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This past Saturday, Rebecca and I ventured out to Surrey to cover Winterfest 2009. I say “cover” because we were asked specifically by the city of Surrey to come out to not only enjoy the festivities but to also provide coverage of the day’s events as they happened.

Many of the folks that we met were excited to see coverage of Winterfest happening on Miss604.com, and there were a lot of praises coming from people who were very familiar with the exposure that Surrey gets from Rebecca’s posts about the city as well as everything else in the lower mainland. I think it’s safe to say that these people are getting what grassroots media coverage can do for a city on a hyper-local basis, even if it is strictly web based content. I think that says a lot.

Check out the various posts on Miss604.com for the full coverage:

• Thornley to Play Winterfest in Surrey 2009
• Winterfest 2009: Early Afternoon Events
• Winterfest 2009: Opening Ceremonies, March Forth, Eva Avila, Faber Drive and Thornley
• Winterfest Wrap Up and Good Times in Surrey

I wasn’t providing commentary as much as being a photographer on the grounds, trying to capture as much of Winterfest 2009 as I could with my camera. There were people everywhere, plenty of things to see and do, and the entertainment on stage kicked off with some great stuff for the families while wrapping up the night with rock show that was an amazing lineup for a concert that cost you nothing to attend.

That being said, here’s a collection of photos that I took, and you can see the entire set on Flickr as well.
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Last weekend, Rebecca was contacted by the city of Surrey to come out and help cover the events of the Surrey Fusion Festival. The three days of food, live performances, vendors, and artist displays were brought together for the soul purpose of putting a variety of ethnic flavors that comprise the areas of the lower mainland into one place. And let me say, they did an amazing job of pulling it off.

Once again, I played photographer for the day, gathering shots for coverage on miss604.com. The organizers understand and recognize the reach that a hyperlocal blog like Rebecca’s has, so they wanted to make sure that they did everything they could to spread the world about the event, even if it’s after the fact.

Here’s a variety of shots that were my favorite of those three days.

This last photo is by far my favorite out of the whole bunch, and it’s not because of the photo quality or how the light hits the shot just right. It’s the fact that when we saw these prawn crackers, we more so thought about how it would taste. The spelling didn’t catch us until after the fact.

With hope, those “pawn crackers” helped to make you understand how great the Surrey Fusion Fest was this year, and I really hope that the momentum is there to do it again next year. The whole gathering was laid back and a great atmosphere that one has to experience to really enjoy.

If you would like to see more photos, please see the entire set on Flickr, and Rebecca has some great posts highlighting the festivities from day two and three. Our social media ninja in arms DaveO even made a guest post to give his perspective, and he was just as pleased with things as we were.

Rebecca was contacted by the fine folks at the city of Surrey to be a media co-sponsor for their Canada Day events in Cloverdale. July 1st saw nearly 40,000 people crowd onto the Cloverdale Millennium Amphitheater grounds to play games, see stilt walkers, get their faces painted, and see a jam packed line-up of musical acts on the main stage, including the likes of Rymes With Orange, The Payola$, and Loverboy.

Events like this tend to find me with media access for the both of us, and of course that means I have to take my camera along with. You can read all of Rebecca’s coverage of the event [Surrey Canada Day 2008: The Schedule, Morning Recap, The Music], but the following are some of my favorite shots that I took.

Will is a really amazing musician. See him live if you can because you must.

That’s Mr. Bob Rock[wiki], ladies and gentlemen, in the flesh.

You can see all 104 photos on Flickr. Shooting outdoor events can be a lot of fun, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s loud in the photo pit, not to mention the sweltering heat on that day. Sometimes I feel intimidated by being surrounded with folks that have larger and much more expensive photo equipment, but the pictures that come out from my endeavors tend to speak for themselves. It’s not what you got that matters. It’s how you use it, and I’m doing my damnedest to learn my camera and get better with every shot.

The folks at the Surrey Canada Day event were amazing in terms of getting us the media access and letting us know the low down on what was going on, where everything was located, and were just generally awesome people. By far, the best treatment I have ever experienced in terms of media access for new media folks.

Rebecca left this morning for a whirlwind weekend in Toronto and an appearance on CBC’s Test The Nation television program. She got the call a few weeks ago to participate on the team of bloggers, going up against other groups like taxi drivers and celebrity lookalikes, to see who knows their trivia better. Viewers can also participate to see how they measure up.

The program airs live on CBC, January 20th at 8PM. Of course, it will actually live for the east coast, and then we’ll get the tape delayed version here in Vancouver. We don’t have access to an east coast feed, so I’ll have to wait for the pacific time airing, unless someone out east puts it up on bittorrent right after it airs, wink wink nudge nudge.

Going to the CBC’s website for the event, the picture that represents the bloggers team is laughable. How much more slarm can you cram into that generic, over-stereotyped photo?

For the love of god, CBC, get someone like Kris Krug to shoot you some real photos and ditch the bubblegum sets for these things. Seriously, it looks like a promo shot for a new CBC television show, Blogger Force 5!

And what the hell are they all looking at?

I have full trust that Rebecca is going to rock this thing. She is always kicking my butt in anything trivia or Scrabble related, plus she’s basically taught me everything I’ve come to know about Vancouver to Canada in general. She puts up with my stupid questions by knowing everything I don’t, but it goes both ways when it comes to various topics pertaining to the U.S.