Corporate art and commissioned work

Fine art photography for offices, hotels, healthcare and the people who fit them out.

I am Richard Hirst. I have photographed Sydney's harbour, its beaches and its ocean pools for thirty five years, and a good part of that work now hangs in buildings rather than houses. Foyers, boardrooms, hotel rooms, corridors, waiting rooms.

If you are specifying art for a space, or you want something made that does not exist yet, this is the page to start on.

Who you are dealing with

I am a represented artist at YellowKorner, the international fine art photography galleries, with sixteen works in their collection. They describe me as one of Australia's leading landscape photographers.

The work has been commissioned by Tourism Australia, Sydney Airport, UBS, LinkedIn and the Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation. Photographs also hang in private and corporate collections here and overseas.

A hospital, an airport and a bank all wanted something different. That is the useful part of having an archive this size. It is also why the process below starts with the room rather than with the picture.

Every print is made in Sydney and checked by hand before it leaves.

What I supply

Most of what corporate clients take is already made. There are over two hundred photographs in the archive: the harbour, the eastern beaches, the northern beaches, the ocean pools, storms, night, and a small set shot from above looking straight down. You can take one piece for a meeting room or thirty for a floor. I will help you choose so the set holds together instead of competing with itself.

The rest is commissioned. That means going out and photographing something the archive does not have. A stretch of coast a business has a reason to care about. The beach the founder swims at every morning. The water outside the building itself. Commissions need a conversation before anything else happens.

The people I usually deal with are workplace and interior designers, architects, fit-out project managers, hotel and hospitality groups, healthcare and aged care operators, and companies buying for clients and staff. Designers and architects are welcome to deal with me directly. Send the drawings and I will price the set.

Why this work wants a big wall

Two parts of the archive are built for scale. The aerials read as pattern rather than picture. Towels, umbrellas, swimmers and lane markings turn into shape. None of that is visible standing on the sand. Print one at A4 and you lose the umbrellas. The umbrellas are the best part of the photograph.

The ocean pool work behaves the same way. At size you can pick out an individual swimmer, the whitewater coming over the wall and the tiles under the water. Small, it becomes a blue rectangle.

Commercial rooms are also read from further back than a living room. People see the work from across a foyer, from a lift lobby, from the far end of a corridor. A print that is right for a hallway at home disappears at that distance.

How a commission works

• {'title': 'You tell me about the space', 'body': 'Floor plans if you have them, wall dimensions if you do not. Photographs of the room, which way the light comes in, how many pieces you are hanging and the date you need them by.'}
• {'title': 'I put up a selection', 'body': 'A shortlist from the archive at the sizes I think those walls want, laid out so you can see the set together rather than one image at a time. If new work is needed, this is where we agree what I am going out to photograph.'}
• {'title': 'You cut it back', 'body': 'Expect to. Most sets get better when they lose two pieces. I would rather three photographs hold a floor than nine fight over it.'}
• {'title': 'I print and finish', 'body': 'Archival pigment inks on fine art paper, printed in Sydney, hand signed. Framing is finished before anything is packed.'}
• {'title': 'It arrives', 'body': 'Framed work arrives finished and wrapped. Unframed work ships rolled in a tube.'}

Sizes and finishes at scale

Client and staff gifts

A signed photograph of a place someone actually swims at lands differently to the usual object. For a gifting run I would keep the size portable, and it can be one image across the whole run or a short choice people pick from.

For recipients overseas the print goes rolled in a tube. That travels a great deal better than glass.

Delivery

Framed work is delivered within Australia. For overseas offices I send prints rolled and you frame them locally, because framed pieces and glazing do not survive that trip at a price anyone wants to pay. Everything is packed and sent from Sydney.

Start a conversation

Tell me the building, roughly how many walls and when you need it. If you have plans or photographs of the space, send those too. You will get a selection and a price back, not a brochure.

• Name
• Company
• Role (designer, architect, project manager, in-house)
• Email
• Phone
• Project type (office fit-out, hotel, healthcare, gifting, other)
• Approximate number of pieces
• When you need it
• Anything else, and attach plans or photographs of the space