James B. Guthrie was born and raised in Chicago. Like many, he took to photography as a boy after being given the gift of a Brownie camera. Coincidently, this was the same year he decided to become an architect. James went on to formal photographic training in high school. He continued exploring the medium with comprehensive courses and darkroom time in the School of Fine Arts at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. These lessons were simultaneous with completing both Bachelor’s and Master of Architecture degrees. After completing his architectural degrees, he moved to San Diego, where he finished his architectural apprenticeship, became a licensed architect, and pursued a career in architecture and urban design. Throughout his architectural career, James always maintained his parallel interests in photography. Early photographic influences included the work of noted architectural photographers Ezra Stoller and Balthazar Korab. Conceptual influences came from studies of Japanese architecture and western architects who sought harmony with their environments, including Frank Lloyd Wright, Irving J. Gill, and Alvar Aalto. Between degrees and while living in St Louis, James had the opportunity to see Joel Meyerowitz’s photographic exhibit “St. Louis and the Arch.” The inspiration of knowing the Arch and its context, and seeing Meyerowitz’s vision of it, was a turning point in how James approached architecture, and other ‘objects’, as a subject of his photography. Now, with studios in California and the Midwest, he continues pursuing his architectural and photographic interests and their synergies with increasing passion. 

As both a fine art photographer and an architect, James maintains a deep interest in how buildings, nature, and people interact, energize and inform each other. He views the creative processes of architecture and photography as complementary efforts in that they come from different ends of the creative process but find their nexus at the point of documentation. 

Capturing and sharing his view of our place within a larger universe is the current focus of James’ photographic work and is exemplified in his ongoing “Edgeless” series.