Congrats to the National WWI Museum & Memorial Bergman Family Gallery and Open Storage Center, and congrats to my client, JE Dunn Construction!  The project was recently recognized with the 2024 Capstone Award in the Architectural Design category from the Kansas City Business Journal.

Creating this collection of images was a joy and MetroWire Media wrote a fantastic article about the project: http://www.metrowiremedia.com/news/revamped-and-reimagined-national-wwi-museum-unveils-stunning-upgrades

Many images had stark contrasts between light and dark areas, which really came alive when I zoomed in to hand-paint the right levels of light onto each item in the collection. The staircase is a really dynamic feature, and as an artist, I loved capturing the art gallery space.

In 1920, my grandpa, Eddie Overton Humiston (pictured below), turned 13 years old.  As the oldest of 8, one day, his parents gave him a dime and a piece of cheese was told there were too many mouths to feed and that he would have to leave to make his way in the world. Somehow he made it from Hutchinson, KS to St. Louis, MO where he lied about his age, joined the Navy and was sent to China.  

He aided the WWI war effort at the end of the war, plus many years following that in the Merchant Marines where he was eventually honorably discharged after getting struck in the right hand by a bullet. The nurse who took care of him became my Grandma – Doris Shufelberger! I never got to meet him, but I enjoy learning about him & have a lot of his personal belongings from WWI & his life.

The hard truth is, WWI was won in many tough battles, fought by many young men, and we have all veterans to thank for the freedoms we enjoy today.

Kansas City is so blessed to have the WWI Museum here in town, and now with the addition, there is even more to see and stories to reflect upon and cherish the freedoms we have today because of those who sacrificed.

This was a somber project, and I did it justice, making it bright and dynamic, yet solemn and momentous.

I love that what I do brings meaning (and awards!) to my clients *and* that it can be so personally meaningful.

Congrats also to JE Dunn for their other projects awarded: CPKC Stadium & the KCI Airport parking garage, both in the judges’ special recognition category.

Limitless Brewing is a community-based microbrewery, located in Lenexa, KS, at 9500 Dice Ln. They outgrew their past space due to their increased success, so with the help of Rose Design Build, they created a new building that they could continue to grow in.

Their new 6,500 SF building is made perfect for the Limitless Brewing crew. The design gives the owners complete control over the layout of their taproom and production floor which is currently split about 60/40 between a private production facility and a public taproom. The interior also features bright colors of blue and orange, contemporary lighting, and a hand-painted mural by a local artist.

Overhead doors on the exterior add functionality to the space by creating an extension of the taproom onto the adjacent patio. Limitless Brewing chose to include a 15′ tall logo rendering on a bright orange panel by the entrance to tie it all together and make them stand out at their new location.

We also composed the above article which MetroWire Media published in their news blog on March 29th to showcase our client, Rose Design Build, and their successful completion of the project.

Cheers to Limitless Brewing on their new location and to Rose Design Build on a job well done!

Today we would like to appreciate our longest running client of 10 years, Enterprise Precast Concrete. They are a fantastic client to work with and we’ve worked hard to earn their regional business from Nebraska to Texas.

Last fall we captured 3 projects located in the Dallas, TX area and 1 project in Durant, OK.

2999 Olympus is a 300,000 SF ten story structure located in the Cypress Waters Development in Irving. The building features cast in brick architectural precast column covers and spandrels, along with acid etched architectural precast window framing units.

UTSW Brain and Cancer Center is a 590,000 SF structure which contains two nine story clinical and research facilities that supply Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute with new spaces for multidisciplinary care, genetic counseling, clinical trials, and supportive care.

UNT Ryan Tower can be seen for miles, standing 180 feet tall, and serves as an icon for the University of North Texas. Symbolizing the new heights that each student will reach while at the University, the Ryan Tower features a donor wall, masonry seat walls, and a lit pedestrian plaza.

Choctaw Casino Parking Garage: The massive precast parking garage supports the new casino with 1,700 hotel rooms, 7,400 slot machines, 100+ table games, and 16 restaurants.

Enterprise Precast Concrete never ceases to amaze us with what can be done with precast concrete. It’s no secret you’re one of our favorite clients, and we look forward to upcoming projects in 2023!

Today we are spotlighting a project we captured last fall: Quartet Senior Living in Bettendorf, IA. We had the pleasure of working with Rosemann & Associates (architect), Nelson Construction & Development (owner / contractor) and Ecumen (property management). All clients were able to select from a variety of images to suit their specific needs.

The facility is absolutely beautiful and was a delight to capture inside and out! All of the furniture and fixtures were so thoughtfully designed, super deluxe and top notch. To top it off, the artwork in the hallways was the best we’ve seen in any building, anywhere!

Our favorite space to capture and edit was the upstairs lounge. It was fun to hand color in the fantastic gold chandeliers from multiple exposures so that they looked perfect in the final image, plus bringing in the view outdoors.

We also did some fun sky swaps in their exterior twilight images. We were lucky to get those because a storm was coming and it was a short trip to Davenport. The rain came about 45 minutes later. Somehow, every out of town project we’ve ever done has worked out perfectly for about 6 years now!

