Powell River celebrates its 100th Anniversary in 2010 and as such, so does one of my favourite local icons, the Patricia Theatre, Canada’s oldest continuously operating movie theatre. I have shot the theatre before with some success, but I wanted to do a reshoot there in honour of this upcoming milestone. So last week, I did.
The Patricia Theatre in Powell River's Historic Town Site
The warmth and grandeur of the theatre has changed dramitically since I last shot it, completely for the better. The room’s new/old seats (recently purchased from Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre) added a whole new dynamic to the iconic movie house. The red seats added a richness and allure that one would expect to find in the historic district of a major city centre. Being in the theatre alone, with nothing more than a camera and my vision was a little surreal. The Patricia Theatre surely has amillion stories to tell, and I simply wanted to showcase it in a new perspective. I started out shooting wide. I wanted to showcase the entire room in all its glory. Something that they could use to promote the theatre in their marketing endeavors.
Inside the Patricia Theatre
After a few compositions, I yearned to go REALLY wide from the back of the theatre. The following image is a panoramic composite of 3 vertical shots. The key to any good merging of images is doing it right, in camera at the moment of capture. As always, a sturdy tripod is essential to pulling this off. For more on creating panoramics from multiple images, visit http://digital-photography-school.com/creating-a-panorama-with-photoshop-and-photomerge, or just google “how to create panoramic images.” A final alternative would be to enroll in Coast in Focus May 28-30 where we will demonstrate this in the field.
The Patricia in Pano
Immediately after capturing the images to create this pano, I really started to warm to the room. I felt like the details were calling out to me, which I aimed at exploring closer. Imagine the stories. Oh the things this old movie house has seen. I immediately headed towards the stage, drawn to the organ sitting directly below it. I re-composed and snapped what has become my favourite shot of the day. This intimate shot screams of a different era. If I were to age it with some effects and photoshop tricks, you’d never guess when this shot was taken, which is kind of cool.
The Stage - The Patricia Theatre
Somtimes it takes the finer details in order to successfully capture the essence of places of historic value. Check out the detail in the curtain.
The Details
I look forward to shooting many more of Powell River’s icons as its centennial celebrations fast approach!
Darren Robinson Photography 