New South Construction / McCarthy Building Companies / Synergy - Joint Venture
Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport
Central Passenger Terminal Complex – Landside Modernization
Creative Sources Photography | Atlanta Architectural Photographers
“As the key liaison amongst the JV, the airport, electrical consultant, and the photo team, I found Creative Sources Photography knowledgeable, flexible, and an asset to our collaboration. On-site logistics were complex at the world’s busiest airport, and their attention to detail assured a successful outcome. The resulting imagery exceeded our expectations and those of our client.”
Devin McClain
Senior Project Manager / Operations
New South Construction
Concept to Completion: 36,000 Fitbit Steps to Visual Success
What is it that we bring to the table? What value do we add to the process that justifies clients continually placing their trust in us to effectively translate their project into the photographic medium? Our clients conceptualize, design, and build projects across many typologies, bringing value to their clientele, and producing effective and aesthetically pleasing structures and spaces. The beautiful designs our clients trust us to capture can leave the viewer questioning just how much our services really elevate the final images. After all, if a design is striking enough, couldn’t anyone take a good photo of it, even with the camera they have in their back pocket?
Our answer is that our services encompass far more than just taking a picture. We are visual storytellers who capture the entire “concept-to-reality” process within a series of images. Nothing illustrates this better than our recent partnership with the Joint Venture team of New South Construction, McCarthy Building Company, and Synergy Development Partners, to capture their work on Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport’s Landside Terminal Modernization.
Our first course of action was to conduct a site visit and walkthrough with members from each of the Joint Venture firms. The purpose of this scout was two-fold. First, to understand the structures and spaces themselves; which angles, times of day, and points-of-view offered opportunities for compositions to effectively showcase the project. As important, was to get a nuanced understanding from every firm about their contributions to the process, and aspects to feature about which they were most passionate. This project offered an exceptional opportunity to feature not only the aesthetics of elegant design solutions, but a chance to highlight how the material selection, design, engineering, and construction solutions combined to provide an enhanced experience for passenger flow and safety.
Armed with this information, we sat down and devised a plan that allowed us to craft images that demonstrate how the design and JV construction team devised and implemented solutions to the complex modernization of the world’s busiest airport. Further, we evaluated the needs of the airport itself, our unspoken client. As the “Most Efficient Airport in the World,” Hartsfield Jackson remained fully operational and minimally disrupted throughout the entire design and construction process, and it was incumbent upon us to execute the photo shoot with that same sensibility in mind.
With our plan mapped out, we set to work coordinating with the JV partners and the airport authority. Anyone who has read our How to Photograph an Airport blog post will keenly understand the scale of this undertaking. With permissions in place, an outline of our shots in hand, gear, lights, and athletic footwear to complete what would tally over 36,000 steps in three days, we arrived on site for our shoot ready to create images as nuanced and expansive as this project.
Working with our JV partners and airport authorities, we accessed vantage points from dawn through dusk. Staying one step ahead of the sun so we could achieve the benefit of “right place, right time” to fully leverage the light for maximum illustrative effect. The translucence of the canopies interacts with sunlight and twilight in completely different and unique ways. Utilizing this changing palette, we were able to capitalize on the light’s interaction with the forms and materials, rendering imagery which both informs and delights. That’s what we bring to the table; the experience in the administration of a complex shoot profile, coupled with compositional awareness and a mastery of light, resulting in stunning and effective visuals for our clients. What can we bring to your table?
To view a short behind-the-scenes video of the “making of” one of these views, including our interaction with the airport to coordinate the 3,708 LED lights within the terminal canopy for our photograph, follow this link.
For further insight into the HJAIA project, link to New South Construction’s project profile ,or to HOK’s Design Annual.
Creative Sources Photography’s experienced, award-winning creative team of Atlanta Architectural Photographers is here to collaborate on your next project, from concept and planning, to final image results.