I took this photo this morning when Geroy Simon and Paul McCallum stopped by the TEAM 1040 morning show with the Grey Cup that they helped win this past Sunday. It made me think about this professional sport and how I’ve come to appreciate what it is.
Continue reading “Appreciating all that is the BC Lions, Canadian Football League, and the Grey Cup”
I shot this on the final day of Summer Live in Stanley Park this past weekend. We were out of town for most of the event that celebrates Vancouver’s 125th anniversary of being the city that it has become, and this was quite the party that the city threw.
Truth be told, sixty4media developed the website for the year long celebration(celebratevancouver125.ca) that is going on, and it was a little rewarding to know that Rebecca and I played a bit part to help spread the word about Summer Live. With everyone hanging out on their blankets, people throwing the frisbee around, all the folks hula-hooping, and so on, I really wish we could have been around to check out more on Friday and Saturday.
“We live on a planet” is what Beck said when I showed her this photo because of the way the moon slipped into the shot. All of this within a 15 minute walk from the west end makes me hope this becomes a regular event every year.
At work, I have a screen saver that cycles through my flickr stream, and this photo popped up the other day when I came back to my desk.
I took this a few months ago when Rebecca and I had a great weekend at the Westin Whistler as their guests. We were able to experience an amazing look behind the scenes in their kitchen while their very talented crew of chefs prepared some amazing food dishes for a local children’s hospital banquet and fundraiser.
I’ve always like how I was able to catch the way the clouds sit over the mountains on the other side of the Sea to Sky Highway from the main Whistler Village. You could stare out the window for hours, watching the clouds hover over the slopes.
Last May, Rebecca and I finally made it over to Lighthouse Park on a cool, muggy day. It’s another one of those things that’s been on the list of places to visit after a few boat cruises by it and staring at it from the shore across the way from it.
The park is really pretty, but bring your hiking shoes for sure. As steep and narrow as some of the trails get, I still can’t figure out how, or yet alone why, some people got baby strollers over this terrain.
I’d barely recommend taking a stroller through Stanley Park, but it’s just the idea that some folks leave their front door not thinking about the fact that they are about to go to a park which sits at the base of a mountain.
Might this not seem like an unlikely place you’d want to bring a stroller?
I often enjoy riding shotgun while Rebecca drives. It gives me the opportunity to experiment with taking photos from the car, which usually doesn’t always turn out the best. Sometimes it’s blurry, the windows might be dirty, another passing vehicle can ruin the shot, and so on.
Rolling down Pacific Street with the sun setting off in the distance, this is a testament of not knowing how something will turn out until you try.
And I feel like this really is what summer in Vancouver is all about.
While many people will say that it rains a lot in this part of the world and they couldn’t live here because of that reason, you have to smile and nod. On those days that it’s not, this city is a vastly different experience. I don’t mind saving my energy to convince them otherwise.
Honestly, sometimes this city makes it easy to take beautiful photos of it. But in this case, this shot is more of an accident because I was only demonstrating the extra trigger I have on the battery grip for my Nikon D90. I held it to the side and just pushed the button.
Some photos, at least for me and are to my personal liking, are pure luck. Other times, it might be random. When you hit the sweet spot between the two, it’s immensely rewarding.
A little belated but worth mentioning that yesterday was Canada Day. We spent the day in Cloverdale for the Surrey Canada Day festivities out there, and I shot a lot of photos during our time on the ground.
The main reason we were out there was to cover the celebrations on Miss604.com.
Even though it was rainy, it was still a great event. I only wish we could have stayed longer, but Rebecca’s health was waning at the onset of early evening as she’s been battling a head cold over the past few days. Short on time right now, but I’ll post some more of my favorite photos from the day later.
Updated: August 2, 2010: It’s taken me a while, but here are a variety of other shots that I took. Event photography continues to grow on me, but it’s really a fun challenge each time. You have to adapt to the venue, lighting, crowd, staging, and entertainment.
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This is a great tradition of Surrey Canada Day celebrations. If you come up, you can get a cupcake for free. And quite honestly, everyone loves cupcakes. People from all walks of life, young to old, line up for these things.
Continue reading “Canada Day 2010”
Working the first BC Lions game felt like being a part of Vancouver history. I know I’m not from here, but this little boy (and his sister is in the other mascot’s arm) made me appreciate this day a little bit more. He was absolutely beaming to hug Leo.
And let’s be honest, this guy in a mascot outfit is simply a marketing tool of the football club. He gets the crowd pumped up, trots around on the field to reinforce the imagery of the team everyone in the stands are cheering for, and keeps the kids coming back for more and more.
Even when you understand all too well that there is a hefty business reason for Leo’s existence, it’s this one moment that you have to forget this.
In ten or twenty years, this little boy will recount the one year they whipped up a stadium in 111 days for there to be professional, Canadian football to be played here for just one season in Vancouver.
When all the stands are tore down and all that remains is the legacy of an artificial turf field and the four sets of lights, he might recount how his parents took him to a game one day, and even though the Lions lost in the final seconds of the first game to be played in the history of this temporary stadium, he even got to meet Leo and give him a big hug.
That’s why I took this picture.
I shot this during a weekend in Whistler with our fabulous hosts, Tourism Whistler.
They put us up in a first rate, private residence that you can rent out for periods of time, depending on how deep your pockets are and how long you want to stay. This was on the deck at the back of the house during the 2010 Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival in April.
Scales has become a good friend of mine here in Vancouver and a complete inspiration for my coverage of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. He’s a constant reminder to keep challenging myself to be better at what I do while taking the time to enjoy life off the grid here and there.
I literally had my camera in my right hand but at hip level when I looked down this alley as I walked past and decided to hit the trigger for kicks and giggles. For the first time in a long time, I actually hit a decent perspective of a downtown alleyway in Vancouver, give or take what some locals might consider “typical”.
