For the grand reopening of the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal, Landor Associates produced 15-minute, looping light shows that were projected onto the face of the building for a solid week beginning on Veteran’s Day. The light shows began at dusk and played until 10 PM every night. November 17th was the final night you could see them for yourself. The shows had a decidedly BLINK-like quality to them, although that’s probably due to the exclusivity of seeing projection mapping at that event (RIP, Lumenocity).
Though I got to Union Terminal too late to photograph the Veteran’s Day-themed show, I returned to the building every following night to create photos. I stood just behind the Terminal’s entrance sign and used a Tamron 150-600mm G2 on a tripod (at 150mm) in the same position every night. Some nights were cold, others were wet, and a couple were relatively comfortable/dry. For the nights I had to shoot in drizzle, I used a rain sleeve to protect the gear and it worked beautifully. That was my first foray into using one even though I’ve owned it for a couple of years.
This project was interesting because I’d never seen Union Terminal used as a canvas like this before. The parts of the daily shows that integrated the curvature of the dome into their design worked the best, in my opinion. The simple scrolling photos that would slide from one side to the other weren’t overly memorable. I’ve omitted a lot of the second day’s show because it featured a large amount of kaleidoscoping photos of the Terminal during construction that were difficult to make sense of in the moment.
If you missed seeing it in person, below are stills from each day’s show. They aren’t in any particular order.
