Photo by Hannah Larrabee, (c) 2022, used with permission.

Harley Cowan (he/him)

Harley Cowan is a photographer and architect based in Portland, Oregon. His interest in large format photography led to a research fellowship in architectural heritage documentation and preservation with work in the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) collection in the Library of Congress and other federal, state and county archives.

In 2022 he was artist-in-residence for the Arctic Circle Expeditionary Residency. In 2020, he was awarded the Van Evera Bailey Fellowship by Architecture Foundation of Oregon and the Oregon Community Foundation to photograph undocumented and at-risk heritage sites around Oregon. In 2019, he was inducted by the Atomic Photographers Guild as their 38th member for his work doumenting the Manhattan Project. In 2018, he was recognized by the Vernacular Architecture Forum as the recipient of the Access Award during the VAF National Conference in Alexandria, Virginia. In 2017, he was selected as a test photographer by the Italian film company FILM Ferrania during the pre-production of P30 Alpha film.

His photography has exhibited nationally with the National Park Service, Port of Portland, PDX International Airport, Oregon Historical Society, Camerawork Gallery, Lightbox Gallery, Allied Arts and is supported by Oregon’s Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC). His work has been featured in both photography and historic preservation publications including Diffusion, Field Notes, This Place, and Washington State Magazine.

Harley has been an artist-in-residence for the National Park Service and the University Club of Portland. He has lectured for the Portland Art Museum, Society of Architectural Historians, Docomomo_Oregon, University of Oregon, and the Pacific Northwest Preservation Field School. His work is included in SAH Archipedia, an online encyclopedia of historic sites.

A graduate of Washington State University, Harley was a member of the Professional Advisory Board for WSU’s School of Design & Construction for eight years. Early in his career, he spent six years working in nuclear industry. His studies also took him to Far Eastern State Technical University in Vladivostok, Russia.