals a great deal about the aspirations, aims and beliefs, and the zeitgeist of a building and its architect’s intentions, based on and expressed through Gollings’ own knowledge of architecture, his understanding of light and weather and the way buildings work, and how they inhabit their sites. 

Beautiful Ugly takes a look, in words, pictures and recollections, at the art of Gollings’ photography as he has made his remarkable journey around Australia’s architectural landscape. The images, personally selected by Gollings for this book, open a door into the art of architectural photography as interpreted through the lens and eye of one of Australia’s greatest architectural photographers, a true maker of pictures. 

It takes a special kind of photographer to evoke the true character of a building and to convey the emotional intensity that is the soul of all good architecture. John Gollings is that special kind of photographer.