Historic Architecture - The Nelson-Piper Building's Transformation

I was called to get some shots of the historic Nelkon-Piper building for EDCKC's blog. The building is 134 years old as of writing this. Immediately I knew a front twilight shot was in order so I could capture the character of the exterior. I requested that the interior lights stay on until about 5:30pm. The sun set around 5pm the evening I shot it. The benefits of shooting twilights in the winter are you get to shoot and be done before 5:30 instead of 8:30 or 9:00 in the Summer. There's one positive for Winter...

The next day I got to spend a couple hours capturing some of the interior views of the office space doing my best to dodge people and not be a giant distraction. There was no lighting setup here.  That way I could remain stealthy and sneak around getting shots without blasting light into people's spaces.

Inspiration From Home

It was only a couple years ago when I decided to quit my job to pursue a photography business. I had no interest in shooting family portraits, weddings, sexy models or events. Rather it was the fascination with patterns found in architecture that made  me start shooting.

Looking way back I realize that it was the home I grew up in that planted the seeds for the love of architecture. It was originally a one-story farmhouse built in the early 1920's. The second story was added in the 1930's.

We spent many evenings and weekend afternoons watching storms come in on the front porch in the Spring. On both the front and side porches you can see the beautiful stonework. It made my imagination run wild because you could see all the old fossilized shells and other interesting critters peppered throughout the stone.

My favorite details are the beams holding up the porch eaves. They are a little crooked from foundation movements. You'll understand if you have lived near Kansas City. It has a reputation for bi-polar weather. 100 years of scorching summers, windy storms, hail, snowstorms, ice storms and floods will shake things up a bit.

Abandoned Photography - Westport Middle School

To date this has been the most interesting and fun shoots I've tackled. Westport Middle School sold to developers to reuse the school as a piece of an entrepreneur/tech mixed use campus. The campus will feature a coding school, live-work spaces for artists and entrepreneurs, a health center, and a bevy of other amenities to suite the needs of tech culture. Sounds like a great place for a freelance photographer to work at...

I showed up an hour before an event which included about 200 people. My goal was to race around the building capturing what I could before the crowd poured in. Carrying a tripod around the exterior and up and down 4 flights of stairs made for a creative workout! The space was raw so the idea was to capture that feeling and to document some of the space before the transformation.

It's fun to visualize what will become of this beautiful old space. I found one of the most interesting features of this old school is that the cafeteria is at the top of the building on the fourth floor. I would love to know why this was considering the supplies needed to be transported up to the top of the building. 

Entrance with beautiful arch.

The auditorium is on the first floor. Nostalgic!

Interesting floor decay in the gym.

Check out the murals.

Arrows to direct traffic.

Here is the cafeteria at the fourth floor.

I loved these windows. 

Lovely exterior details.

Iconinc Architecture: One of Kansas City's Best Known Modern Homes

If you have lived in Kansas City for a few years or more, chances are you have seen a glimpse of the Bixby Residence located near 65th Street and State Line Road. It hides behind a gated entrance with enough landscaping to hide the front from passing traffic. Your eye catches small pieces of the home while driving by. It has always pulled my eyes off the road for a split second and made me go "Wow I wonder what the rest of the home looks like?"

Designed by architect Edward W. Tan­ner, the home was originally built for insurance executive Walter E. Bixby. The Bixby Residence was meant to suit Walter Bixby's taste and achieve the goal of being much different than the surrounding classic styles of homes in the neighborhood. Tanner was an interesting choice considering his career up to that point consisted of small commercial spaces with traditional styles, some portions of the Country Club Plaza with Spanish styles, and many of the humble ranches in Prairie Village, Kansas.

For this shoot I had about an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening to capture what I could. Being an overcast morning actually contributed to the home's style and the nature of the shoot. My job here was just to capture the home as it was. There was no serious staging of any kind. Even with the sprinklers being on about half the morning and flower pedals and small plant bits spread across the walks the mood of the home still comes through strong!

How to Capture Tall Ceilings

Have you ever been on any of the Parade of Homes tours around Kansas City? What are some of the features each of the homes have in common? There is one feature in new luxury homes that is very popular. I'm talking about tall ceilings.

I was recently tasked with shooting a living room that features 18-foot ceilings with a floor-to-ceiling window. Usually with tall ceilings there will also be beautiful wood beams at the very top. Capturing these beams is important for showing what the room is all about.  The beams add a luxurious character to the room that is just as important as any other detail.

Challenge

How do you photograph tall ceilings in a way that shows the overall space without simply pointing your camera straight-up causing goofy distortion?

Solution

Use a tilt-shift lens! A tilt-shift lens is a special lens designed for capturing these type of pictures without making the image look abnormal. The lens allows the photographer to take a "normal" shot and a "shifted" shot. These two shots are then combined to make the final image which shows the entire room as well as the tall ceilings. 

Let the pictures do the talking...

Here is the normal shot. The viewer cannot see the wooden beams or the ceiling which defines the room.

Here is the shifted image. This was captured by using the tilt-shift lens' shift feature allowing me to capture the ceilings and the wooden beams. Since we can't see the living room we will stitch this image together with the normal image to get the final image.

Here is the final image with the normal image and shifted image stitched together.