by Georgia Tasker, Miami Herald
by Georgia Tasker, Miami
Herald
Precise, clean and impeccably composed, Steven Brooke's photographs of homes, gardens and even cities reflect the man himself. At 61, he is lean, with close-cropped salt and pepper hair, a cordial and easy manner, sure of his tastes and abilities.
David Morton, senior editor of the publishing house Rizzoli, says of Brooke, ``For me he's the best. Technically, he's superb. His compositions are always great. Lighting . . . he's good at everything.''
Two new books feature Brooke's photography: Florida Modern, with University of Miami architecture professor and author Jan Hochstim, and Casa Florida, with writer Susan Sully. The styles, the yin and yang of Florida's complex image of itself, have this in common: Brooke's photographs reveal them. Because Brooke makes it easy to discern the intent of the design, nothing extraneous stands between the reader and the subject.
Florida Modern covers significant houses in Florida designed between 1945 and 1970, when the modernist movement included such well-known architects as Carl Abbott, Mark Hampton, Rufus Nium and George Reed.
In some cases, Brooke's photographs may be all that's left of a design legacy as homes are razed, taking to the ground with them part of the architectural heritage of South Florida. About McMansions going up in their place Brooke says, ``People want some ersatz version of romanticism. And they're easily satisfied. The houses go setback to setback, so these horrible things are right up on you. ''George Reed and Rufus Nims . . . that [architectural] legacy . . . I don't want to say it's lost, that's far too cynical,'' he says. ``But it will take something I cannot foresee to bring it back.'' By photographing the modernist houses, Brooke says, ``I want to express my appreciation for those buildings. They're subtle. They require a sensitivity because not only don't they beat you over the head, they're very attuned to the landscape.''
South Miami resident Brooke has been producing Florida design books for years, documenting everything from the new town of Seaside in the Florida Panhandle to the stylish curves and flutes of the Art Deco district in Miami Beach. He has been a contributing photographer to Architectural Digest for two decades.
''One of things he does, I think is terrific, that makes him above others, is that he doesn't do a lot of angle shots,'' says architect Mark Hampton, a leader of modernism in Florida. ``He [shoots] straight on. He really gets the essence of a house.''
So closely associated is Brooke with photographs of Florida that it is a surprise to discover he once was a molecular biologist and that he is not Florida-born, but comes from Detroit. What is not surprising: He got his first camera at age 8. ''If I'd been able to draw or paint, I probably would have gravitated toward that,'' he says in his studio. ``I've always had a camera.'' His first was a Rollei twin lens reflex, a classic medium-format camera that must be held at waist level by the photographer, who peers down into the 2 ¼-inch-square viewfinder. Even as a graduate student at the University of Miami, where he studied chemical evolution and the origin of cells, he used specialized techniques to capture images of cell components.
By age 34, though, he had tired of lab work. ''I wanted to run my own business,'' he said. ``I wanted to do things with more artistic qualities. I gravitated toward a very precise kind of photography.''
Architectural photography, which is done with large negatives and big cameras, is not every photographer's cup of tea because of its more meditative and sometimes mathematical processes. ''The construction of the picture plane follows very precise rules,'' Brooke explains. ``I had studied them in 17th Century perspective paintings. I figured it out.''
Brooke's artistic bent came from his mother, an opera singer and concert pianist who had a music scholarship at age 9. ''She practiced constantly,'' he remembers. ``All that concerned her was the next concert. She was loving, but I wasn't the only thing in the world. She had a career, and I respected that. I was a willing acolyte for her hard-core teaching.'' Another mentor was a thoracic surgeon who had expertise in astronomy, botany and the arts. From this man, Brooke learned to ''keep all of your interests going'' so when he retired from science he had another complete body of interest to which he could turn.
A call to a friend who was a Miami interior designer launched Brooke's photographic career in 1979.
A big springboard for him was the struggle to get the Miami Beach Art Deco District onto the National Registry of Historic Districts. He collaborated with the late Barbara Capitman, the Art Deco crusader of the early 1980s, to produce Deco Delights, a history of the district. He took a famous photo of the Senator Hotel before the wrecking ball hit, says Brooke's wife Suzanne Martinson, an architect.
As an artist, Brooke understands and appreciates modern architecture, says Martinson, who is a modernist in her work. ''We have the same tastes as far as architecture, but he also appreciates an older, more Gothic type of structure,'' she says. ``He's into the essence of the building; architecture that's very clear.'' While clean lines appeal to both Brooke and Martinson, ''He likes more of a cluttered look, but one that's very organized,'' she says.
Before their son Miles was born, the couple often traveled together to Brooke's out-of-town photo shoots. 'People say, `Oh, gee, what a life,' '' Martinson says. ``But he works like a dog because of his perfectionism. He likes available light, not artificial, and he's on his feet from 5:30 in the morning to 10 at night. I finally bowed out and said this isn't fun.''
Photographing a house usually takes three full days. Armed with a design plan, Brooke makes a list of shots. Then he styles them. ''If I'm shooting for an interior designer, I'll go over the rules I have for accessorizing, the things I don't want,'' he says. ``I don't want white accessories, white flowers. I don't like ferns; they're tacky. When we have floral arrangements, I insist on only one species of flower being used rather than half a dozen. ``I generally take things out of the shot. I like things clear.'' Brooke will even check the height of the artwork hung in each room. ''Usually, pictures are too high,'' he says. ``If things are a little off [in a room], when you look at them on film they are a lot off.''
This painstaking effort has garnered him awards from the American Institute of Architects and a prestigious client list including Robert A.M. Stern, Michael Graves, Florence Knoll Basset, Mark Hampton, Benjamin Baldwin, Arquitectonica, Philip Johnson and Charles Gwathmey. He has been the author and photographer of seven books, coauthor/photographer of 19 and major contributor to an additional seven, including Imagined and Real Landscapes of Piranesi, published by Columbia Books of Architecture.
Piranesi was an 18th Century printmaker whose work contrasted the grandeur of an idealized Rome with the seediness and decay of his times. His engravings were a departure point for Brooke, who created photographs -- some from the same viewpoints used by Piranesi -- of the timelessness of both ancient and modern Rome. Brooke photographed the city while a fellow at the American Academy in Rome in 1991 when he was a recipient of the Rome Prize. The American Academy awards fellowships to 15 emerging artists and 15 scholars every year.
Views of Rome won the American Institute of Architects 1992 International Book Award. Five years later, in 1997, Brooke was a Fellow at the Albright Institute in Jerusalem and produced Views of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. That city, he wrote, is the ``only city in the world with an historical fabric comparable to that of Rome.''
A musician who played in orchestras and bands throughout high school, college and graduate school, he still plays bass (``I enjoy being the foundation for what's happening''), saxophone and trumpet. But the horns need more time than he has, he says, so these days he provides bass accompaniment for his 11-year-old son Miles, who plays piano.
A vegetarian, Brooke works out every day. He's busy researching new books of his own, while reading The Historian, Praying for Gil Hodges because he's crazy about baseball, and The Templars and the Assassins, a history of the Knights Templar, which he is going to illustrate.
''I don't look at much photography,'' he says. ''I look at paintings. But I'm crazy about George Hurrell, a glamour photographer during Hollywood's golden era. ''The most riveting images are from portraiture,'' he says. ``I think portraiture is what photography does best of all. I'm experimenting with it.''