Soon after extra than 20 decades as an architectural and inside photographer, Michael Robinson has produced an eye for lovely buildings.

He found his enthusiasm for architecture when he traveled to Poland with his then-girlfriend in superior university. He did not put it jointly till several years later on, just after hunting by way of his image albums, but at the time, he was just stunned at how previous every thing was. That’s coming from an individual lifted at 109th and U.S. 69, in freshly crafted-out Overland Park.

Immediately after getting a photography class at Blue Valley Northwest, producing a darkish room in his basement at household, functioning for his significant college paper, and graduating in 2000, Robinson acquired his degree in industrial promoting at Brooks Institute of Pictures. 

He estimates he’s finished hundreds of photography initiatives, and several of them stand out, particularly his early function in Chicago, the place he lived for decades ahead of moving back again to Kansas Metropolis. Some of his most unforgettable function was taking pictures the Mercedes-Benz Stadium for HOK and other sports activities arenas. Regionally, he has shot many area tasks, like the Inn at Meadowbrook Park, in which he visited on a great working day in May possibly.

Pre-COVID (and pre-small children), he utilized to delight in playing golfing. Currently, their relatives also enjoys touring, specifically to Colorado (Steamboat Springs is their favourite haunt there). He life in Prairie Village with his spouse, Carrie Robinson, their two young children and a few canines.

I did not know how very good the architecture was in Kansas Town.

And I don’t consider a ton of folks do. There’s a whole lot of sports architecture as properly. Some of my even bigger tasks have been on the sports aspect. Like I shot the Mercedes-Benz Stadium for HOK, so that was a fairly neat job.

I also shot Rogers Place in Canada for them, which was the place the Oilers play, and Minimal Caesars Arena, which is exactly where the Pistons and Pink Wings engage in.

When I arrived again below to Kansas Metropolis, I was like, you know what? There’s some great things going on right here. There’s seriously superior layout. It was extra of the working day-to-working day things. I shot a large amount of places of work in my early times.

KU has a terrific architecture school, K-Point out, there’s a good deal of great architecture schools all over, and a whole lot of those folks feed into Kansas Metropolis. And I consider, in the past 10 decades, in particular, I have found just the level of style and design truly taking a phase up.

I imagine it’s as cool as the things I see coming out of Chicago or other areas. May perhaps not have the budgets or the dimensions or the scale, but it is just as awesome.

The Arts and Heritage Middle was a exciting shoot.

I obtained employed by SFS Architecture, and I have worked with them a large amount in the past. It was variety of entertaining coming from Johnson County, getting a Johnson Countian, to be there and document background.

Which is what I like about what I do compared to an promoting photographer. Now I have absolutely nothing from any form of pictures, and I only say this mainly because I know a man who shoots tabletop who referred to his operate as dumpster fodder, because essentially, they shoot an advert, and it’s printed for 3 months and then it is thrown in the trash and no one particular sees it again.

So which is a single of the things I like about architecture. What I do is I’m documenting spaces, and ideally the pictures will stay for a very long, lengthy time, and be even a window into the past, far more than just dumpster fodder (laughs), to have a for a longer time shelf lifestyle, I guess.

So it is form of awesome to be documenting Johnson County Museum, just ‘cause there was so substantially heritage in it. And I understood that I was also likely to be documenting the heritage that was in it, but also be with any luck , contributing to a minimal piece of record of it at the similar time.

All the things they worked on, they desired me to capture. So from the entryway, just get into every single watch that you could get. There was a multipurpose area, there was a theater, we shot all people areas. And we went    down, we shot the museum, we shot the Electrical Household.

It was enjoyment ‘cause my kids came. They do that at times. We normally need products to toss in for scale, so my wife and little ones are in a pair of their pictures. It is often fun when I can get them in a shot, and they enjoy it way too.

That is why I do like buildings, despite the fact that the craze has been to incorporate folks into photographs now. And it does include scale and provides some lifestyle to it, breaks up the strains a little little bit. So which is been fascinating ‘cause I have to variety of be a director of in which individuals go and exactly where they’ll look best.

It definitely provides scale and everyday living and movement. I’ll consider a shot without persons, and it might just appear like any aged area, but it arrives to existence, practically, because you’re incorporating people today when you set folks in it.

Architecture is really subjective. People have distinct tastes. Specified individuals like a certain brand of clothing or gown a specified way or travel a selected motor vehicle ‘cause they like it. Anyone has their possess thoughts and thoughts.

Me individually? I like a minimal much more modern day than the common — and I consider you are looking at far more and far more of that pop up, I guess a transitional type in which it’s obtained a tiny bit of, it’s not tremendous extremely fashionable, I’m not into that, but it’s received a tiny little bit extra rustic, transitional type of truly feel to it.

Even this, the Inn in Meadowbrook, it is manufactured to seem a very little extra conventional, but it’s acquired a modern day flair to it.

I’m not an architect. I signify, I’ve acquired points through the a long time of searching for a way sure joist arrives into make contact with with whatever. I can glimpse for flaws (laughs). Genuinely it’s far more about I’m a visible particular person, and I can just notify when I see it if I like it, as with most people today. It is judging a ebook by its cover, I guess.

It is additional of a sensation for me. It is tricky for me to set it into words.