One of my favorite photoshoots last year was photographing St. Andrew’s College for BNC Architects. They designed an expansion of the private high-school located in Aurora, ON. The new building includes a theater, and auditorium, a music hall, several classrooms and labs.
The main feature of the new building is definitely the theater. I usually prefer shooting interiors with my 24 mm tilt-shift lens, but because of the size of the theater, I had to use my 17mm lens:
The shot below is actually a panorama done with the 17mm TS lens, by shifting left, center and right.
The crazy thing about this theater is that the back wall can be lowered into the floor and the seats removed. It then expands the room to the adjacent auditorium, as you can see below:
The music hall is such a large room that I had to use the 17mm TS lens again, to show the ceiling height and all the instruments.
I blended exposures to show the view in some of the shots, as St. Andrew’s College is basically in the middle of a forest. The fall colors were beautiful on the day I was shooting.
Another cool feature of the building is the main staircase, as it is near a glass wall, so you can see it from the courtyard.
I also photographed a number of exteriors. As you can see, the modern addition was designed to blend with the older brick buildings.
The music hall just glows at dusk. It’s a fantastic space. The courtyard in front of the new building has a small amphitheater.
The architects designed a link between the addition and the older buildings. The interesting part is that the glass walls can be open to link the small courtyard with the larger space and amphitheater.
It’s a gorgeous building, and the students of St. Andrew’s College are lucky to be able to use its facilities. I had a blast shooting it!
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