Sometimes it's easy . .

"Go out to a beautiful, impeccably maintained site and try to get some pretty pictures of a spectacular project." Sure, I can do that!

The project was the water tower in Unity Village just outside of Lees Summit, MO. Susan Richards Johnson, & Associates, INC. was tasked with designing 7 floors of usable office space inside the still-functioning water tower, as well as general building restoration and improvements. Their job was hard. I was asked to photograph the finished results. My job was easy.

The footprint of the building measures roughly 30x30 feet, and in that space there is an elevator and two stairways PLUS (now) usable office space on seven floors! It's an amazing building, and due to its location, visible from several miles away.

Yes, it is STILL a water tower! The tank is just below the observation deck.

The office spaces and lobby are surprisingly large, bright, and completely comfortable!

Pretty cool, 'eh?

The best part of waking up is . .

Last week I got the fantastic opportunity to photograph the former Folgers Coffee plant in downtown Kansas City for Rosin Preservation.

If you've ever been anywhere near 8th and Broadway within the last 100 years or so, you've probably caught the aroma of fresh ground coffee heavy in the air. It was kind of taken for granted by most residents. Well, Folgers closed the plant last year, the building has been sold, and I got to photograph the existing, pre-renovation conditions for historic tax credits.

The one surprise inside was that that wonderful smell of ground coffee has all but left the building, despite there being piles of it found throughout.

You really don't understand the massive scale of production that went on until you see the rooms full of huge machinery. What it all does, though, I couldn't tell you.

So, at the risk of watching the proverbial sausage being made, let's have a look inside . .

The equipment on the roofs (both buildings) is monstrous, with a touch of early NASA thrown in.

This stuff makes the coffee grinder at the grocery store look pathetic!

And all the machinery used simply to move coffee from one place to another . .

I was tempted to scoop up a handful off the floor, but well, it's probably been sitting there for about a year, so no thanks.

So long, Folgers.

Schools, schools and more schools

Over the last couple of years I have photographed more schools than any other type of building. The vast majority have been vacant for a few years or more and are under consideration for other uses. This usually leaves their condition somewhat, well, lets just say "rough."

What makes photographing these buildings interesting for me now is that there's a level of familiarity and comfortable nostalgia, tempered (or polluted) with a good dose of stark reality. Kind of like when you run into an old friend from grammar school and all you can think is, "WOW, he/she got OLD!"

Old and rough, but still beautiful!

Primitives at home . .

As I'm sure you're aware, I photograph a LOT of buildings at a time when they aren't exactly beautiful. So when my friend Todd asked if I'd shoot his loft apartment, I was thrilled!

Todd is an interior designer and painter working all over Missouri and Illinois. His personal taste runs toward primitives, the more original and rustic the better. What some see as old, beat up relics, he sees as items with deep, meaningful history. "A pioneer woman probably used this." he often says.

Todd likes the sculptural elements of old ladders, barn vents, HUGE dough bowls, shoe forms, etc. and displays them well.

Enjoy the tour!

Shot in the dark . .

Rod Serling said, "There is nothing in the dark that isn't there when the light are on." OK, but what if you CAN'T turn the lights on?

I've photographed a lot of interiors that are, at best, dimly lit. Old abandoned buildings rarely have power and usually the first few floors are boarded up. But earlier this week I had to document a building for Rosin Preservation that was pretty well sealed from top to bottom. It was damp, (it was literally raining on ALL seven floors), cold enough to see your breath, and dark enough that I wasn't sure I would get any usable shots. On top of that, it was BIG and empty, so getting shots that actually show the entire space was tough.

Even though a crew of guys had gone through the building and put railings up around all the open elevator shafts and missing stairwells, it still FELT like one of the most unsafe buildings I'd ever photographed.

But, did I like the experience? No. I loved it!

Water . . EVERYWHERE!

The bright slivers of light was all that got through the sealed windows, and it was barely visible to the eye.

What lives in a dark, cold, wet space? Mushrooms, and whatever the hell that creepy red stuff is!

This building had a tower, and here's what was left of the stairs to the roof.

Here's the difference just ONE open window made!

And here's what the first floor looked like, lit by only the glass entryway doors in the distance. FUN!

Hopefully I'll get to go back when this building is finished. The transformation can only be stunning!

Everything new is old again!

It's been said that nothing lasts forever, but wouldn't it be nice if your photographs could? Well, thanks to a blending of modern technology and ancient materials we're getting closer than ever. We're talking about image permanence here; how long will your photograph last before it fades or discolors?

The best test of image permanence is history. In other words, what is the oldest "image" we know of and how was it done? Unfortunately, photography is just not very old. Finding crisp, unfaded photos from 150 years ago is more a matter of luck that methodology. And color photographs? They'll fade in 20 years or less.

But there are images that have survived thousands of years; coal drawings on cave walls, pigments on ancient papyrus, etc. This doesn't really apply to photography, though . . or does it?

Up until about ten years ago the consensus was that the highest level of photographic print permanence could be achieved best via the following method:

Use quality black and white fiber-based silver emulsion printing paper, processed through a slow and precise procedure involving multiple baths of chemicals, then long wash times to remove those chemicals, then even more harsh chemicals to stabilize the remaining silver in the print to slow oxidation, and then more washing. Oh yeah, fun stuff. After all that, the print could be counted on to last a few hundred years before decay and oxidation finally caught up with it.

[This is a print processed using the old, archival, chemical method.]

Then along came digital imaging technology and inkjet printers. For the most part, prints made with early inkjet printers were no better (often worse) than the cheapest color prints from your neighborhood photo lab in terms of image permanence. But a group of dedicated photographers began experimenting with different materials to stretch the technology far beyond what anyone at the time thought possible. One such photographer, Paul Roark, started pitching ideas to third party ink manufacturers to create ink sets for inkjet printers that replaced each color in the printer with a pure carbon pigment. Carbon is about as permanent as you can get. It just doesn't fade unless exposed to high temperature. And by thinning it with demineralized water it can achieve different tones.

[This is an inkjet print using only carbon on pure cotton bond paper.]

When printed on quality, acid-free cotton bond paper you get an image that is literally as good as a cave drawing and maybe even better than the Dead Sea Scrolls!

The future of image permanence is found in the past.

Before & After

I see a lot of historic buildings transformed using preservation tax credits, but rarely have I seen one as dramatic as this! It's taken me a little while to put this post together because I had to go back a ways to find the "before" shots, but it was worth it!

In a previous life this was the Gate City National Bank building in downtown Kansas City. It sat vacant with its original interior partially demolished for years before a new owner with a great idea bought it and began the work of turning it into the Ambassador Hotel; now one of KC's finest boutique hotels.

Rosin Preservation managed the historic tax credit aspects of the project, and you can learn more about it (and them) by clicking their link.

So, lets have a look . .

Here's the view through the foyer into the main lobby, before & after:

And looking back from the other side of the lobby:

Interior side of the doorway from the lobby to the foyer:

This awesome fireplace is now part of one of the finer rooms!

The former basement now has a beautiful ballroom, exercise room and meeting areas.

The original arched foyer ceiling was missing when purchased, but the the new owners replicated it beautifully!

Large open spaces on the upper floors made the conversion to hotel rooms easier, and features like decorative brackets and large windows were retained for guest to enjoy.

It's a wonderful hotel with a top notch restaurant, too. Check it out: 1111 Grand, Kansas City Mo., The Ambassador Hotel.