Kauffman Center Construction in Feb 2011
Something of the Kauffman Center with my telephoto lens focusing on the cables descending from the south end of the building. I tilted to make the building look straight, which makes the traffic light off balance.
Pardon a self-plug, but I’ll also drop mention that a shot of mine from awhile back for AMC Theatres here in Kansas City has been used in an article in the March 4 edition of Entertainment Weekly. (clickable)
Kauffman Center on the foggy morning of Sunday 2/27/2011
As you might have noticed I’ve accumulated a lot of Kauffman Center shots lately. What ones I post for the time being will likely focus on the exterior as I gather more over time as the building nears completion and opening in September. Due to the fog on the morning I took this the downtown skyline is obscured from view behind the Kauffman Center building.
On this photo my method was a bit atypical as I still used my ultra-wide angle lens (Canon EF 16-35 L II f/2.8) but I shot with it at 27mm instead of my normal very wide 16mm that the lens allows. It was a “framing” issue that called for it in this instance.
On my visit on Tuesday March 1 to the Kauffman Center I had the chance to go around looking at different parts of the construction progress. Checking in on the grand lobby is always fun. It’s to be dedicated as the Brandmeyer Great Hall. First photo is with my fisheye lens at 15mm (full frame) and the second with my standard wide angle lens at 16mm.
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.
I photographed a fundraiser at Meers Advertising in the Crossroads District for the Sly James campaign for mayor of KCMO. Lucky me I managed to get a photo of Sly and the Kauffman Center in the same shot, though I didn’t notice it until looking at the photo on the computer monitor. First one…
Sly James Mayoral Fundraiser with a view of the Kauffman Center at top
And two others of Sly from the event held Tuesday night, March 1.
I also had gone back in the Kauffman Center yesterday for further photography just prior to this fundraiser event, so I’ll have some new interior and on-site Kauffman Center shots again soon.
17th and Broadway and the Kauffman Center, February 2011.
I was out in the fog of Sunday morning getting some new shots, among them this of 17th and Broadway in the Crossroads District of KCMO just outside of the downtown loop. If not for the fog you’d see a skyline behind the Kauffman Center from this spot if I recall. The real estate market is said to be an uncertain one in the immediate vicinity of the Kauffman Center, so I figured I’d get my shots in now just in case.
Meanwhile I’ve recently gotten a bit of extra publicity with one of my Libya protestor photos from a week ago.
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.
Backstage at Muriel Kauffman Theatre at the Kauffman Center
I don’t yet fully understand all the technologies at play inside the Kauffman Center. I’ve had them shown to me on a couple of occasions and I wish I could recite what and why this large edifice is hanging down from the ceiling behind the stage of the Muriel Kauffman Theatre but the proper response escapes me at present.
Muriel Kauffman Theatre Under Construction
A fisheye view behind the stage of the Muriel Kauffman Theatre at the Kauffman Center. As you can see there is a level underneath the stage that is made visible from this angle.
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.
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
Last Friday I had the chance again to go on-site and inside the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts for further construction and progress photography. For this post I’m showing the two venues in the building, the Muriel Kauffman Theatre and Helzberg Hall.
Muriel Kauffman Theatre Under Construction in January 2011.
In the instance of both photos I stood as far to the top and center of the interiors as I could and used my fisheye lens (Canon EF 15 mm f/2.8 Fisheye) with my 5D Mark II DSLR. I used HDR/Tone mapping in the computer post-processing to even out the differing levels of exposure that were inherent in both scenes.
Helzberg Hall Under Construction in January 2011.
The Kauffman Center is scheduled to open this coming September.
Kauffman Center Construction With Snow
It’s winter and that means it’s the worst time of the year in Kansas City. Nevertheless I had to get out and take a photo of the Kauffman Center with the snow. I ended up going back to a familiar spot, at the Convention Center Ballroom sculpture area where I took this photo back in the summer. Truthfully I think the first one taken with my older camera is more interesting, but here I added snow. So, yeah.
Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts Construction on the evening of Dec. 1, 2010.
I’ve had a paying client or two here and there request up-to-date images of the Kauffman Center’s current progress, which is why I have so many shots of the grand structure rising as of late, this being yet another. I don’t know about you but I’m in the mood for another good old fashioned protest and march to go photo-journal accompanied with news vans or protestors getting willfully arrested . Eh, eh? Sound good?
A few times before I’ve had a good time making some symmetrical architectural doo-dads with the computer. For this one I used a photo I took a few days ago nearing the evening as workers were putting some touches on the Kauffman Center’s ongoing construction.
Photoshop-imposed symmetrical look upon the city's skyline and its construction.
