downtown
Formerly known as the old “Kansas City Athletic Club”, The Mark Twain Tower in downtown Kansas City is transforming into residential apartments known as “The Mark”. Currently under construction, the assignment was to capture their model unit, some vacant units, views from the windows, and surrounding exterior environment. Shot for Aria Development.
Growing up in KC, I took many field trips to the Lyric Theater in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. We would usually visit to listen to the KC Symphony. This shoot was a nostalgic one.
The theater has been transformed into a YMCA. The first photo is the main entrance and the portion I vividly remember as a kid. Those arched doorways are hard to forget. This was shot for John A. Marshall Co, focusing on various furnishings in the facility.
It was my first time in a doorless helicopter, let alone a helicopter. The nerves were kicking pretty hard when we were gearing up for the ride. My fear of heights is "medium-light" so I thought if anything doing this photo flight would be a way to face a modest fear head-on. I found out later it was totally worth it.
Mike Kelley, a wonderful architectural photographer has been doing some amazing things in Los Angeles with aerial photography. He wrote this guide on shooting aerials for photographers just getting into this type of work. After reading it half a dozen times I decided it was time to stop analyzing and go for it. Here are some of my own experiences that I can add for anyone looking to do this:
Blissful mountain ranges, deep blue ocean water, white sand beaches, mega skyscrapers, herds of majestic wild horses... KC has none of that. But let's not forget for every down there is an up! Despite the lack of unique natural landscapes, KC has a major advantage for shooting from a helicopter: Freedom.
What do I mean by freedom? Because of the lack of air traffic, ease of access to helicopter rentals, and density of KC's main features, capturing KC's scenes from a helicopter is surprisingly efficient. What amazed me when getting up in the air is how fast we moved across the city. My first flight I wanted to do three circles around downtown to capture what I could. After the third pass I asked my pilot "time" and he said "we've only been up eight minutes". Dumbfounded, I told my pilot to fly to other areas in the city and we arrived to each destination in a matter of minutes. What would have taken a few hours in the car we covered in the helicopter in about 25 minutes. The service I used takes off from KC's downtown airport which means you are just minutes away from everything.
I'm excited to announce that aerial photography (from a helicopter) is now a service I offer in the area. Capturing a project from the air offers an exciting perspective and context to what is happening on the ground.
I was called to get some shots of the historic Nelkon-Piper building for EDCKC's blog. The building is 134 years old as of writing this. Immediately I knew a front twilight shot was in order so I could capture the character of the exterior. I requested that the interior lights stay on until about 5:30pm. The sun set around 5pm the evening I shot it. The benefits of shooting twilights in the winter are you get to shoot and be done before 5:30 instead of 8:30 or 9:00 in the Summer. There's one positive for Winter...
The next day I got to spend a couple hours capturing some of the interior views of the office space doing my best to dodge people and not be a giant distraction. There was no lighting setup here. That way I could remain stealthy and sneak around getting shots without blasting light into people's spaces.