Thank you to Rosemann & Associates for sending us to capture your regional work, and introducing us to your client and property management. It was fun to work with everyone and congrats on a really beautiful project!

Last summer we had the pleasure of photographing our first Reed Automotive dealership for Centric.

Located in St. Joseph, Mo, the inside has a clean, modern look with bright white tile and ceilings. The floor-to-ceiling windows in the showroom make great use of natural light to brighten the space and are inviting to customers outside. Centric likes to show movement of people within the space, so we had fun with that part of the shoot within the sales, waiting and service areas.

However, no one can control everything that happens on the day of the photoshoot, and while we ensure our pricing includes basic, everyday edits, some exterior shots require advanced editing beyond the normal scope.

In this case, the client preferred a car-free customer parking lot, but the dealership was open at the time with a customer inside. With the sun starting to set and not a lot of time left to get the shot, we couldn’t wait for the customer to leave. While a few exterior photos did require some advanced editing, the results are 100% worth the extra work and budget add-on.

See the before and after photos to see the details we put into photoshopping out the car and shadows. We always want to make sure our clients receive the most perfect images possible!

We love working with Centric and their marketing team. Cheers to our next project together!

Here’s a car dealership project we did last fall for Centric: Reed Hyundai in Shawnee, KS.

The bright, modern design and all of the natural light in the space – plus their great staff – makes for a snazzy car-buying or service experience!

Centric always likes to add people and movement into their project images, which makes a fun challenge in editing, like putting a puzzle together. We took many, many images so that we had plenty to select from in creating a multi-layer composite image that includes people and varying levels of brightness within the space and outdoors.

One thing that sets our work apart from others is the Manfrotto pole tripod, which “made” the daytime and twilight images because they’re taken from a higher elevation which naturally lends grandeur to the images. It’s always exciting to bring that out and raise it up to 24′ in the air! The quality that it brings to each image vs. taking the picture from the ground is astonishing and the results are definitely worth the extra effort.  Check out the last picture to see it in action!

As always, there are elements in the images that needed removing, such as standing water in the pavement from a recent rain shower, random leaves, mulch, etc. Only perfection will do!

Thank you to the rock star marketing team at Centric for working with us!  You are so fun to work with!

And, we also photographed Reed Automotive for them last summer in St. Joseph, Mo, and will do a follow-up post on that project in the near future.

Our photo of Loews Hotel made the COVER of Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute’s Fall issue of Ascent Magazine! While we’re always proud to see our images in action for EPC, making the COVER is incredible; it’s actually the 2nd cover we’ve been published on for EPC in 2022!

The Loews Convention Hotel is a crowning jewel in the Kansas City Renaissance and it is an honor to have captured it. If you haven’t experienced it yet, it’s dazzling!

This 24-story building has 800 hotel rooms and is part of a continuous effort to revitalize downtown Kansas City. Since its construction, it has attracted many tourists and conventions, including the 2022 PCI Convention this March. For this project, 259 pieces of precast panels were used, and if laid flat next to each other, it would stretch to 67,634 sq. ft. To put it into scale, that’s about 63 football fields of precast concrete!

Congratulations to Enterprise Precast Concrete on being published and the great write-up! It’s been such a fun and rewarding 10 years working with EPC – cheers to your continued success! We are proud to have earned their regional business as well, from Nebraska to Texas.

Check out Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute’s Fall issue to see it: https://bit.ly/3uJE5Ss

On Thursday, November 3, 2022, Arch Photo KC owner Jacia Phillips attended the ABC Heart of America Excellence in Construction Awards Banquet to celebrate with our client, Fogel-Anderson Construction, whose team was honored with 2 Excellence in Construction Awards for Price Chopper 17 at Bannister & US Engineering MetalWorks.

Jacia joined Roger Summers, Vice President / Marketing & Business Development with Fogel-Anderson Construction Co., one of Arch Photo KC’s very first clients back in 2012 (when he was with another company). Today we would like to send a personal congratulation to him!  Roger is not only a client but also considered a friend by Jacia Phillips, so being present to see Roger accept the awards alongside Superintendent Brian Caldarella and Project Manager Bryan Buser was a proud moment.  When clients use our images, it’s always an honor seeing them recognized with top industry awards, which brings even more meaning to our craft! 

Price Chopper 17 at Bannister and US Engineering MetalWorks have very interesting stories and are big wins for their communities. Below is info paraphrased from the ABC EIC Awards program booklet.

PRICE CHOPPER – Kansas City, MO

Price Chopper 17 at Bannister was built on the site of an old K-Mart off 435 & Bannister Road, and the area had once been described as a ‘food desert’. The original plan was to renovate half of the K-Mart into a grocery store, then a new plan was developed to tear down the eastern portion of the building and construct a new 50,000 SF structure. All the while, the western half had already been converted into a self-storage facility, so as the new side was being constructed, the eastern side of the storage facility had to be protected from the elements, which included record-breaking -16 degree temperatures. When the store opened, this location was the best performing store for the Balls organization.

