There’s been 12 mosaics created by various artists and now that they’re done being displayed at the Park Place building at 666 Burrard they’re being installed in the sidewalks around downtown. It’ll be spread out over a 90 block area..so far I’ve only found 8 7 of the 12. The 90 block area they are contained is marked on this map.
*56K Warning* Check them out after the jump.

They’re all quite beautiful. Sorry for some of the blurry shots. More information is available at the DVBIA website here.

These are by no means official titles for the art work. Just my guesses of what they’re depicting. I unfortunately don’t have more info about which artists contributed or the proper depictions, except for the few times I passed by them in the lobby of Park Pace.

*UPDATE* – Cordova & Richards Mosaic does not appear to be part of the 12 mosaic pieces as indicated here.  It is actualy part of an older art project known as the “Footprints Community Art Project” done back in 2001 by the Downtown East Side Community.  More information on that project can be found here.
Cordova & Richards – City Of Vancouver Crest

Robson & Burrard – Musical Instruments

Smithe & Seymour – Orpheum

Seymour & Georgia – Hudsons Bay Company

Georgia & Howe – Lions Gate Bridge

Georgia & Hornby – Health Care

Dunsmuir & Burrard – Fishing

Georgia & Homer – Logging

Although you definitely won’t achieve the same type of photographic quality from this as you would a purchased professional setup, you certainly won’t be paying as much.

The only materials required to make this box is an empty cardboard box, white paper, tape, and a cutting knife. If used as a guide I’m sure a better and bigger box could be made.

The box I used is one which was designed to hold 8 1/2 x 11 documents so that was perfect for the sizes of white paper I had. I used 8 1/2 x 11 white paper (with a brightness of 97 and weight of 47 lbs for anyone curious).

First you’ll want to find yourself a cardboard box that will be suitable for this project. I’m mainly going to be using this to take macro shots of small items and objects. After obtaining the box you’ll want to cut the flaps off of it first.

Next thing is to mark out the area to cut out on the sides of the box. Since this box was made to carry documents it was already close to the size I wanted. I marked off approximately an inch in from each side and roughly marked out the section. After doing so, I cut out the inside leaving a frame.

I just used the cut out piece to mark the opposite side. Again you’ll want to cut this portion out and leave a frame. The frame is to essentially shine your light through and we’ll be using 8 1/2 x 11 paper to diffuse that light.

So with the sides of the box cut out along with the top flaps, you should have something similar to this in front of you. As you can see there’s approximately a 1 inch “frame” left as a result of cutting out the middle.

The next thing is to make a cut out for the top of the box. In this case I’m actually going to be using the box laying on its side. So in this case the “top” is actually the longer side of the box. Anyways I marked out this section with an approximate 1 inch border as well. Obviously since this side is larger a single piece of 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper will not be sufficient enough to cover the opening. Either two will need to be used or you can leave it open.

This is how it should now look at this point with the three sides cut out. Now you can also see what I mean by putting the box on it’s side and using the longer side as the top and bottom of the box. Depending on how you are photographing objects you may wish to diffuse the light coming through the top of the box and photograph in the front of the box. Or diffuse light from the front as well and photograph coming in the top of the box.

Next is the process of whiting out the interior surfaces. Unless your box happens to be crisp white on the inside. You may also grey out or black out the inside as well depending on how you want it. If you have the time or scraps it’s a good idea to make all surfaces white. You’ll notice the side walls/frames I did not touch. Also for the back wall it’s a good idea to curve the paper from the bottom surface to the back wall. This will provide a solid white background with no seams. Also since the paper is not long enough I joined them with invisible tape and under normal lighting conditions the seems are not visible.

So this is the general set up. You’ll probably have a third light coming in the front or the top of the box. You’ll want to diffuse accordingly. In the spirit of being extremely cheap and thrifty I’m also using a couple of 500w halogen worklamps which cost about $9 each. The bulbs aren’t anything special and as a result do not provide the full spectrum of light as the more expensive “true natural” type of bulbs available.

So here’s the result of using the light box to photograph a close up of a still object. You’ll have to excuse me as I forgot to set the proper white balance. This exaggerated the effect of having yellowish halogen bulbs as well.

Nothing a little post-processing in photoshop can’t fix. All in all it took about 10 minutes to make this cheap little box for use. Definitely makes it handy to photograph decent shots for use for eBay auctions or perhaps if you sell products this could be handy as well. You’ll have to excuse the dust on the glasses. The shot is pretty crisp, it’s just the lenses are dusty on the glasses.