Sunset view from Downtown Kansas City

One more shot from the top of the City Hall parking garage looking west right after sunset. It was good and colorful last Saturday evening when I took this. Unfortunately so much of the urban parts of Kansas City have been gobbled up by parking, it can be hard getting a good shot of things that aren’t parking structures or lots – all the more ironic since it’s convenient to go to the top of garages to get elevated views. But only to a point apparently – too many garages everywhere and there’s nothing left worth looking at.

Since the City Hall garage is rather new, it has very high guard rails making it about impossible to take a picture through the camera’s viewfinder. For this one I had to activate the Live View mode so I could see the visual on the camera’s LCD and prop it up high with my tripod, and manually bracket my shots looking at the light meter display on the LCD. So that’s one other advantage of my Canon 5D Mark II – as much as I loved my old original 5D I couldn’t have gotten this shot with it.


Kansas City Skyline from City Hall Garage

On Saturday evening I went to the top of the City Hall garage trying for a couple shots of the skyline as the sun went down.

View of the 12th Street Bridge from inside the car.

Like I noted on Monday, it can be fun to take pictures of outdoor things from inside something. I got the idea to take an HDR photo of something from inside my car after seeing this fun photo from Times Square. In my case it was the 12th Street Bridge in KCMO at sunrise on Saturday… rest doesn’t always come on schedule. I tried to go as wide as my wide angle lens allowed but I decided to crop off the sides and make the dash of the car level a bit, as in the original it was tilted a little by accident due to how cumbersome it was setting up a Manfrotto tripod in the backseat of a Ford Focus. The view here terminates up ahead with the One Kansas City Place skyscraper to the east in the downtown loop.

Taken a few minutes after yesterday’s photo, looking east kind of northeast at sunset, inside The Link skywalk between Crown Center and Union Station.

Union Station from Inside The Link

Because a lot of times, photos of the outside taken from the inside of something – are fun to take. This was inside “The Link” skywalk between the Westin Hotel and Union Station, although the best part of it over Main for views is closed off right now as I saw.

Crown Center Art Installation

A look up at the public art installation and high-rise office buildings in Kansas City where Main and Grand Blvd intersect right where midtown ends and downtown begins.

Kauffman Center Construction at Sunset

A look at the Kauffman Center construction site after sunset on October 6th, taken from McGee near Crown Center.

On Saturday night/Sunday morning I was moving about already with my fisheye lens affixed after taking yesterday’s fountain photo, and thought this ornate entryway on 9th Street in the Garment District area was begging to also be shown via fisheye and HDR to get the evened-out light exposure between interior and exterior.

Fountain at 8th and Main

At a questionable hour on Saturday night, I perched in the median with my camera and tripod rigged toward this fountain in the middle of the street, amid several of the Commerce Bank properties on Main between 8th and 9th in the north loop. I used my fisheye lens here and cropped the photo somewhat on the computer afterwards.

Descent of Civilization, a public art implement.

A second photo of the bison skeleton statue, a new art implement at 9th and Broadway in downtown Kansas City MO named the “Descent of Civilization,” by Brooklyn artist Marc Swanson. In case you missed, here is Part One, which was this past Thursday’s post.

Tracy Ward - Candidate for the KCMO Sixth District At-Large Council Seat

Last week I took a few photos for Tracy Ward to use in her campaign for the Sixth District At Large City Council seat. I’ve come to know Tracy over the course of this year from taking photos at protests of the red light traffic cameras in KCMO, as well as the full-body scanners up at KCI Airport. Tracy is the Kansas City Area Director of the Liberty Restoration Project, which organized the protests.

Kauffman Center Construction at Sunrise

Here we have a look at the Kauffman Center construction site at sunrise on the morning of Wednesday, October 6th. I was mostly hoping for a shot like this, except when I got to the site at Summit Street in the West Side I couldn’t help but think that the billboard and Denny’s restaurant sign between my lens and the Kauffman building seriously messed things up. Whatever… I can’t chop them down.

