MacLeod's Books is a small bookstore in downtown Vancouver, but manages to fit more books in than most stores ten times the size.
It's an incredible place for a book lover (and a terrible place for a neat freak!), but not the place to go if you're looking for a specific title -- you'll never find it! It's much better to go without any idea what you're going to come away with, and see what you can discover!
This is the view upon entering the shop -- the corridors between the books are just barely wide enough for one person, with the shelves stretching up to 10 or 11 feet above the floor. Things only get more crowded as you go in -- the piles of books get bigger, the gaps between the shelves get narrower, and the huge pile of unsorted books in the basement (where some piles are so tall and precarious that they are roped off) is quite a sight.
They estimate they have over a quarter of a million books (there is no database, so you are entirely reliant on staff knowledge if you want a specific title), ranging from $1 to several tens of thousands of dollars. It's a great place to spend a rainy afternoon!
This was taken in December after I stopped by to get a Christmas present for my Mum. 7-shot HDR taken holding the camera above my head.
Definitely needs to be viewed large (and ideally, in person!)
I'm a British software developer and photographer living in Vancouver, BC. I mainly photograph landscapes, cityscapes, night scenes, and water.
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Wow, what a browsefest! Reminds me of Baggins Book Emporium in Rochester, Kent (UK) which occupies several floors of a rambling old building crammed full of books on every imaginable subject, where I have often managed to "get lost" for hours on end!
wow thats incredible, i was going to say how do they ever find anything, but i guess sometimes they dont! not somewhere you could just get a part time job and be of any use for the customer i guess! and also not somewhere to take the kids or a pram :) my kinda shop! :)
Great in B/W. Color here would overwhelm us, especially HDR'd. Do you have this on Flickr or somewhere else? The detail in the top center really needs to show better and we only get a hint of how well you did this in the "View Large" here.
Wow! Amazing shot! Really captures the atmosphere of the place and I love that you got the owner in there in the middle of his sea of books. Truly eye-popping detail -- have you got a gigapan shot of this one? LOL. Great shot of a very cool bookstore. :)
Love the b&w.
Great shot. :)
this is a wonderful shot (image?) - love how much depth there is to it... it certainly looks like a fascinating place...