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Three different edits of the same shot, something random I took Sunday afternoon on Westport Road.
Color version.
Fisheye lens distortion corrected in Adobe Lightroom. I usually don’t like the distorion-less fisheyes but in this case I thought even it was a little interesting as well.
First one with a black and white treatment.
I live not far and grew up in the area. It’s a testament to my speed and agility that I’ve crossed Westport Road on foot as many times as I have without getting maimed or killed by traffic. It’s a street that epitomizes Kansas City’s decades-long fixation with moving cars as fast as possible and saying to hell with everything else.
Fisheye lens view of the Kauffman Center's construction progress on April 19, 2011.
I had the chance to go in the Kauffman Center construction site again this afternoon and nabbed this fisheye view of the point as symmetrical as I could get with my tripod. Inside the glass is the grand lobby, to be known as the Brandmeyer Great Hall.
On Tuesday, Mar. 1 I had the chance to go back inside the Kauffman Center on a tour again. At present most of the seats have been installed in Helzberg Hall, pictured in both photos below. The seat installation in the adjacent Muriel Kauffman Theatre is to begin very shortly as well.
Above: Standing where part of the pipe organ will be installed.
View from the upper level at Helzberg Hall.
Inside The Link in February
Yet another fisheye lens photo, and my fifth and final shot from my series of photos taken from inside The Link Skywalk between Union Station and Crown Center on the evening of Saturday February 12th. These kind of visually complicated things under the right lighting are pretty much my favorite things to do with photography. The ceiling and HVAC reflections in the glass wouldn’t be nearly so evident without the HDR/tone-mapped processing I applied by taking multiple exposures in-camera and blending them on my computer.
The remainder of my shots from my visit to the Kauffman Center site on January 28th –
Up Close On The South End of the Building
I was a little upset over my Helzberg Hall ceiling photo below as I was unable to achieve a completely perfect symmetry with the composition.
Helzberg Hall Ceiling
Both shots taken with my fisheye lens. It seems that’s been a popular lens for me to use lately as a lot of my recent stuff has been from using the fisheye.
Out the Plane's Window
For two days this week I had an event photography gig I was working in Arizona – this shot was taken looking out the window of a Southwest Airlines flight from Kansas City to Phoenix this past Wednesday. Of course, the distortion from the fisheye lens makes the Earth appear round, which it is of course but the effect was exaggerated here owing to the lens construction. I wasn’t so lucky to get a window seat on the return trip.
Two weeks ago I had the chance again to go inside the Kauffman Center construction site for photography. For this post I’m highlighting my three fisheye-lens shots taken from the top level off the edge as close to the center as I could get. The Lobby will be called the Brandmeyer Great Hall.
Fisheye view looking directly south on top level.
Fisheye view looking southwest.
Fisheye view looking in a southeast direction.
The Kauffman Center as I refer to it, also known as the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, is a $400 million project in downtown Kansas City, Missouri designed by architect Moshe Safdie. The Kauffman Center will be opening this September.
Bus movement and motion with my fisheye lens on a foggy Sunday morning, September 19, 2010.
To the nearby hotel valets and office building security guards I know I was evincing the appearance of a crazy person lying on the ground behind a tripod on the street corner at 7:30 am Sunday morning. Sometimes we’re not always in control of our fate. Anyway, I used my fisheye lens here and took several long-exposure shots of buses going past, and then a bit of layer masking primarily during part of the fancy computerin’ processes, and there ya go…
I’ve thought for a long time Baltimore Ave. downtown is a good looking street. That and its high frequency of bus thru traffic lends well to… photos of Baltimore Ave. with buses going all over.