Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Recent Projects

Here is a photography of the grand stair in the rotunda of the Strathcona Library.  Lots of dynamic range to contend with here; very bright light from the clerestory windows above and deep shadows along the left of the stair itself.  This is a composite image made using the Canon 17mm tilt/shift lens.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Recent Projects

This is the point of arrival in the new Strathcona Library.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Recent Projects

This is a photo of one of the reading alcoves in Strathcona Library.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Recent Projects

My client wanted a photograph of this key element - a light fixture in the stair tower at the main entrance to the building.  This a composite image taken using the 17mm tilt shift lens.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Recent Projects

This the council chamber for the elected officials of the County of Strathcona.

Friday, November 25, 2011

Recent Projects

Here's an exterior image if the Strathcona Centre in the Park edited using Oloneo Photo Engine.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Recent Projects

These days one of my favourite tools for editing black and white images is Oloneo Photo Engine.  I find that by adjusting the tone settings I can sharpen the image a little and make the photo crisper.  The printed images have a sort of wet inky blackness that I am quite pleased with.

The is the reading area in the Strathcona Library.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Recent Projects

Here's a detail from the Strathcona Centre in the Park Development.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Recent Projects

My client gave me a list of desired photos of the new Strathcona Centre in the Park in Sherwood Park - one of the requests was for a photo of the parking garage entrance.  So how do you make a compelling image of that I wondered.  Here is my first pick shot.

Canon 5DII, Canon 17mm TSE lens.  Black and White conversion in Oloneo Photo Engine.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Recent Projects

This photo is taken from nearly the same vantage point as yesterday's posting but under different conditions. The feel of the photo is quite different though - this one looks rather ominous compared to the bright sunny day rendition from the day before.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Recent Projects

The Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary opened on a Weekend; Alumni Weekend as it turned out.  The weather was spectacular and there were people everywhere.  The timing of my shoot was delayed until this weekend because the landscaping was protected to the last moment with temporary fencing.  There were also balloons tied to railings and little directional signs placed everywhere.  Ugh I thought as I arrived....this is going to take some effort.

The signs were removed in photo shop for the most part.  But where I could I waited until something or someone blocked these elements for me.  That chap in the lower left is blocking the view of the some of this stuff.  And the trees that thankfully still had some leaves on them block - mostly - the hot dog stand placed right at a building entrance.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Recent Projects

Hers's a dusk photo of the Centennial Centre of Interdisciplanry Science.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Recent Projects

The Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science is big building that warranted multiple trips to capture the various elevations of the building at different times of day.  The later in the fall it gets the more challenging this becomes.  Here's an early morning photo of the east elevation.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Recent Projects

This is the new Centennial Centre of Interdisciplinary Science at the University of Alberta.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Recent Projects

This is a grey day photo of the Grey Nuns Hospital in Edmonton.  The Ambulatory Support building is the primary focus of this photo.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Recent Projects

The GO Centre also has a kids drop in centre as featured here.  No shortage of 'foreground interest' in this room.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Recent Projects

The GO Centre is also home to the Ortona Gymnastics Club - this is their facilty.  Hard to find a spot to set up ones tri-pod in here; all the floors are padded mats, trampolines or pits filled with foam blocks.

In the end I found that setting up the shot and using the cameras timer worked best as I could not stand any where near the camera because my movements on the padded floor caused the camera and tri-pod to move around during the 4-6 second exposure.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Recent Projects

Here's an interior photo of the Competition Gym at the GO Centre.  This will be the new home of the U of A Golden Bears and Pandas basketball and volleyball teams.  Rumour is that the Edmonton Energy pro basketball team will use this as their home court next season.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Recent Projects

This is the GO Community Centre addition to the Saville Community Sports Centre at the U of A South Campus.  It's a giant building; hard to capture in an single overall shot.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Remembrance Day

Remember? How could we ever forget. Here's a little Remembrance Day shout out to the folks at CFB Edmonton. This is a photo of the interior of the hangar at 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron. 408 Squadron has a long history that you can read about at:

http://www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/1w-1e/sqns-escs/page-eng.asp?id=390.


408 THS deployed hundreds of personnel to Afghanistan since first operating the Tactical Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in 2006. The squadron was the first to deploy helicopters to Afghanistan in 2008 and has completed three rotations in that role. The last personnel and helicopters redeployed from Afghanistan at the end of September.

Recent Projects

This vintage building in downtown Edmonton was renovated and restored a few years ago.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Recent Projects

This is the interior of the ATB building featured in yesterday's post.  One of the problems with wide angle lenses is that the images can be quite distorted - particular toward the edge of the image.  The first image submitted to my client of this view showed significant distortion of the round light fixtures so a re-shoot was called for.  There's still a bit of distortion in the lights but it seems acceptable - most folks would agree that the lights are in fact spherical.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Recent Projects

This stylish little building for Alberta Treasury Branches recently opened in SE Edmonton.  The landscaping won't be finished until spring of 2010 but the design team wanted some marketing photos right away.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Recent Projects

Here's the second of the photos taken for the Urbans Lands design group - the storm water retention pond is quite large and features many paths, a footbridge and expanses of lawn.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Recent Projects

Over the next while I'll update you on some of my recent projects.  Here's the first.

This photo was taken for the civil engineers/urban lands designers responsible for the the infrastrucuture of this south Edmonton neighbourhood.

In modern subdivisions a lot of the storm water goes into the these retention ponds rather than into storm water pipe.  People sometimes think that the developer was thoughtful enough to provide a lake but the fact is that all this water had to go somewhere.  And then it has to be landscaped.

That white spec in the sky isn't sensor dust, it's the moon.

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Vienna

We'll end the Vienna series with this shot of St. Stephens Cathedral.  Very glad I took this photo has it meant taking the camera out of the bag.  After taking this photo I did not put the camera away which is a good thing because when the camera bag was stolen I had still had the camera body and the 17-40 lens that was attached - the lens used to take this photo.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Vienna

On a top ten list of famous Austrians you'd expect to see names like Schwarzenegger, Von Trap and this bloke - Mozart.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Vienna

These are the steps at the Albertina Art Gallery.  Ours was hasty visit as we arrived just 30 minutes before closing but that's life. 

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Vienna

There's something about a nice orderly garden, don't you think?

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Vienna

On one of our walks through the many parks in Vienna we came across a contraption that we could not figure out no matter how hard we tried.  It was a wooden affair with what looked like a raising and lowering mechanism.  And then we came across this row of trees and all was revealed - it was a platform for pruning very large hedges.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Vienna

It took me a minute or two to work out what this was all about - you have to examine this closely to figure it out.  This mesh barrier is on a footbridge; hundreds of couples have written their names or initials on these locks then attached them to the mesh.  Presumably this is intended to symbolically 'lock' their relationship.  I can't be sure but I would be willing to bet that there's a pile of keys lying at the bottom of the river below this footbridge.