End Page: Immortalize Your House: Jim Koch

Samantha Brooks

07/02/2004

Architectural photographer Jim Koch has been refining his craft since he was 18, but he never imagined he would find himself on the other side of the lens as an interior designer. As a resident of High Point, N.C., which is the nexus of the American furniture industry, Koch’s leap from photography to interior design was almost inevitable. “I was styling my own shoots, and my clients liked what I was doing so much that they started asking my advice for other rooms in their houses,” he says. “In addition to photographing the house, I’ve done everything from changing the floors and walls to the landscaping.”


Jim Koch photographed the home office of a residence in Grand Rapids, Mich., for a book that celebrated Baker Furniture’s centennial.  (Click image to enlarge)

In his commercial work, Koch has shot modern furnishings in the New Orleans apartment of writer William Faulkner and photographed projects for Metropolitan Home and House & Garden. He has also contributed to books on interiors, such as A History of Furniture: Celebrating Baker Furniture/100 Years of Fine Reproductions and Fabrics: A Guide for Interior Designers and Architects.

Koch recently opened his own gallery in High Point to showcase his fine art photography, which includes experimental photographic paintings of landscapes and documentary black-and-white street images that draw on the work of Eugene Smith and Horst P. Horst. “I don’t categorize myself,” Koch says. “My subjects are ordinary. They are the kinds of things you walk by every day, but don’t necessarily notice.” From windmills in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park to salons in Grand Rapids, Mich., Koch takes an uncommon look at the common.

Jim Koch Studio
336.887.6677
www.jk-gallery.com (fine art gallery)