Graham Warrington was born and raised in England. After the Second World War he studied photography at the Institute of British Photographers. In 1948 he took up permanent residence in Vancouver where he quickly became one of Canada's foremost architectural photographers, photographing the work of architects such as Arthur Erickson, Ron Thom, and Ned Pratt, as well as much of the record of urban Vancouver in the 1950s and 1960s. The modernist sensibility of his photography advanced Vancouver's new rational and functionalist ideals of architecture and put Canadian architecture on an international footing. In 1998 the Vancouver Art Gallery had an exhibition entitled, "The New Spirit: Modern Architecture in Vancouver, 1938-1963". Warrington's photographs were prominently featured amongst the blueprints and models.