Photos of the Vine Street Workhouse near 18th and Vine, Kansas City, Missouri – built in 1897. More info at https://www.kansascityworkhouse.com/
…and one ending shot of my beer at Twin City Tavern on Westport Road and State Line at the end.
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Ten photos taken Monday evening of the former AMC Mainstreet Theatre, which recently became the the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. I licensed a few photos of this place to AMC not long after they opened back in 2008 I believe it was – and with the ownership change-up I figured I’d grab a few new ones. If they eventually modify the signage more-so than just the removal of the AMC logo, maybe it will warrant some more shots later.
I’m working on a project with the creative director at Rhythm Engineering, one of Kansas City’s fastest growing young companies – and designers of advanced “self-optimizing” traffic lights. On Thursday we shot a number of photos downtown and the Plaza. These are wide-angle and fisheye lens shots of local intersections with an emphasis placed on movement and flowing traffic – although I still need to hit up the Plaza today (Saturday) while it’s busier with people on the sidewalks and so-forth. Once all the shots are compiled and picked, they’re to be used for Rhythm’s marketing, advertising, and graphics uses.
For all eleven of these, I was shooting at a very low ISO of 50 and narrow apertures between f/18 and f/22, all to slow the shutter speed down to between a fifth and a tenth of a second so that the moving traffic would appear blurred, and thus help convey a sense of motion.
On Sunday for a couple hours I gathered some intersection and traffic signal photos as preliminary work for scouting locations and finding types of compositions that a new client is looking for. They design self-optimizing traffic lights and we’re working on producing some promotional and marketing material. These photos are trying to emphasize green traffic signals in relatively busy intersections. I used a step-stool for some of these to get up closer.
Sunday night Memorial Day Weekend symphony concert at Union Station, Kansas City, Missouri. This was the tenth annual, and my sixth consecutive year getting shots if I’m counting correctly.
Three lenses used in this post, wide-angle, telephoto, and fisheye.
CLICK HERE for last year’s 2011 Celebration At The Station photo post.
I remember this stretch along McGee near 10th – I worked in the UMB building on the corner one summer years ago, before the Sprint Center and the tear-down of the Shoppers Parkade garage. There used to be a deli we’d get food from. Now with nothing but a giant parking lot bounded by 10th to 11th and Grand to McGee, the views have changed a lot from what I remember back in 2001.
I also meandered over to Oak Street and around City Hall too.
Power and Light Building –
Sprint Center from 10th Street looking south down McGee.
Bryant Building, Wall Sreet Tower, Town Pavillion –
The notorious Pickwick Plaza sits closed down now –
Alley behind Pickwick Plaza building –
Around 10th and Oak –
City Hall and Oak Tower –
Statue across from City Hall of former mayor Ilus Davis.
Earlier this week I dropped off some old computer parts at the Surplus Exchange recycling place in the West Bottoms under I-70 – and a couple days later I went back for photos figuring something could be done as far as photos go. For these I used just my telephoto lens, instead of my frequent wide angle and fisheye shots.
18th and Holmes is a fairly unassuming and non-descript intersection but after stopping and parking there I thought it worked out pretty well. Near the end I climbed to a second-floor exit to get some elevated shots. Three lenses used for this post. Also, I need to update the aesthetics and presentation of this blog, it’s getting a little stale. Hopefully that will be coming in the not too distant future.
Shots I took Wednesday and Thursday nights – first of some streetscape improvements between 39th and 43rd and Main, Kansas City MO.
Then some shots taken from the community garden at 18th and Broadway on Thursday evening.
Last one is a telephoto shot taken from the garden looking towards some lofts in the Crossroads District with Crown Center buildings in the background.
Other shots from the top of that Crossroads parking garage I mentioned the other day – I did a few shots there two or three weeks back with the wide angle lens and this time went back to use the telephoto aimed at the Kauffman Center. These two other shots here I nabbed in between and after getting that shot.
Twenty very recent shots from downtown Kansas City. I’m getting a better feel for what kind of stock photo material sells and I’ve been feeling motivated these last few days.
