A Gollings photograph reveals a great deal about the aspirations, aims and beliefs, and the zeitgeist of a building and its architect’s intentions. This is based on and expressed through Gollings’s 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’s 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.