First Canadian Place: Passing By

I take a lot of photos indoors. One of my favourite buildings to photograph is First Canadian Place. I will not be surprised is photos from there are featured a lot here. Today’s photo was taken on the main level, by the elevators. There is a neat art piece hanging right now, called SCULPTURE by Katharine Harvey. I wanted it to be in the background with the elevator banks framing the shot. All I needed to do was wait for someone to walk by. I really enjoy using symmetry in my photos so I wanted one person, or a group of people clustered together in the middle on the shot. After a few minutes, and a few attempts, I finally had the photo I wanted.

  

Once I have a photo I am happy with, I am not always sure how I am going to present it. For this photo, first thing I do is take it into Snapseed. I use the Straighten tool to make sure it’s even. Then I use the Details tool to boost the clarity of the image. I want the detail in the art display to come through. I want to be careful. I want it to look naturally clearer and not grainy. Next, I crop the image using the Crop tool. The grid is helpful as it allows me to centre the person and the art display. I also use the opportunity to place the main focus of the image in the top centre portion of my frame. The carpeting along the bottom is meant to draw the eye up towards the main focus of the image. At this point, to help further draw the eye in, I will use the Center Focus tool. I often do not deviate from the pre-set value (feel free to play around with it to find a setting that works best for you and your image). Once my centre focus has been set, I save the photo to the camera roll. For this particular image, I am now down with using Snapseed.

  

I next open the image in Picfx (to get the image you want, use as many apps as you want and as many styles too). For this image, I want a Light feature, specifically Flame 4. I love the Rotate option and often use it to get the effect just right. For this image, I want the light part (of the effect) to be along the bottom of the image. I also lower the strength of the effect to about 65%.

  

At this point, I am pretty happy with the image and am read to upload to Instagram.