The new public art implement at 9th and Broadway

A new art installation was unveiled yesterday at Ninth and Broadway downtown at one of DST’s buildings – “Descent of Civilization,” depicting the skeleton of a bison, by Brooklyn artist Marc Swanson for the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. The statue is to serve as a reminder of the nearly total eradication of the species from North America during westward expansion. Some free time on Thursday evening allowed me to grab a couple photos.

The fourth and final installment of pictures from my tour of the interior of the Kauffman Center construction site on September 20th, as a year until the grand opening approached.

In the Muriel Kauffman Theatre

Looking west in the afternoon on the construction site.

Wine and cheese were provided by the Kauffman Foundation and Cellar Rat on Baltimore the for the group touring the Kauffman Center.

In case you missed Parts One through Three from inside the Kauffman Center, CLICK HERE.

Sunset scene from downtown Kansas City in October 2010.

While gathering yet more shots of the Kauffman Center construction, I turned my telephoto lens a bit to the southwest while standing on McGee at sunset on Wednesday October 6th. This is a shot of the Assurant Building, the Westin Crown Center Hotel, Liberty Memorial, and One Park Place back in the distance. I’ve been using five or six manually bracketed RAW files at varying light exposures and merging to HDR with Photomatix recently for these shots with extremely gradual changes in color and tone that come about so often when you’re shooting photos right after sunset.

On Saturday afternoon the Zombie Walk For Hunger made way through the Plaza with participants dressed as the walking dead, collecting canned goods and cash donations for homelessness in Kansas City. The participants who dressed as zombies also contributed donations as well.

At 3pm the walk began, and afterwards a small bit of filming took place in Mill Creek Park for the post-apocalyptic web series Dead Wait, of which I am taking still photos of the production this season.

"The Little Mermaid" after BP has their way with her habitat.

After the rot has set in.

Two of them.

The cameras were rolling for this scene to be used in the series Dead Wait.

Jonathan Dine - US Senate Candidate

A protest took place on Friday in front of KCPT on behalf of libertarian Senate candidate Jonathan Dine, who was unfortunately excluded from an upcoming televised debate at KCPT prior to the November elections due to potentially inaccurate voter polling. Dine will be in the race for the Senate seat against Robin Carnahan and Roy Blunt.

Jason Kander canvassing a neighborhood in Missouri District 44

On Thursday evening I took a few shots for Jason Kander to utilize in his campaign for re-election as State Representative for the 44th District in Missouri, which falls in the boundaries of a good section of KCMO. Jason and I were 1999 graduates of Bishop Miege High School. November elections are less than a month away now, so Jason and all others seeking higher office are keeping busy these days.

The Downtown Loop After Sunset

On Monday evening while gathering a couple extra Kauffman Center shots I was lucky enough to come across something else I liked with the downtown highway loop and the bridge fencing at Grand and Truman Road. Sure it’s horrid urban planning with Interstate highways choking off huge sections of downtown, but it can make for fun photos. Also, it’s about time I update my site’s gallery with more recent stuff from this past spring and summer, some of which you may have seen photoblogged previously. Check out the May Thru July 2010 Gallery by clicking here. Also, the new set of photos is the featured gallery on my portfolio site’s homepage, so a slideshow of the 128 images can be seen just by going to https://www.ericbowersphoto.com.

More shots from my visit to the inside of the new Kauffman Center on September 20th.

1) Looking up in the Grand Ballroom

2) The stage of the Muriel Kauffman Theatre

3) Muriel Kauffman Theatre - facing east


Dinosaurs Unearthed Exhibit at Union Station

I’d been wanting to get a shot of the dinosaur prop outside Union Station under decent lighting. 7:35 pm, October 3, 2010.

Symmetrical Kansas City Skyline

Something to pass the weekend with – I took the original photo on top of Liberty Memorial on Thursday, and thought it would be fun to apply some fancy Photoshoppin’ to get a symmetrical looking  skyline photo.

More pics from my tour of the construction site of the new Kauffman Center building.

1) Looking southwest from the Grand Lobby

2) Inside Helzberg Hall, which will house the Kauffman Center's customized pipe organ

3) Looking up at the ceiling of the Muriel Kauffman Theatre