Western Kansas - it’s Fun, who knew?

Last year we got to work with one of my favorite clients - DLR Group. They do some incredible schools and for this one we got to capture, what we were told, is the third largest high-school in KS. It’s a biggie alright. We had a lot of conversations with Jim French, the lead designer, and Bob Carlson to ensure we knew what the main focus was of the design and how we could record that.

After a six hour drive (across the beautiful flatness they call Kansas) we got to the school and immediately staked out the key shots. The top shot you’re seeing here was the one we decided to capture that evening…six hours later, a couple of pizzas, a stunning sunset, a few dozen well-placed lights we had the perfect shot, and three perfect frames to get the building lit properly…as shown by Bob’s one word response to it - “Spectacular”.

The other critical shot was the student breakout spaces. These areas were incredibly tight, but I really wanted to avoid using something silly like a 14mm to get it in one shot. So we brought the kids in (who were great FYI) and carefully lit the scene to bring out the best in the signage and mezzanine and then arranged the talent and briefed them on what we needed to make the shot work best. Then we stitched the shot together using the really fantastic 24mm tilt to capture two images - one of the mezzanine and one of the ground level. The alignment was perfect and the image looked so much better than going crazy wide could ever have done.

Thanks Garden City for hosting us and thanks for all the help from our talent - this was a wonderful shoot.

Credits:

Photographer: Alistair Tutton

Assistant: Adam Caselman

Retoucher: Adam Caselman

Client: DLR Group