If you want to know how much Barbara appreciates, no, loves, photography, just try and find a project of hers that does not include some. Can’t be done.

Her affair with photography started with black and white and as her devotion and knowledge grew, so did her skill at integrating photographs into her interiors. They are the richer for it.

If balance is a hallmark of a Westbrook interior — between old and new, soft and hard, traditional and modern, subtle and striking — photography is one means of achieving it. Like a chef working with spices, Barbara achieves just the right flavor via dosage and deployment.

To begin with, no room is off limits. For instance, the bathroom. Much as luxurious fixtures and fittings can elevate an essentially utilitarian room, a fine photograph takes it to an even higher place. Properly framed and installed in a space with adequate ventilation and/or humidity control, photography is as safely at home in a bathroom as any other room.

In a spacious bathroom with an egg-shaped soaking tub, a silver gelatin print of a single flower in a silver-leafed frame reinforces a serene, residential feel. A color photograph floating between tub and shower in a bathroom in a high-rise condo accomplishes the opposite, injecting energy and a dose of Rear Window voyeurism into a cool, marble-lined space.

In the modern skylit bathroom of an urban loft, an abstracted image of dappled light through the trees lends the bathtub a view of the outdoors through a well-positioned “window” that opens up the space as much as the skylight.

A photograph of rooftops and spires in Gdansk, Poland hung in the dining area of the same loft serves a similar function, offering a window onto a cityscape that both punctures and anchors the white wall of a tall space. The masonry buildings and silvery tones in the image knit together the exposed brick walls and cool metal furnishings of the loft.

When trained eyes meet (the photographer’s and Barbara’s), images that began in a viewfinder become new view finders. Photographs can direct a view or balance an architectural element or color in a room. Rare is the person who isn’t engaged by a photograph, thereby reinforcing the power of an image or multiple images to guide the eye’s route through a space.

The manner in which Barbara installed photographs in two elliptical entry foyers achieved nearly opposite effects. In one, a series of smaller architectural images establish an eye-level horizon line that directs the visitor on to the living room beyond. In another, a dramatically dark and oversized image of a hawk hung directly opposite the entry doors stops the visitor in his tracks.

Along corridors, photographs add rhythm to plain walls and interest to the journey.

Framed in a uniform size and hung at the same height, a collection of landscape photographs create a forced perspective in the hallway of a high-rise condominium, directing the eye to the porcelain sculpture by Maren Kloppmann installed on the narrow end wall. Like windows on a train, the repeated black outlines of the frames establish a steady beat and capture quick views of other worlds.

In another white hallway, the “random” manner in which a collection of photographs by Masao Yamamoto are hung accomplishes something quite different, a syncopation that gives the space a dynamic energy. Here too though, framing the photographs uniformly, this time in narrow white frames with wide white mats, preserves the feel of a family of related images.

Multiple images, hung as a group, can project weight and delicacy at the same time. They are also often a more affordable alternative, especially given the online availability of museum- grade mattes and readymade frames, to a single large photograph.

A series of 15 small black and white images of various acclaimed artists that Barbara framed in narrow gold frames with generous white mattes provides a dining room with interest and elegance in equal measure. Like the chandelier, they are delicate and airy yet installing them so that they almost touch makes them read as a single impactful work of art.

In a room with a more casual attitude, three color photographs of Southern subjects stacked between a pair of large windows are the perfect counterweight to a row of original John J. Audubon renderings. The vertical balances the horizontal while the tones of the offbeat photographs reference those of the traditional ones.

Family photos make the bookcases flanking the fireplace in a monochromatic room come alive. The black and white prints, framed in silver, support the scheme of black furnishings in a white room. The alternating arrangement of books/photo/books, set off by the dark back walls of the bookcases, not only establishes a loose patterning for the shelves, it creates a frame within a frame for cherished personal images.

A single image can be the jewel in the crown of a space and a visual linchpin.

In a stair hall, a vintage image of steel workers high in the air on girders of the Bank of America a building in Atlanta under construction sends an alert to those about to make their journey down the stairs: watch your step! The strong lines of the beams echo those of the stair rail and contrast nicely with the contours of the two vessels on the floor.

In a traditional study, an image of live oaks takes pride of place above the mantle, yet another instance of photo as window, this time into nature. The sepia-like tones of the color photograph sit comfortably in the warm wood paneling, with the imagery deferentially referencing tradition and rootedness.

Nature packs a more powerful punch in two contemporary living rooms where oversize images of flowers against solid black backgrounds are beacons of bold color and form. A single calla lily above a sofa balances a mirror above a fireplace in one room while, in a nearly all-white living room, a tall, bountiful image of loose flowers reinforces the majestic proportions of the space, the petals themselves dosing the room with bright color.

A photograph is always a window, into the imagination of the person who took it, into the eye of the person who collected it. It is perhaps the most personal of art forms. Nothing is more intimate than a family photo that records a place and time, a moment with a loved one. Barbara’s home always gives pride of place to her most treasured possessions, chief among them, photographs of family. A picture of her on her wedding day never strays from her nightstand, keeping her beloved father close.

~ W ~

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