If one person builds a wall, the next person wants to know what’s behind it. That’s life.
The University of Wisconsin’s Mead Witter School of Music often hires me to photograph rehearsals, concerts, music clinics, and other events. Last week, however, the job was quite different. Instead of photographing musical activities in the current concert halls, I was tasked with photographing construction activities taking place behind the rising concrete walls of the new Hamel Music Center.
I was working with Kathy Esposito, who would be interviewing some of the construction crew and preparing a story about the status of the new facility. Our first stop was at the job site office trailer where we donned hard hats and yellow safety vests before being taken onto the site.
In the staging area, some of the crew were watching intently as a crane swung into position and prepared to move a load of materials. This space will eventually be the lobby. Walking through the entry to the stage (cover photo above), we arrived at my favorite part of the tour, the new concert hall with walls filled with acoustic circles. Some of the circles were indentations in the walls, others were complete openings in the walls. These connect to open chambers that will improve the acoustics of the hall.
Much of what we saw will be covered up when the building is complete. We did, however, get to see the beautiful Douglas Fir ceiling in the recital hall. Then we descended down, what I hope is a temporary stairway, to the bowels of the building where the electrical, plumbing, steam pipes and other mechanicals that will keep this place running are hidden.
Last, and probably least, it was difficult for me to keep up with the tour because I was distracted by little things I encountered around the job site.
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Footnote: As I mentioned, I got a little carried away with the acoustic circles. It was difficult for me to select only a few to show. So, here’s a bonus gallery of the photos that I was going to leave out of this post.