When I’m shooting architectural photography, there is nothing better than being able to photograph the before and after of the project. My client, Marous Brothers Construction, with their Design/Build Division, and as one of its biggest supporters, did an outstanding job in bringing back this building which was built in 1921 and shuttered for decades since 1985. With Westlake Reed Leskosky of Cleveland and Bradford Watson as managing architect, the Theatre is a true asset to the Gordon Square arts district.
I found this project to be picture rich with plenty of opportunities in the 16,000 square feet to shoot . The lighting being as is, and not to be disturbing the ambiance, HDR with Photomatix software worked very well.
After reviewing my options, I thought this would be very appropriate to shoot a 360 Virtual Reality view of the main theatre. My pano head is dialed in perfectly for parallax, but due to the slope of the theatre and the seats, the pano head could not be off one centimeter. This made it a challenge to shoot in an aisle between seats. Most of the control points in the software had to be done manually. I debated with myself on whether to shoot the 360 in HDR. I decided to shoot the screen and ceiling in HDR and blend later in post. The software I use in these situations are PTgui, CubicConverter, Pano2VR, and, of course, Photoshop. You can view the main theatre 360 VR here.
I shot the front cover for Properties Magazine and the article images. I did this at twilight time encompassing two hours and at least 100 bracketed images. In this situation, the sky and interior lighting need to be in sync. Getting the correct sky exposure is the key. You can read the complete article in Properties Magazine.
