Kansas City, KS

More grain elevator photos!  If you’ve seen the Grain page, these will be the last eight images, scroll down...

Some of these will likely be culled, but I can’t bring myself to scrap any of these just yet.

Digital Art Wall

Photos from my Grain series will be showing at the Commerce Bank, 10th + Main location through March 31st.

With all due modestly, I gotta say this is a wonderful way to see photos—at a grand scale, and luminous.  Please stop by and have a look.

Thinking Like an Island

Speaking of wonderful ways to see photos, I stumbled across this gorgeous book by Gabriele Chiapparini + Camilla Marrese that enlarges the concept of what is a book.

Take a look HERE.

RIP

Ellen Jane (Anderson) Dougherty

1933—2024


More HERE.

Porch Repair

Renewal seems to be the theme of the month.  This particular project is my own front porch.

READ ON to reaffirm the wisdom of your decision not to buy an old house.

Before

These photos of the De Soto City Hall were an unusual commission to record the ‘before’ conditions at a building that will renovated soon.  I’m inherently drawn to derelict structures in photos I do for my own self, but here is an example of a direction change—the derelict building caught in an upward path towards renewal instead of the usual downward course to dilapidation.

Kinda refreshing.

Restoration design work by SFS Architecture.  Stay tuned...

Humanette

From their website: Work. Play. Stay. We've got you covered.

This lovely combination coffee shop/ indoor playground was playfully designed by Hermanos.

More HERE.

Digital Art Wall

Photos from my Grain series will be showing at the Commerce Bank branch at 10th and Main, downtown Kansas City.  

The photo here is my sorting images at the dining room table.  The Digital Art Wall is four large screens, that will cycle through eight combinations of images.

I’ll update soon with an installation view and an opening date... Should be up in a couple of weeks!

Giovanna Silva

I discovered Silva’s wonderful work by way of John Hill’s recent review of her new book, Days Without Number.  (Cover photo courtesy John Hill)

Here’s a link to her website.  Go see for yourself.

Rosser / Lebeau

Some inspiring photography of people I discovered while roaming the internet — by Ben Rosser and Francois Lebeau. Their combined efforts can be seen HERE.

Congatulations to Hermanos!

In this year’s Kansas City AIA Design Excellence Awards, 1742 Jefferson won the Architecture Extra Small: Honor award and 4210 Troost Facade won a Divine Detail: Merit award.  

Beautiful work duly recognized!

Tony Fouhse

I  recently stumbled into this photographer’s powerful works via the internet, I don’t remember where.   He possesses the kind of fluid, confident eye that I’ve been struggling decades to achieve.

Go have a look.  The one image I include here represents only the tiniest hint at his depth and range, you need to see more.

Camels

Seeing one of these lopey animals in the wilds of Kansas might be a little startling today, but camels used to be as at home here on the prairie as the more famous wooly mammoth and sabre-tooth “cat” (not tiger).  No kidding.

I was fortunate recently to be present for the first annual Midwest Camel Clinic on Shamrock Farms near Manhattan.  See  photos HERE.

Upcoming Book

‘Circulation Spaces in Contemporary Architecture’  by  Jacklynn Niemiec at Drexel University will be published by Taylor and Francis/Routledge in 2025.

One of my photos of Manhattan High will be included — I’ve dusted off all these from way back in 2013 and resurrected its page. Have a look HERE.

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Location #4 Added to my Tag Collection

These are in my own backyard, sort of.

More HERE.

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Road Trip to Michigan

Joan and I drove to see family in central MI and then headed to Traverse City and Sleeping Bear Dunes.

These are some photos I got with my phone.  Yes there was in fact a real camera in the trunk of my car the whole while, but my brain was on vacation.

New Photos

These are of the lovely new offices for Commerce Bank IT Services, designed by Wellner Architects.

More HERE.

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Lazlo Moholy-Nagy

Had I been paying attention in ARCH 104, I’d have appreciated it was Moholy-Nagy’s work and ideas that made such a powerful impact on my photography.  Our assignment one day was to construct a ‘light modulator’ — a sculptural device intended to illustrate the effects of light playing across the surfaces of a built form.  The project was based on those — it turns out — originally created by Moholy-Nagy in the early 1930’s.  Ours were made of paper and cardboard, his were of metal and were driven by motors.

The painting is one of his that I stumbled across while surfing the inter-web for formalism, the latest rabbit-hole I’m chasing down.

More on Moholy-Nagy HERE.

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Recent Work

I’ve added a couple pages of some lovely new projects by Hermanos Design.  

Take a look HERE and HERE.

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Penthouse Attic

This wonderful new apartment was slipped under the roof of a stately historic home in Kansas City’s Westside North neighborhood.  The new window wall opens a dramatic view to downtown and the crossroads district.

Outstanding design work by Hermanos.

More HERE.

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New Face

An existing building at 4210 Troost gets a beautiful new facade.  

Also by Hermanos.

More HERE.

Into the Weeds

I have been obsessing indecisively for at least a year now over aspect ratios.  But we all do, of course.

Specifically 4:3 vs 3:2 in my ‘uncommissioned’ works.  

More HERE.

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Summer Solstice

I’ve posted photos of light peeking in a north window at my house more than once, I think.  I thought I’d get out this year and see what I could find in the neighborhood to illustrate the same point.

More HERE.

