Pandora Building

Over the course of the last few weeks I have managed, not by design, to come up with a few shots in HDR of the same partially torn down building on lower Pandora St..

The first one (left) was taken from the Fisgard St. side of the block before they obscured the fence. The second image (lower left) was taken a week later from Market Square entrance on Pandora St.. The last image was taken from the Store St. end of Pandora St..

Andrew Old Fashioned

Decided to do some editing and give the latest Andrew Merpaw images an old fashioned look.

The Sepia was achieved in photoshop by creating a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and selecting the Colorize box. I then set Hue = 25 and Saturation = 25. I added my own texture layer over-top and set the Layer Blend to Overlay and Opacity to 40%.

Alley Cat

Last Sunday Andrew Merpaw and I walked around downtown and shot everywhere from Bastion Square to Chinatown's Fan Tan Alley. In the process we found this friendly Alley Cat in Fan Tan.

I spend a good chunk of teen life in this very alley. My next-door neighbor was a sculptor who shared a studio in #3 Fan Tan Alley, just to the right in this picture. Then the building was fixed up and shops were put in on the ground level and a few guys I know opened a Comic Book store in the space that I'd hang out at for hours. After they moved the store to an alley between Yates and Johnson, a friend opened a metaphysical shop in the alley.

In a lot of ways I felt like I lived in the alley for about five years. I still have friends and acquaintances that work and/or live in or very near the alley, and I always enjoy visiting.

Chinese Public School

Was walking through Centennial Square on my way to work last Sunday when I saw a great angle to shoot this from. For those of you not aware, the school is located on Fisgard, half a block from the Chinatown gate.

There is a lot of red in this image, from the brickwork to the lanterns and the painted door and stairs. Inspite of that the HDR really helped bring out the details in the image.

The smaller image to the right was taken the same morning from a different position in the square.

Janion

At the beginning of February the shop that I work in changed its hours for Sundays, and I forgot. So I showed up early for a 10am shift, to discover that we don't open till 11am and no-one was there yet.

So I took a walk with my camera. I wandered down by the water below Store St. and worked on some great HDR.

This is the back-side of the Janion Building, been derilict my whole life and sits right across from Swan's Hotel. When Mosses Znamier was in Victoria, looking for a place to put CIVI (today's A-Channel) he realy like that building and its water proximity. Unfortunately the crazy person that owns it refused to sell it, or lease it at any price.

Canoe Club

The Canoe Club below Store Street in Victoria. Taken on a damp Sunday morning. There were a lot of good shots taken the same day I'll try to post more soon.