Haydn Cattach is a Melbourne-based photographer who graduated RMIT University with a BA in Photography in 2009.

Across 15 years of shooting, Haydn has explored the combinations of artificial and ambient light to bring narratives and drama to pieces and spaces created by some of Australia’s leading designers and architects.

Haydn views his collaborations as a privilege, one in which he is entrusted to visually describe collections or spaces that have been meticulously created by designers, craftspeople and owners. The control of light within his work is paramount to the image success, complex arrangements are employed to create shape, form, texture, at other times ambient light is harnessed and manipulated to fill spaces organically and allow the architecture to drive the narrative.

The Project

Ivanhoe House; a journey of colour through a reimagining of a federation era home, by BoardGrove Architects.

The Datum is the defining design device across the project. Colours are split below or above, new additions to the home have hues on their ceilings, original rooms are reimagined with colours adorning their walls.

The challenge photographically was to bridge the unique and contrasting design of each space with its adjacent partner, meshing them together to allow the viewer to travel through the home and experience the strongly defined character of each space. The Movie Room, it’s heavy navy curtains wrap intimately allowing for only a momentary glimpse of the external world through a spotlight effect open window, the darkness of the room was truly appreciated when the only light source was a long exposure of the television.

This room blends across a puzzle piece carpet into the Gin Room, a myriad of glass reflections and bespoke pink cabinetry. The ethereal glow of the window light through sheer blinds creates a dreamy illumination.

The Living Space, bathed again in diffuse light, reveals a folded blue roof and a curious red pole. As the Living rises to the Kitchen, the colour above the datum draws you into the space but forces you to reflect back to the previous room. Here baby pink adorns a hipped roof borrowed from the federation era. Light creates both softness and angular moments, reflecting the soft/harsh design devices.

The home is both “decorative and flamboyant balanced with honest and humble details”; capturing this was an exercise in restraint, the temptation to shoot wide and reveal all had to be avoided in order to build the juxtaposing personality of the home, simultaneously bold and fragile.

Architect: BoardGrove Architects