Evening at the Cloverdale Rec Centre and Elements Casino

Chris Wright Newsletters

On a recent warm evening, three of us met to photograph urbanscapes at the Cloverdale Recreation Centre and the adjacent Elements Casino and Racetrack. Hopefully three photographers “lurking” around the parking lots, peering over fences into the racetrack area, and photographing the building facades didn’t cause too much worry!

While I wasn’t sure what to expect as this was a new area to me, I approached the session as I always do, looking for the potentials. Seeing the details, the shapes and textures, and the hidden gems!

Shadows, and in particular tree shadows, are a favourite element in urbanscape. The late day sun was low in the sky and cast a heavy tree shadow onto the recreation centre wall.
This curved portion of the recreation centre building was striking with the counter curved lines on the opposite side. The different shades of blue and the white/yellow glass were also interesting.
Another take on that curved section of the recreation centre (see the last photo). I noticed how the ceiling lights seemed to glow and I wondered how it would appear as a black and white.
Another element I like to photograph are natural elements juxtaposed against buildings and structures. I spotted this large clump of tall grass illuminated in the late day light. An interesting story on taking this photo was that each of the other two photographers were just out of frame, one on the left and the other on the right having a chat…I just managed to compose this between them!
There was something about the leaning sign, the shadow it cast, and the matching angles on the sign and roofs that had to be captured
Peering through the fence, I spotted this scene with the strong silver detail trim on the window and roof edge set against the red siding. Plus that shadow line.
At the casino was a most fascinating facade that I thought would be fun to further explore through abstraction
Another take on that casino facade, abstracted into a square
I had to stand on nearly my toes while holding the camera over my head to clear the fence. The repeating pattern of the light posts and the soft curve on them was striking.
An interesting study of lines, curved and straight, on the recreation centre