ABC Award Video:

US ENGINEERING METALWORKS – Lawrence, KS

The US Engineering project is located on the former Farmland Industries nitrogen plant, a 200-acre brownfield site which required a substantial environmental remediation effort after the shuttered plant was acquired by the City of Lawrence. US Engineering is a large mechanical contractor that designs and fabricates their own duct work, piping and other components. The design by Davidson A+E called for a 150,000 SF Pre-Engineering Metal Building (PEMB) built to LEED-certified standards. The building features 11,000 SF of office space with unique exposed piping elements, plus 139,000 SF of manufacturing space. 

We were also thrilled to work with Davidson Architecture & Engineering and Hoss & Brown Engineers, Inc. on this project.

ABC AWARD VIDEO:

Congratulations, Fogel-Anderson Construction, and all project partners! Our clients do the hard work; we just get to help them show it off!

Photography of renovated Hickman Mills location in Kansas City, MO for A.L Huber

“Just come in and take pictures”, they say. “It’s that easy, right?” 

You’d be surprised by the amount of pre-planning that goes into each image and project to ensure its success. 

A great recent example of successful pre-planning is at one of our most recent projects for A.L. Huber: the Community America Credit Union (CACU) Hickman Mills location in Kansas City, MO.  Our client renovated the structure and completed the interior build-out.

There are three stages to complete every project:

1. Planning
2. Photographing
3. Editing

Planning is one of the most crucial parts of the process, especially shoots featuring models and limited time in the space.  Planning set the project up for success and determined how smoothly the shoot will go. For CACU, we met at the space with A.L. Huber’s new marketing director, Sarah Lero, and project manager, Tyler Ramaekers, to capture some ‘test shots’ to determine our angles in advance. This gave the client the opportunity to select which angles would make the best collection of images. After receiving their selections and putting together a proof sheet of their selected angles, we were prepared for the early morning photoshoot. 

On September 28th, we started the shoot at 7:00 a.m. with only an hour and a half before the employees arrived. With our list in hand, we quickly set up and went to work. Sarah Lero and Nathan Patterson (A.L. Huber project engineer) joined us on the shoot and were natural models. We even made an appearance in a few shots as well! The beforehand preparation greatly impacted this shoot’s success as we finished in about an hour.  With all the planning, it almost seemed ‘too easy’!

Lastly, the editing process. This is where the real magic happens. We identified the best images with models and sent proofs to the client so they could pick their favorite expressions and interactions. From there, we edited all the images to perfection. 

Part of our job is making buildings look perfect – touching up the asphalt, concrete, grass, etc., removing mulch and debris, erasing shadows coming from outside of the image, brightening shadows, and much more.  You can see in the images here that the images were beautifully transformed – and the best part is – A.L. Huber’s team is really happy with them!

Thank you, A.L. Huber, for working with us on another awesome project! We’ve been working with their team for 4+ years now and have enjoyed every project. We look forward to further developing our relationship with Sarah Lero and the A.L. Huber team.  Our clients do the hard work; we just help show it off!

For more information on the new location and banking concept, visit https://martincitytelegraph.com/2022/08/24/community-america-opens-community-access-center-in-hickman-mills/.

A couple weeks ago we posted a blog about the gorgeous community at CORE | Modern Apartments on Berkley Riverfront to showcase the images we captured of their luxury pool! Today here is a little throwback to earlier this summer when we photographed the fabulous clubhouse interior amenities and model units.

Each and every project image collection for Neighbors Construction Company, Inc. + NorthPoint Development gets better and better! What a beautiful community and it is an honor to showcase it!

Neighbors Construction Company said in a social post:

“Inside the Clubhouse, the NCCI Team constructed numerous social gathering spaces, a community kitchen, a colab lounge, study booths, a reservable conference room, plus a large 2nd floor patio with riverfront views.  In addition to a sports simulation studio, fitness amenities by Push Pedal Pull include cross-fit, yoga and spinning studios, a large exercise room, and a rock-climbing wall.” 

It was a joy to see this project space come together and we love the uniqueness and design of each space completed by Lowery Design Group!

The images above are from the completed 1BD and 2BD Model Units and are a combination of flash and natural light.

From another Neighbors Construction Company social post:

“Apartments feature modern kitchens with grey quartz countertops, rainfall cabinetry, tiled backsplashes, stainless steel appliances, polished chrome faucets and island pendant lighting. Luxury vinyl plank flooring is throughout the living area and bathrooms, while bedrooms feature plush carpeting.  The modern bathrooms have tiled showers and polished chrome fixtures.”

The combination of materials really bring the space together! Thank you, Neighbors Construction Company and NorthPoint Development for working with us on this project! We have had the pleasure to work with both clients for nearly 7 years now, and each project seems to get more amazing!

To see the construction progress on this project and others see our construction photography work on Neighbors Construction Company’s project page on their website (which we designed and maintain), then head over to the community’s website to see everything the CORE Apartments have to offer!

In case you missed it, here are just a few images of the CORE Apartment’s Pool. Read the full blog to see the complete gallery and learn more about this beautiful riverfront community!