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Unbound Accommodations

Nothing directly to do with the Unbound Gravel ride in the Flint Hills, these photos are from a place my biker-gang and I rented for a weekend — an old church basement ‘converted’ to a Vrbo.

The former fellowship hall is now an eerie combination of flea-market and uncle’s huntering lodge.

More HERE.

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Wild Flowers!

Just flowers, just this one photo. I saw these while riding my bike and about got run over by the car behind me…

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Kansas City Artists Coalition

I had the most wonderful coffee-meet with Courtney Wasson, the visionary and determined young Executive Director at the KCAC.

Those of us living here in the Paris of north-western Jackson County, Missouri enjoy a great sense of pride in our lively art scene.  But there is no single organization that is more inviting and supporting and encouraging of the artist than this one.  Go to their shows!  Become a member!  Do everything you can to support KCAC.

More HERE.

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Mitra Tabrizian

A new-to-me photographer, doing powerful work.  From her ‘about’ page:

“Mitra Tabrizian is an Iranian‐British artist and filmmaker.”

I find her Film Stills collection especially compelling.

Visit her web-site HERE.

Kathy + Brian

Photos for a dear friend at her Mom’s wedding.  Wonderful evening, lovely people.

More HERE.

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Specialist vs Generalist

I discovered this excellent book review of “Generalist vs. specialist: Which is the best path to success?” by David Epstein.  Also new to me is the wonderful on-line magazine: Freethink.com.  

I’ve long thought there was a good case could be made for embracing all things photographic.

Eclipse

Just a very few photos from Lake Dardanelle State Park in Arkansas.  Those who were able to see it in ‘totality’ would agree this was a breathtaking natural spectacle.  We were able to see solar flares with the naked eye, for crying out loud.

I was not prepared to take photos of the actual eclipse, thinking I wanted to ‘see’ it for myself, but ended up grabing an exposure anyway.  Couldn’t resist.

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Event Horizon

This collection of photos is from 2010. I bring back ‘Redbud’ in particular because it’s the time of year these are in full bloom here. And sadly, because this tree is no more. It was growing so tall and wide between our house and our neighbor’s that it had become too high and wide to keep out of the eaves. And there was a big rotting gash mid-way up, besides.

Odd coincidence is that the lens that I used for this photo was traded-in this month for its most recent iteration. So, kind of a simultaneous ‘phoenix rising’ occurrence — because the tree will be replanted.

All Event Horizon HERE.

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Paris

Last of the 2023 travels in France.  

Joan has softened on the vow to never return.  We had a vrbo disaster, but were able to recover from without too much trauma...

More HERE.

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Billboards

There are a couple small billboards along Hwy 36 in northern Missouri that caused me to imagine plastering one with my own photographs.  

I had documented such a project in 2018 for For Freedoms, and I’ve been entering (unsucessfully) our local Charlotte Street Foundation’s Artboards Thing for a lot of years.  But my imagination was running with the idea of just hiring one of these on my own.  How much could it cost, thought I? some rickety sheet-of-plywood-sized sign on the way to Bucklin, MO?  

I haven’t entirely dismissed it yet...

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Grain

For decades I’ve tried to resist thinking too much while I’m out taking photos, trusting that my eye will lead the way.  If you haven’t already read it a thousand times, here’s my rationale spelled out.  But now, having collected a sort of critical mass of what I’m calling ‘Grain’ (lots of new ones added!) it occurs to me I’m seeing two distinct things here, and that the images  belong in groupings of their own.  

So here they are, distilled and clarified: Grain and Grain Abstracts.

Update:

I’ve gone back to lumping these all together in a single collection again called Grain.  After having returned them all to a 3:2 aspect ration it just made sense.  

I’ll never stop fooling with these.

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Sarlat

Third city in our 2023 travels in France!  This is a gorgeous city.  Truly and no exaggeration, it is  breathtaking.

More HERE.

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Richard Johnson

I was recenly introduced to the wonderful work of Canadian photographer Richard Johnson  (thank you, Matt!) and immediatly fell in love with his photos.

I won’t even attempt to find 1000 good words to describe these pictures.  Have a look, HERE.

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One Nine Vine

Beautiful new residences in Kansas City’s historic 18th and Vine neighborhood, designed by HJM Architects.

More HERE.

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HCC Network, Carrollton

Wonderful new facility also by HJM Architects!

More HERE.

R2B board Members

These are the many faces behind the well-oiled machine that is Ride 2 Boulevardia.

More HERE.

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Lourdes

This is the 1st of four cities from our travels in France last year.  Coming up are Carcassonne, Sarlat and Paris.

If you’re ever running low on Catholics, Lourdes is the place to go to replenish your stocks.

More HERE.

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Family

One of the many rabbit holes I get lost in when it’s cold out is genealogy.  I recently stumbled into FamilySearch.org — which, no kidding will disappear 8 hours of your lifetime before you realize it’s dark outside — and traced my Cannon roots out to something like 200 AD.  If you can believe that.

This photo from as early as 1894 was posted on the site by my very gracious 4th cousin, Erin.  Thank you, Erin!  My great grandmother Mary Estella is the scrawny woman standing at the far right; seated are my great, great grandparents Albert Preston and Susan Elizabeth.  Not Cannons — other side of the family...

This is only one in about a thousand old photos I need to scan someday before I become history.

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