Pulling back and rising from the round yellow-and-blue sign in the courtyard of Cochrane Coffee Traders, over shade sails and tall poplars, until the red clinic next door and the timber gable come into frame

Project 12 of 17

Cochrane Coffee Traders

Cafés · Cochrane, Alberta

Ten takes from the air inside seven minutes. Four photographs inside twenty-five.

Cochrane Coffee Traders is a café and in-house coffee roaster at 114 2nd Ave West in Cochrane, Alberta, and by its own account has roasted in town since 1991.

A coffee pot turns up three times on its one building: painted on the front door over a campfire, on the Coffee House sign off the porch, and tipped into the sunrise-and-cup sign in the courtyard. Atom2Adam Studio flew ten takes around it in under seven minutes, a little after five; Nathan had made four photographs inside at lunch. Not one frame of stock. The shot, the table, the door, the courtyard, the avenue, the town.

Subject: Cochrane Coffee Traders, 114 2nd Ave West, Cochrane, Alberta — in its own words “Cochrane’s OG local coffee roaster since 1991” and “your friendly neighbourhood roaster, baker, and community hub.” From its history: “In 2002, our family became part of this story…”
Intent: Make a stranger want to spend a morning there, at a café that says it has been “waking up Cochrane since 1991, one cup at a time.”
Seen: Two shots from two group heads, two lattes in blue cups, a coffee pot three times on one building, a porch of braced timber posts, three shade sails in a courtyard, two banners on one lamp post, the town out to the mountains.
Made: Four photographs inside at lunch, 12:20 to 12:45 by the photographer’s clock, and ten aerial takes a little after five, inside seven minutes from 5:04 by the drone’s. One day, one table of plates, nobody named.

I

The shot

Two espresso shots pouring at once from two group heads of a chrome machine at Cochrane Coffee Traders into two small handled steel cups, an olive bar towel below, the café's timber interior soft behind — Two group heads, two shots, two small steel cups.

Cochrane Coffee Traders roasts its own beans in-house, in small batches. “Follow your nose to the café,” its site says. “Odds are the roaster is running right now.” So the story starts where those beans end up, at the machine.

Big brands, the café says, count a bean’s age in months. At 114 2nd Ave West it is often days.

II

The table

Upstairs at Cochrane Coffee Traders: one hand on a seeded muffin, another holding a latte by its handle, an iced pastry and a chocolate cookie, customers on the floor below the timber rail — Upstairs, over the rail: the room below, 12:44 p.m.

Upstairs at Cochrane Coffee Traders, a timber rail looks down on the room; Cochrane Tourism notes that the second floor has a bar overlooking the shop. So the plates are photographed up there, over the rail, with the room below in the same frame. The café’s menu names drinks of its own — the Hill Climber, “an energy filled hazelnut mocha topped with chocolate whipped cream,” the Cafe Yoolup, the Yak Tea.

From above at an angle, one wooden table at Cochrane Coffee Traders, the timber rail behind it: a green latte and a latte in blue cups, an iced pastry, a seeded muffin, a chocolate cookie — Two lattes in blue cups, a muffin, a cookie, 12:45 p.m.

A man in a black cap and glasses smiling as he holds out a camera inside Cochrane Coffee Traders, a round wall clock, timber shelving and potted plants soft behind him — The other camera in the room, 12:20 p.m.

III

The door

Sliding slowly left along the timber porch of Cochrane Coffee Traders on 2nd Avenue West as its painted name clears a hanging basket and a round black Coffee House sign enters the frame — The name clears the hanging basket: Cochrane Coffee Traders.

When Cochrane Coffee Traders redrew its mark, it kept one drawing: “our beloved carafe illustration, a nod to the early days of Coffee Traders.” The front door carries a coffee pot of its own, painted under the name, steam rising over a painted fire. So the camera arrives the way a regular does, at the door.

The painted door of Cochrane Coffee Traders behind its porch: the name in painted capitals, half behind a hanging basket, above a black coffee pot with steam lines over a painted campfire, black strap hinges — The painted door: the name, and a coffee pot over a fire.

Drifting back from the porch of Cochrane Coffee Traders past its round Coffee House sign to a black lamp post on 2nd Avenue West, its two salmon Cochrane banners, and the red clinic next door — Back off the porch to the lamp post and its two banners.

IV

The courtyard

Moving in past the red clinic next door to Cochrane Coffee Traders toward the courtyard between it and the timber gable, the round sign on the corrugated wall and the poplars rising past the roofline — In high between the roofs, into the courtyard.

