In art school, Simon Upton fell in love with photography. “What I saw early on, and still love about photography, is that it’s very outward,” he tells host Dennis Scully on the latest episode of The Business of Home Podcast. “You don’t have to dwell too much in your own head. … It’s thinking and framing and quietly working out what is interesting in front of you. That ‘outwardliness’ is something that I absolutely fell for from the get-go because it took me out of my own head.”

Upton’s culminating project for school documented explorers in their homes, which led him to develop a substantial interiors portfolio that he then took to a number of publications as he was entering the magazine world in the late 1980s. He got his big break in 1992 with a cover of The World of Interiors featuring the London apartment owned and designed by Roger Banks-Pye, then creative director of Colefax & Fowler. That image catapulted Upton’s career and began a longstanding relationship with the publication. Since then, he has photographed spaces for Elle Decor, Architectural Digest and House & Garden, as well as projects for big-name architects and designers like Gil Schafer, Bobby McAlpine and Rose Uniacke.

The media landscape was far different when he got his start, but Upton believes interior photography is just as important as it was back then, if not more. “It’s very encouraging that better images get a better response on Instagram and other platforms,” he says. “So that appreciation of good imagery is holding really true.” He also points to the continued appetite for books. “It is led by us, the readers of books, because if we weren’t buying them, they’re not going to get produced. And thankfully, we are buying these books,” he explains. “I think there’s a lovely analogy to when early photography really came into play, and people started getting their portraits taken with early daguerreotypes, and it spread very fast. The portrait painters of the time said, ‘Well, that’s it. Hang up your brushes.’ Well, there are more portrait painters working today than in 1900, and it’s [by] tenfold. So it just adds to the space. I’m sure you couldn’t get away with being a third- or fourth-rate photographer, and make it. You’d have to have something to offer, but I think there is space for everybody and all the media.”

Elsewhere in the episode, the photographer discusses the foundational education he learned from The World of Interiors; the process of choosing projects for his new book, Simon Upton: A to Z Interiors; and the growing importance of acknowledging the work of artists during the rise of AI.

Crucial insight: Upton finds great joy in interacting with the designer and client during a shoot—an opportunity to capture the space as it was truly intended. “An awful lot of it is diplomacy, because whether the designer is there or not, and indeed whether a homeowner is there or not, you are in effect a sort of diplomatic correspondence with them,” he says. “So when it is an actual dialogue, it’s a wonderful process. The imparting process is the bit. It’s so lovely to listen and then try and translate, listen, translate, listen, translate, because it’s great to be in dialogue with the decorator and indeed homeowner about the space, because that informs hopefully and wonderfully how we’re going to actually get it across.”

Key quote: “Quite early on the shoots, I felt there was a responsibility to make this thing a document. But that document is not about trying to see exactly the contents of a room, because there’s not the space to cover that, and it’s not a catalog. Really, the only thing that can be your honest reportage is to try and get the feeling of being in the room. In all image-making, if you’ve got a sense of feeling, we as the viewer can look at an image and know what’s there without seeing it with lights pointing to the important bits. You just don’t need that.”

This episode is sponsored by Loloi and Kohler. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

The Thursday Show

Host Dennis Scully and BOH executive editor Fred Nicolaus discuss the biggest news in the design world, including new interior design legislation, why boomers are buying bigger homes, and why some furniture companies are hiring AI employees. Later, Grant Bowen, founder of the owner’s rep firm Peak Projects, joins the show.

This episode is sponsored by Joon Loloi. Listen to the show below. If you like what you hear, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.