Anderson Apartments

It’s been about a week and a half since my last photo post/upload and I’m feeling like a bit of a slacker. Last weekend I had the brainwave to take some shots of my car in the parkade of my downtown work building, but after what was a somewhat lackluster car wash it appears as though those photos are going to need some significant TLC in post-production before they see the light of day. I did however, visit a colleagues apartment last Friday night after the annual company bonspiel (curling tournament). Despite the significant amount of booze in my system I seemed to remember that the building was almost 100 years old and had plenty of character, so on Monday I made sure to ask my colleague if I could make another visit to his apartment building to take some photos of the amazing foyer. I made the trip back to the Anderson Apartments just off of 17th Ave SW on St. Patrick’s Day and took photos to my heart’s content. Apparently my memory hadn’t failed me because when I walked into the building I was just as impressed as I was the week before. Imported Italian marble covers the foyer and the stairs leading up to it and there is an unbelievable brass cage elevator that is still in working order (we took an impressively smooth ride up to the top floor). Below is one of my favorites from the visit.

This is a 3 exposure HDR (-2,0,+2) tonemapped in Photomatix with some final tweaks in Lightroom. The white balance is a little off because of the two different light sources…incandescent bulbs in the lobby and natural sunlight streaming in through the stairway window, but I kind of like the contrast between the yellow and orange in the lobby and the slight blue cast coming from the stairs. I’m really glad that I was able to stumble across this historic Calgary building. If I didn’t know someone who lived there I would never have found it…thanks Raj! As always, comments and critiques are more than welcome.