First, there is a local client who wants a north side fisheye view close up of the Kauffman Center post-construction. The first day I went out it clouded up on me on short notice:
Then on Sunday after the snow melted I went and re-shot since they are more interested in an uncloudy view:
…although I wonder if the discoloration on the sidewalk because of the salt will be a problem. Following are some more fisheye Kauffman Center shots –
Then that evening I went to the top of the garage at 13th & Grand downtown for some fancy sunset shots, where I realized the state of disrepair my tripod is in. The wobbliness made most of the pictures blurry rubbish, but these are what I did (barely) get with an insecure tripod head:
Some Kauffman Center and AMC Mainstreet Theater shots…
The next night (MLK Day) after having something tightened on the tripod head I went out to 12th and Main:
On Tuesday afternoon/evening I went to Penn Valley Park to get yellowish late afternoon skyline photos. The tripod came undone once again so most of these are handheld, and the fact that I was freezing my hands off with no gloves meant I wasn’t going to wait for it to get dark blue in the sky…
The tents housing the good folks of Occupy Kansas City during the cold January weather…
Because I still get a fairly noticeable amount of traffic to this one post back in June of shots of the Ferment stainless steel tree sculpture by Roxy Paine on the grounds of the Nelson Atkins Museum, I decided to go back and get more and do a web traffic experiment. Sunset on 12/22/2011.
Parting shot of one of the row of trees on the grounds of the Nelson.
A drive to downtown Kansas City, which included parking a few times to take pictures. Monday night, Sept 5 ’11.
After all this time I finally made a Facebook Fan Page for my pics CLICK HERE. Like I’m saying in my own FB newsfeed, click like on it if you’re one of those people who like clicking on things you can like on Facebook.
Downtown Kansas City Skyline #1
I was asked by a local client to try and duplicate a previous photo I took last summer that at the time had more cranes in the foreground working on the Kauffman Center construction. Now there’s a demand for shots with the cranes gone, although one remains in these shots it is not very prominently seen. The first shot above is my attempt to duplicate last summer’s photo as precisely as I could figure out how. It helped having my iPhone to view the original on the screen from my own site and compare with the display on my camera as I composed this shot. I took a couple extra shots as well while the lighting was good, seen below.
Downtown Kansas City Skyline #2
Downtown Kansas City Skyline #3
Because the world should know by now that Muammar Gaddafi is a deranged lunatic who happens to command the forces of an entire economically valuable country (Libya and oil supply fears), Libya has its fair share of upset citizenry owing to Gaddafi’s corruption. By virtue of that, a showing Sunday afternoon of Kansas City’s Libyan American and general Arab American community on the Plaza at Mill Creek Park.
1) On a megaphone.
2) Varied Signage.
3) Part of the group of protestors.
4) Get Gaddafi Out
5) Ladies and Signs for Libya.
6) Shout.
7) Muslim Prayer at 4 PM
Photos from the first anti-Gaddafi protest two weeks ago can be seen here. One of those shots was said to have depicted the best Libya protest sign in the world, according to Buzzfeed.com.
Last night I attended the watch party for Sly James, one of the primary mayoral race contenders in Kansas City, Missouri. Incumbent mayor Mark Funkhouser was unseated as Sly James and Mike Burke were the top two finishers in the primary, advancing to the general election on March 22 for holding the seat of Mayor of Kansas City Missouri.
After the crowd at Californos Restaurant in Westport received word of James’ advancing to the general election, Jason Kander – Missouri 44th District House Representative introduced Sly and he took the podium.
1) Sly James' Watch Party - after advancing
2) Sly James' Watch Party - Sly with family and friends
3) Sly interviewed by Channel 41
Following up on the revolution in Egypt that resulted in a couple of photoblog postings on my part covering rallies here in Kansas City (One and Two), there is now a great deal of protesting and unrest in Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, enough to bring out the local Libyan community and broader Arab American community in Kansas City for a rally at Mill Creek Park on the Plaza on Saturday. I met a man on Saturday who was actually the focal point in one of my Egypt photos who I learned was imprisoned by Gaddafi for nearly twenty years. The situation in Libya is not receiving the amount of press it should due to the tight reins Gaddafi’s regime keeps on journalists and the news media in Libya.