The new mark of Cochrane Coffee Traders is fixed to the courtyard wall, with the carafe tipped in at the top. Its two half circles, in the café’s words, “represent both a cup of coffee and the rising sun.” “It’s ‘rise and shine’ in a single mark,” the café says. The courtyard runs back beside the gable, between it and the red clinic next door, under three shade sails and a line of tall poplars, so the camera flies in between the two to find it.

Sliding left to right past the steep timber gable of Cochrane Coffee Traders, its tall windows set in the peak, from the red clinic next door to the lamp post and its Explore banner — Left to right along the gable, to the Explore banner.

The round yellow-and-blue coffee traders sign in the courtyard of Cochrane Coffee Traders, a coffee pot tipped into its top, on a white corrugated-metal wall under a gooseneck lamp, above charcoal and cream shade sails — Two half circles: a cup, and the sun coming up.

Starting on the round coffee traders sign in the courtyard of Cochrane Coffee Traders and pulling back over the shingled roof and poplars until the porch, its lamp post and the sidewalk appear — From the sign back over the roof to the street.

V

The avenue

Descending at an angle toward Cochrane Coffee Traders on 2nd Avenue West: its dark gable roof and red-brick chimney, the courtyard of shade sails, parked cars, a motorcyclist and long shadows across the street — Down over 2nd Avenue West, a little after five.

Outside the porch of Cochrane Coffee Traders on 2nd Avenue West, one black lamp post carries two banners: “Historic Downtown Cochrane” on one side, “Explore. You’re in Cochrane” on the other. The drone came down over the avenue with the sun low enough to lay long shadows across the parking lane.

The timber porch of Cochrane Coffee Traders held nearly head-on: curved braces on square posts, a rail of plain spindles, hanging baskets of purple and white flowers, and the painted door between them — Braced timber posts, hanging baskets, the painted door between them.

At eye level down the 2nd Avenue West sidewalk, past a lamp post, the porch of Cochrane Coffee Traders and its Coffee House sign, then the red clinic, before lifting over the parked cars — At eye level down the sidewalk, past the porch.

Nathan’s camera stamped his four photographs inside Cochrane Coffee Traders between 12:20 and 12:45; the drone’s clock puts all ten takes inside seven minutes from 5:04. Everything shown here came from those two windows — twenty-five minutes at lunch, under seven in the air — on one day, and none of it is stock.

VI

The town

Rising over downtown Cochrane as the view widens: flat roofs and parking lots, apartment blocks, a rail line cutting across the town, a highway curving past a green hillside, and the mountains a pale line — Up over the roofs, the mountains a pale line.

The Town of Cochrane keeps its own count of the town around Cochrane Coffee Traders: 158 people in 1906, a centennial in 2003 marked by a completed downtown revitalization, 37,011 residents at the 2024 municipal census. So the drone climbs, and the view widens to the mountains.

It starts with two shots from one machine. It ends on a town running out to the mountains, with a painted coffee pot still on the door behind it.

Detail → Whole

From the smallest element to the entire place.

From above at an angle, one wooden table at Cochrane Coffee Traders, the timber rail behind it: a green latte and a latte in blue cups, an iced pastry, a seeded muffin, a chocolate cookie — 01 · Detail

The round yellow-and-blue coffee traders sign in the courtyard of Cochrane Coffee Traders, a coffee pot tipped into its top, on a white corrugated-metal wall under a gooseneck lamp, above charcoal and cream shade sails — 02 · Fragment

The painted door of Cochrane Coffee Traders behind its porch: the name in painted capitals, half behind a hanging basket, above a black coffee pot with steam lines over a painted campfire, black strap hinges — 03 · Place

Downtown Cochrane from high above: flat roofs and parking lots, apartment blocks, a rail line running across town, a highway curving past a green hillside and under an overpass, and a pale line of mountains — 04 · Whole

Cochrane Coffee Traders on 2nd Avenue West from above: the timber gable and porch between a red veterinary clinic and a grey real-estate office, a motorcyclist passing, parked cars and long shadows — 114 2nd Ave West, Cochrane, Alberta. “Follow your nose,” says the café.

Direction, aerial cinematography, edit: Atom2Adam Studio
Photography: Nathan
Capabilities: Aerial · Film · Photography · Post-Production
Subject: Cafés

Next13 / Shire Ridge Lodge

Circling the antler chandelier in the breakfast area of Shire Ridge Lodge near Bragg Creek, its candle bulbs lit, mounted heads on the walls and the staircase rising behind it

Project 13 of 17

Shire Ridge Lodge

Lodges & Stays · Bragg Creek, Alberta

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