And the photo it derived from, edited and made B&W for my whims prior to having the idea to do the symmetrical thing above.
Kauffman Center Construction, November 29, 2010.
Downtown KC at Sunset, November '10
Photo is from something I was gathering a week or two back in some work detailing the Kauffman Center construction.
Due to someone’s scheduling foul-up the photo show I’ve been posting about is put back to Friday, December 10 instead of this coming Friday. So, don’t come this Friday. (facebook)
Kauffman Center Under Construction
Monday afternoon I was scouting good angles for some shots of the front of the Kauffman Center. I took this telephoto close-up shot around 4:15 in the afternoon (Mon. Nov. 29, 2010), but the light was so bland and uninteresting I figured the only thing I’ll be doing with the shots I did take will be some abstract black/whites, and I’ll go back around the dusk civil twilight hour again for better lighting of where I’m thinking of shooting next.
In this photo we of course have one of the members of the construction crew at the Kauffman Center, seen zoomed in at a focal length of 400 mm as I stood quite a bit away across 17th. I also cropped in tight quite a bit even after the zooming in with the lens, made possible with the very high resolution of my Canon 5D Mark II I was fortunate to acquire back in September.
REMINDER! Gallery show of my photography at The Hook Gallery in Westport this coming Friday evening. See the Facebook and Yelp pages listed for the event.
From the Grand Lobby in the Kauffman Center under construction, looking south.
One of my shots from the Kauffman Center’s Grand Lobby, seen from the top level outside of the under-construction Muriel Kauffman Theatre. This is the skeletal frame at the south of the building coming together to show a pattern here for me while inside for construction progress photos about three weeks ago.
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.
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 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.
On Monday Sept. 20 I went on a tour of the Kauffman Center’s interior with a group from Hallmark. Since there were a number of useful photos resulting, I might stagger this across two or three posts total – so here’s Part One.
Scale Model of the Kauffman Center's Helzberg Hall
In the lobby and looking upward
Looking southeast from the lobby at the skeletal frame
Sunday evening the Kauffman Center held its One Year To Go concert event with singer Chaka Khan at the Power and Light District. The Kauffman Center was nice enough to allow me media access for some shots, as they used a couple images last night that I’ve taken of the new building under construction – one for the electronic vertical panels at the back, and another to make two 18 feet high banners depicting the skeletal pieces of the building’s south side.
1) Two shots of mine as stage props for the show
2) Retired Kansas City Royals player George Brett speaking prior to the start of the show
3) Chaka Khan Performs
Kauffman Center Construction at Dusk
While over on the lawn of the Convention Center Ballroom on Tuesday night getting telephoto shots of the Crossroads and Crown Center, I put on the wide angle and moved over a bit for yet another shot of the Kauffman Center construction and its cranes. I was on the radio show Up To Date with Steve Kraske on KCUR 89.3 a week ago talking about places to get good shots of the city, and this vantage point came up as one of the good sightseeing locales.
Sept. 7, 2010
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
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.
Kauffman Center Construction at Dusk #2
Another shot of the Kauffman PAC construction, from a slightly different viewpoint and thirty minutes later into the night than the prior post. Actually if I could do it again I would have started at this location first, as I thought this offered the best view, but the prior shot offered the best actual lighting.
Kauffman Center Construction at Dusk
Here’s an angle on the new Kauffman Center that I hadn’t tried yet, looking in a north-westerly direction toward the construction site via telephoto lens from about 25th and Troost, at one of the bridges above 71 Highway as it ingresses to and egresses from downtown.
I hadn’t made any plans for pics, but sometimes you can spontaneously get the urge to make something new. Photo taken about 9:20 pm, Tuesday evening, 07/06/10
Kauffman Center at Dusk
Welcome to my first official posting on my newly overhauled website and photoblog. There are still numerous things wrong and I’m rather annoyed and tired about a lot of it, but I’m going to have to put some of it off for the next day after I submit this to the draft queue.
Seeing as I was so bound and determined to get this site up and online somehow, someway, for statistical and analytics reasons due to July 1st being the start of the second half of the year, I’m not delaying any longer. I’ve been trying to put together the new home page and galleries for nearly weeks now, and have spent most of Thursday trying to get the new blog up and going as well as doing last minute stuff that really is more like “last day” stuff.
I needed new content if I was to launch today, so on Thursday night amid this stupor of website overhauling I ran out for new pics of something I’ve covered before, just so I’d have some new content – another look at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, this time taken over in the Quality Hill area near the Argus building. It afforded this view, using the telephoto lens of course, of the Kauffman Center with part of Crown Center as the background.