There aren’t a lot of ways to get information in and out of the country except through Internet social networking, and Gaddafi has been busy shutting off the Internet across Libya during the protests and clashes with Libyan citizenry. And I’m told a great deal of the world remains unaware of the killings of dozens or hundreds of protesters in Libya in recent days by Gaddafi’s military forces. There were some demonstrators present at this rally here in Kansas City living in exile from Libya who cannot return and see close family while Gaddafi is in power, so it is not hard to understand why Libyans would love to see Gaddafi gone.
1) Libyan and American flags flying on the Plaza
2) Gaddafi Sux
3) Libya's Turn - Fisheye Lens photo
4) Mubarak Awaiting Gaddafi
5) Streetscape on The Plaza during the rally.
6) Black and White with the Fisheye lens.
7) Holding a child.
8) Gaddafi's Atrocities - and this list only had room to cover the early part of his career as dictator.
From my visit to the Kauffman Center’s construction site last Friday, here are a couple external up-close shots. From this angle the Grand Lobby is the prominent feature being seen of the new building.
Facing eastward, Canon EF 16-35 L II f/2.8 Lens at f/18, 16mm, ISO 50, Shutter speeds varied.
Facing westward in the afternoon, Canon EF 15 mm f/2.8 Fisheye Lens at f/18, 15mm ISO 50, Shutter speeds varied
Saturday night was kind of a wash in a lot of ways. I came away satisfied with two or three pics, though the Waterfire event didn’t live up to expectations this year. First, three shots from the evening I kind of liked.
Kansas City Waterfire, 2010 - 1
Kansas City Waterfire, 2010 - 2
Bagpiper with the Plaza crowds on Saturday night
Alright – for my summation. Concerning the Waterfire event on Brush Creek – a public art/performance show first started in Providence Rhode Island that sprung up here in KC as well over the last few years. The prior years’ Waterfire shows took place well into October if I recall. By then the weather was far less humid and stifling than it often still remains in KC in mid-September. So trudging around the creek banks with sweat dripping onto my new camera was my first irritation, as mid September is too early to conduct this event. I’ve seen people comment on prior years’ Waterfire shows. They thought it was either cool and creative , or they just flat out thought it was silly. My own opinion was I liked the “atmosphere and moodiness” of it, so it’s been on my good side, and always makes for fun photography subject material.
Scheduling it in mid September when it’s completely common to have lingering summer heat and humidity was not smart. Secondly, there were storms coming through Kansas City that day since the early afternoon. They held off starting the event until 8pm, and shortly after it did start we all received word we’re not supposed to actually “walk” on the Brush Creek sidewalks due to high water concerns. Oh, and there was a Flash Flood Warning. Someone must have missed the memo about how lovely Brush Creek can get during flooding conditions. It would have appeared completely logical to postpone to the rain date, but they tried to go forward with the whole production that night – a gamble which crashed and burned when another round of rain storms showed up and they’d already committed to running the event that night. The Plaza then become quite a traffic jam as everyone was trying to get gone in fairly heavy rain showers.
As I was on my way out of the event, I decided to spend a few minutes trying to get a decent shot of the bagpiper playing at 47th and Broadway. The better ISO capabilities of my new 5D Mark 2 over my original version 5D aided greatly in this kind of low light shot. Right after that I got back to my car just as it was beginning to pour.
Summation: Waterfire: I like you, but be smart about things. Don’t schedule in September when there’s too much potential for the heat to be irritating, and don’t be afraid to err on the side of caution concerning rain date postponements. I’m glad I got a few pics of the event despite the fiasco, but it would have been better for everyone concerned to save them all the irritation and to just postpone to the rain date (sorry if I’m playing Captain Obvious with that last statement).
Skywalk Glass Reflections
During the Fiesta Hispana I had the idea to go hop into the skywalk connecting the Marriott and Muehlebach Hotels at 12th and Wyandotte and see if anything interesting was to be had from up there. I tend to gravitate towards these kind of window/glass reflection things like this, and they’ve actually led to photo sales in the past. Here’s another shot I took down on the street underneath the skywalk just over nine months prior on January 2nd, 2010. In this photo above I’m pointing the camera and lens toward the southeast, though with the reflection coming in from the glass behind me, you can see the Bartle Hall convention Center and a couple of the Skystation pylons as well, although those are actually to the southwest of where I was located. Between the One Kansas City Place tower and the Muehlebach Hotel, you can kind of see an air vent inside the skywalk I was situated in. Crazy visual complications like that get me all excited.
