burnt embers

Another in the recent series of half-frame photographs. One thing I have experimented with is different modes of shooting building panoramas. Above is one shot on Broad Street where I walked along the block several meters between each shot trying to keep the center of each frame perpendicular to the building and the edges of the frames aligned as carefully as possible. Curbs can be very good for lining things up in one direction.

This next shot is of the former location of Ian’s Coffee Shop, a building that has lain fallow for more than a decade, and recently when bits started falling off was condemned – the family was required to take action, and they have sold it. Right at this moment it is at the low point, I hope (some of the back wall has been removed for rot as well). But from the sounds of it is going to be restored, or at least renovated. You can see excellent earlier photos at Toadhollow Photography and this post in particular.  My purpose in this shot was to present one face of the building in increasingly closer detail and to try to give a detailed and general idea of the decay. I think it might have worked better to zoom out for this one, and if there was no writing in the picture, would probably flip it.

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The bank building below, located in Oak Bay, had nice tree shadows on it, which is what caught my eye. These three shots are taken from the same point, like a conventional photographic panorama. The best part in some ways is the painted line in the road. In fact, I would like this shot if it were only pavement with that arrangement of painted line and the old scars from trenching through the road.

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The last shot is a vertical panorama, of the east face of View Towers. Necessarily this too is shot from a single location. I especially like the bottom frame and in fact took another shot similar for use as a single frame – that will show up around here one of these days. Another example from this same location, but horizontal, can be found here. This is one of my earliest attempts at this kind of panorama, and the alignments are not as good as I would like.

I am sure there are many other ways to approach these panoramas, and indeed today’s second shot combined with an approach similar to yesterday’s triptych portrait with a detail in the middle could be quite interesting. The trouble is this is a fixed focal length camera which puts the photographer into traffic lanes sometimes if a bit of zoom is wanted. Makes me hanker for a half-frame camera with interchangeable lenses (the Pen F springs to mind, but they are way too expensive).

Click on the pictures for a bigger version.

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Olympus Pen, half-frame camera, ca 1961. Ilford Pan F Plus and Efke KB 50, ISO50, 1/50th, f11 to ~f5.6.

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