Parkade – heath ofee dot com

Primary Colours

Heath OFee — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 13:10:06 +0000

Okay, I know that red, yellow, and blue aren’t the traditional set of primary colours…but this is the title I first thought of when looking at this image. I like that among all the boring grey, white and black of the parkade, these vibrant colours exist as a nice contrast.

I’m not sure about anybody else, but I’ve been in a serious winter weather shooting funk. The boring overcast skies and constant snow has really put a damper on my motivation, and I’m finding it difficult to find any inspiration to go out when my city looks so disgusting. With any luck, April will bring some nicer weather and I’ll be out and about shortly, but in the meantime, you’ll have to put up with shots from my archive. Here’s hoping for spring!

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 11mm, F 8.0, ISO 100

emergENCy

Heath OFee — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 15:50:59 +0000

I know I had mentioned sharing another texture experiment with you today, but I think I’m going to save that for tomorrow. Today, just a quick one from the same parkade you saw yesterday, only this time in black and white with some nice little bokeh highlights.

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 50mm f/1.4, 50mm, F 1.4, ISO 100

5 Five

Heath OFee — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 16:22:08 +0000

After seeing Jacob’s parking garage shout-out to me yesterday, I was inspired to go back to my most recent parkade visit and see what I could come up with. I don’t have a tripod that allows me to shoot at ground level, so for this shot I put my camera right on the ground and used my padded camera strap to hold the lens high enough off the ground to get the correct framing. I wanted the viewer to be led through the frame by the yellow line front and centre to all those concrete columns telling us that we’re on P5. The contrasting yellows and blues add some interest.

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 10mm, F 8.0, ISO 100

Pumped

Heath OFee — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 13:46:22 +0000

Yesterday I brought my gear to work with me and did some exploration of my still unfinished office building. I made my way up to the 45th floor (by way of stairs…ugh) and got a few cool shots of the undeveloped floor and a couple of the skyline from above. I also made my down to the parkade to see what I could come up with. I’m thinking I may try to hit a number of parking garages in the downtown core and start up a bit of series…so stay tuned for more about that.

The shot below is from the parking garage, and as you can see, I had a bit more fun with textures last night. I think the gritty concrete texture works well with the almost monochromatic colour palette, and goes nicely with the stenciled word. I’m really pleased with how this one turned out.

Canon EOS 50D, Canon EF 50mm f/1.4, 50mm, F 1.4, ISO 100

Between the Lines

Heath OFee — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 13:34:40 +0000

I think I’ve realized why I find parking garages so interesting to shoot: there are so many different lines to incorporate into a composition! The painted lines of the parking stalls, the vertical columns holding the place together, pipes and concrete relief in the ceiling, arrows painted on the floor, the list goes on and on.

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 12mm, F 8.0, ISO 100, 5 Exposures

The Loneliest Number

Heath OFee — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 17:01:50 +0000

This was the last set of brackets I shot on my brief solo downtown photowalk yesterday afternoon, and am I glad I did! I think this is going to end up being one of my favorites of the day.

For me, this shot is a lesson in persistence. About half an hour before I took these brackets, I was accosted by a security guard for taking photos of the exterior of the building I work in. I wasn’t too impressed with the encounter, and it left a very bitter taste in my mouth. I really just wanted to walk back to my car and head home, but I convinced myself that there were more brackets to be had, and at the start of the day I knew I wanted to hit a parkade to see what I could come up with. So, I sucked it up and kept shooting, and I’m really glad I did.

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 16mm, F 8.0, ISO 100, 3 Exposures

My Mazdaspeed 3

Heath OFee — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 20:38:36 +0000

A couple of posts ago I briefly mentioned that I had taken some photos of my Mazdaspeed 3 in the parkade of the Suncor Energy Centre but I wasn’t too pleased with them because of the crummy car wash I got before taking the shots. Well, after a lot of work in post-processing I finally have one ready to show…and I’m relatively pleased with how it turned out. Let me know what you think because I’ve been staring at it for too long and in too much detail to really tell if it actually looks good

Canon EOS 50D, Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5, 12mm, F 16, ISO 100, 3 Exposures

The details: 3 exposure HDR tonemapped in Photomatix, color correction, contrast and clarity in Lightroom, a bit of burning and cloning in Photoshop, and noise reduction using Noiseware (yup, way too much processing…but it was fun and a good learning experience).