Soft Industry

Finding beauty in the built, the quiet grace of the man-made world

Soft Industry is as much about seeing as it is about place. It invites a slower kind of looking — one that recognises harmony in line, tone, and proportion where beauty isn’t expected to reside. Through restraint and simplicity, the series reflects on the way human design reshapes the natural world — suggesting that even in spaces where nature steps aside, there remains a calm and deliberate kind of grace, hidden in plain sight.

Soft Industry is an ongoing photographic series exploring the quiet beauty of the man-made environment. Shot across cities and towns throughout Aotearoa New Zealand, the work seeks moments of calm within the everyday — loading bays, painted walls, pipes, carparks, signage — spaces shaped entirely by human hands. Rendered in soft contrast, pastel tones, and minimal compositions, these images transform the functional into the poetic, revealing small traces of balance and stillness in the built world.

New Zealand’s urban landscapes carry a distinct visual character. As a relatively young country, its cities are defined less by ornate history and more by utility; a freshness that lends the city a visual honesty. Beauty emerges not through age or grandeur, but through proportion, colour, and light.

Black and white photo of a modern building with angular design and protruding windows, viewed from below at night.

Modern geometric sculpture illuminated at night, with a dark sky and some faint city lights in the background.

Empty stadium seats arranged in curved rows, black and white photograph.

An aerial view of multiple overpasses and highways with cars traveling on them, surrounded by green trees and some construction areas.

Black and white photo of an outdoor staircase at night with shadows cast by metal handrails, leading down from a building.

A black and white photo of a street lamp with three glowing spherical lights at night, with a dark background, some trees, and a tall building with lit windows in the distance.

A black and white nighttime scene of a Nissan dealership with a lit Nissan sign above a glass-fronted showroom, cars parked outside, and a light trail across the front.

Black and white photo of a bicycle wheel with spokes, viewed upside down in the background, partially obscured behind a concrete wall in the foreground.

Two women walking past a white building with arched windows and orange brick accents, on a sunny day with shadows cast on the brick pavement.

Nighttime view looking up through snow-covered tree branches towards the bright moon in a dark sky.

A person sitting on a dock holding an umbrella, with a city skyline and hills in the background, in black and white.

Two birds perched on the top of a tall, pointed metal fence against a gray, overcast sky.

Black and white photo of a modern glass building with reflections, taken from a low angle, with the sky and some clouds in the background.