I lived here . .

A few years ago I had the opportunity to photograph my old apartment building for pending historic tax credit restoration work. It had been twenty or so years since I'd lived at Clyde Manor on the corner of Armour Rd. and Gilhman, so I was really interested to see what it looked like. Well, it hadn't changed much, just gotten a bit more run down.

Today I got to go back and shoot it after all the work has been completed. What a difference! The units, in general, are larger and everything is clean and fresh looking. Nice!

Here's the main lobby:

Old School

Last week I shot a project that required film photography. Now, I haven't shot film for anything in over four years. And although I still have most of my old equipment I was a little nervous about revisiting "the dark art" for an important project.

If it's not large format, my go-to camera has always been the Nikon F3 and the Nikkor 28mm PC lens for architecture. It doesn't get any better than this.

The F3 was the top of the line Nikon in 1980. Designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, this camera had all the up-to-date bells and whistles you could want. And, if you had to, you could drive nails with it. By today's standards it's pretty basic, but it works fantastically well with the Nikkor PC (perspective correction) lens. You were not an architectural photographer if you didn't have this combination. My variant has the HP (high point) veiwfinder, great for people who wear glasses like me, and the motor drive.

Using it was like shaking hands with an old friend. I'll try not to let so much time pass before I use it again.

I love my job.

Honestly, if you had seen this building before you would never believe this was possible. Not that the building was in bad shape. No, rather there was no indication that this was waiting to come out of it. I like surprises, this kind especially.

Hi Ya Watha!

Everybody's heard of Hiawatha, Kansas, right? But how many of us have ever been there? Well, I got the chance Tuesday to photograph a project for one of my favorite, long-time clients, Rosin Preservation.

The project was the old bank building on the town square. As I understand it, a life-long resident of the town wanted to promote the area's history, so she donated money to the city to be used for the restoration of the building and it's use, in part, as a local history museum. Now competed, the bank building will also house some city government offices.

World of Wheels 2010

Just got back from the biggest annual indoor custom car and bike show in Kansas City! Along with the usual spotless, candy coated goodness was a greater number of old school, garage-built hot rods than last year and some fine new works from our local Anchor Motorcycle Shop.

Good stuff.

The Future(?) of Flash Photography

I often have to photograph interiors of boarded-up buildings with little or no lighting, so using a flash is essential, right? Well, it used to be; now, maybe not. Digital cameras are made with more light-sensitive sensors than ever before, so you can now literally take a shot in the dark with confidence. This would be a moot point if the results weren't significantly better than using a flash. Unfortunaltely for the flash, it's range is limited and it's strength is relative to the distance it has to cover; great for smaller spaces, not so great for big open spaces.

Here are two examples:

With flash . .


Without flash . .


And this building was lit only by an open door and a few frosted-glass windows:

With flash . .


Without flash . .

Thank you for your support.

This morning I was photographing a couple very nice apartment buildings that had suffered from very poor maintenance over the last, oh, 100 years or so. Here in the basement of one of the buildings we found a section of the 1st floor supported by an unusually decorative carved limestone column, and another area supported by an old sewer pipe. A case of, things that don't belong but you're glad they're there just the same.