Marvin Rand, 84

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Marvin Rand, the architectural photographer who died last weekend at 84 and is remembered in a Times obituary today, always operated a bit under the shadow of the famous Julius Shulman. By certain accounts he spent his career as Salieri to Shulman’s Mozart. Yet Rand was a remarkably talented figure and a lively and generally sweet but occasionally irascible presence in his own right. He documented a six-decade span of architecture in Southern California, cataloging the Watts Towers and the work of Irving Gill with particular care.

Rand’s official website is here. A Times gallery of his images is here. Another fantastic sliver of his portfolio is here.

A 2005 Times profile by Bettijane Levine, finally, is here.

-- Christopher Hawthorne

Photo credit: Tibby Rothman

Corrected, 7:21 p.m.: An earlier version of this post credited the photo to Kwaku Alston. It was taken by Tibby Rothman.