Horse Statue at Barney Allis Plaza
This past weekend was the Fiesta Hispana at Barney Allis Plaza in downtown KCMO. Honestly I did not get any actual good photos of anything pertaining to the festival itself, although I did nab a couple of general, urban scene type of shots, this being one, and another coming tomorrow. Here we have quite a horse statue in the park across from the Marriott Hotel, with the old art-deco Municipal Auditorium behind.
Back on July 24th was the Worldwide Photowalk Day – there were two in Kansas City, one in the morning and one in the evening starting in the Crossroads area. I took this one around the beginning of the evening, looking westward with some geometries of part of the pedestrian bridge across the train tracks.
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts construction progress
Tuesday evening was a good night to get out and get some dusk pics. I had been meaning to try this angle for myself for a while after noticing some other photos taken around the south entrance to the Ballroom at the convention center. The weather was cool, with nice cloud cover for a change, and it worked out great with the light at dusk.
I used six manually bracketed camera raw files at differing exposures for HDR tone mapping, at f/16, ISO 200, 16 mm focal length, and varied shutter speeds.
-August 17, 2010
I went and photographed a gathering at Mill Creek Park on the Plaza on Monday, this one concerning last January’s Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in that, in what I imagine must have to be a pile of legalese and mumbo-jumbo, it was ruled to expand the legal definition of a corporation into something with the legal rights and status of a sovereign citizen in ways, specifically, this corporate personhood concept arose because now corporations can spend an unlimited amount of money on political campaign donations. Citizens United was a nonprofit 501(C)(4) organization that evidently didn’t do anything else besides distribute TV commercials promoting a film called Hillary: The Movie. I haven’t seen the movie but I’m told it’s not flattering. The breadcrumbs can lead to corporate interests funneling money through nonprofit groups in order to manipulate political campaigns.
Robin and Laird Monahan, brothers and Vietnam veterans are walking across the country, from San Francisco to Washington D.C concerning the Supreme Court decision, and Kansas City was one of the stops. The webpage covering their trip is at MoveToAmend.org.
Link to podcast of Tell Somebody on KKFI 90.1 with discussion of the supreme court case and corporate personhood.
1) Robin and Laird Monahan
2)
3)
4) Laird Monahan
5) Something to end with.
Kauffman Center Construction - varied exposures // f/18 // 285 mm // ISO 500
The Kauffman Center’s ongoing construction as seen from about Pershing and Broadway on July 16, 2010.
In other news I’m without my wide angle lens for the time being as it somehow mysteriously acquired a zoom ring problem, and I’ve had to ship the lens to Canon. It would be nice if I hadn’t sold the old 17-40 L f/4 when I upgraded to my currently faulty 16-35 L f/2.8.
Yellow Cab - 1/80 sec. // f/8.0 // 220 mm // ISO 640
I read a few weeks ago that Ford will be completely discontinuing production of the Crown Victoria, the staple of cabs and police cars, next year. By that, I might grab a few extra police car and taxi cab photographs as I go, while the current new and late model fleet vehicles age and are retired. Many current city scene photos may start to seem antebellum more quickly.
Also, I see the cab business in KCMO has picked over the last few five years I’d guess. Something I notice all over the midtown area that wasn’t as frequent as before, and they’ve picked up a lot downtown also, going by my unscientific, purely visual observations.
Cabs running around. Sounds like it could be some kind of trailing economic indicator replete with both correlations and inversions.
This taxi shot is from my time on Saturday evening at the Worldwide Photowalk. Here I was looking eastward across Grand, where that vast parking lagoon shows what’s across the street the next block over too. That’s another win for Kansas City real estate.
Last week while nabbing some more shots looking at the Kauffman Center construction, I turned my telephoto lens briefly to see what kind of shots could be had of 71 Highway and the traffic trails. In this shot my camera shutter was open for 13 seconds.
You can see here how much acreage must be devoted to moving cars around in the downtown area, given the way the actual built-up urban environment has been allowed to nearly be eviscerated over the decades through reckless urban planning ideas centered around the ideas of tearing down the city in favor of easy, happy motoring.