Star Wars Identities - Edmonton

On March 2nd, 2013, my girlfriend and I got out to see the Star Wars Identities Exhibit at the Telus World of Science in Edmonton. The exhibit contains quite a remarkable number of props, costumes, models, and art from the making of the movies. It will, apparently, be stopping in only twelve cities over the course of a six-year world tour. It was in Montreal first and, at the time of writing this, wraps up in Edmonton - the second stop on the tour - in a few weeks.

Using very slick technology and multimedia displays, the exhibit endeavours to have people answer the question: "What forces shape you?" To that end, on entry everyone is given a bracelet that tracks the selections you make at 10 different stations throughout the exhibit. The end result is a character profile based on your choices. My girlfriend and I got as far as choosing a race (Mon Calamari and Wookiee, FYI) at the first station before losing interest in that aspect of the exhibit and turning to wondering around checking out all the neat stuff!

Photography is encouraged, but was challenging given the low light conditions, glass in front of most of the objects, and the big crowds of people (at full capacity they were letting 300 people through an hour!) The following images are my favourites from the day. Seeing the models of the ships was the coolest part (though probably the hardest to photograph).

Wetland Panorama

This image is a panoramic taken with a little Canon point and shoot and stitched with Photoshop Elements. This subject is a wetland located roughly 100 km south of Fort McMurray, Alberta.



Photo hosting sites have a limit on maximum image dimensions (the free ones anyway). For images that have more normal ratios - 3:2, 5:6, square, etc. - that limitation is not a problem. However, when the image has one really long dimension and one really short dimension, this limitation causes the image to scaled based on the really long dimension. This panorama has a ratio of about 17:2... and a height of about 180 pixels when uploaded to Blogger :(

To work around the size limit issue, I cut the image in to a couple of sections so that the details of the image can still be seen. I did something similar with my panorama taken from the Jericho Beach Pier in Vancouver, British Columbia in another post.

Night-time Long Exposures

These images were made in downtown Calgary. Each is a 'long' exposure and none were taken using a tripod. The exposure times range from 1/3 of a second to 10 seconds.

I have never worked nor lived in a downtown core - actually, I rarely even visit my local downtown :) As such, I am always amazed at how much is going on - so much movement! I find taking shots like these very entertaining because they are a simple way to capture some of that movement :)

If you would like to view larger versions of these images, check out the set on Flickr or the Flickr slideshow for the set.