I have been so amazed by this trip that Rebecca is documenting right now in Ghana. It’s wowing me with the imagery she is sending back. You should check them out for yourself on her Flickr set.
The view from the Westin Whistler
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.
Sparkler love on the 4th of July
Going back to 2010, I took this shot while in Iowa during the 4th of July. When you have a camera, some sparklers, and low light around sunset, what else do you do than experiment with long exposure?
Rebecca is remarkably good at making shapes like this, especially reversing a word to make it appear correctly for the shot without horizontally flipping it after the fact.
A private performance with Lights
I had a fairly big project going on with the day job today, but there was a brief moment that relieved a little bit of the stress. I forgot about the email that mentioned Lights was coming in for a performance in our lounge at the station. I snagged my camera and snapped a few shots for the one song that I could stick around for.
I caught Lights about a year ago when I shot photos of Jets Overhead at The Commodore. She was the headliner, but I didn’t have a photo pass for her performance, just the opening act.
Lights takes my musical tastes to realms not usually tread, and I can’t help but appreciate the passion she has in her craft. She was also pretty brilliant live.
Always remember what it’s like to be a kid
I shot this while crossing the Burrard Inlet in a Seabus to the north shore. This kid was a giddy as I often am while looking out the same windows at the city. It always makes me think about how lucky I am to be living in this city, and how thankful I am to all of my friends and family that made it possible for me to achieve everything I have.
I think that in a lot of ways, I’m still a kid at heart. That’s why I took this photo.
Love with an iPhone
Just a little fun with long exposure, Rebecca used a drawing app on her iPhone 3GS to make her screen pink and did her best to spell out “love” in reverse. When you shake the phone, the screen turns back to being white, and that’s how she got the white circle to show up around it. I just had to figure out all the settings on my camera to get this to work, and around the fourth or fifth time, it came out like this.
This photo was taken in my parent’s driveway back in Iowa after the fireworks had just finished for the 4th of July, and this is why you always go back to spend time with your family. Visiting always makes us feel loved.
Lighthouse Park at the end of spring
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?
This is Vancouver in the summertime
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.
Being a part of history at Empire Field while helping spread it through social media
The radio day job always gets me into places around Vancouver that I would probably not wander through if it weren’t for the opportunities that keep coming up, and Empire Field is no exception.
TEAM Radio is the official broadcaster of the BC Lions, so during our initial test setup for the first home game back in June, I brought my camera along to hopefully snap some photos of the field before the public got to wander in for a peek. What I didn’t anticipate was that while the first event to be held at this temporary stadium was just days away, workers were all over the place, still getting ready.
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While BC Place[wiki] gets a new roof downtown, Empire Field[wiki] has been built on the former site of Empire Stadium[wiki], which used to be the home of the BC Lions Canadian Football League team prior to moving into the dome in the early 80’s.
The crazy aspect to this stadium is that it’s completely temporary, but I find that hard to tell at times.
Aside from the field turf and the four sets of lights at each corner of the stadium, all of this will be gone by the summer of 2011. The BC Lions get one full season to call this place temporarily home, and the Vancouver Whitecaps FC will start their inaugural MLS season on the same field.
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In all actuality, I’m not an overly huge football fan. I like to watch it, but I don’t actively seek it out. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the sport by any means. I’ve certainly let the CFL grow on me, even though punting the ball on 3rd down continues to throw me off from time to time.
What can I say? I grew up in small town America where Friday nights belong to high school football, Saturday’s are for college ball(Go Hawks!), and Sunday was NFL. Four downs(CFL has three), the flags are yellow(CFL flags are orange), and the only time you can score a single point is kicking the ball through the uprights after a touchdown(I’m still confused by all the various ways you can score a single point in the CFL, but oh well).
I encourage football fans with the NFL Network in the states to try and catch some of the CFL broadcasts they will be running this summer. Let the rules and twelve men on the field be the second thing you pay attention to. The action is what you should focus on.
It’s really tough to comprehend that this stadium will only exist for barely over a year. With the mountains as a gorgeous backdrop and the close proximity of the fans to the field, this isn’t just a great place to watch football or soccer. I could see this being a great outdoor concert venue as well.
Whatever happens to this place in the future, it’s a little rewarding to be involved in a tiny piece of Vancouver’s history. Just like people talk about Expo ’86 or when the Olympics were here, I can say I was there, running around the field, ducking into the double-wide trailers that make up the locker rooms, and hauled plenty of equipment up and down stairs to make the radio side of things happen.
Interestingly enough, my photos have made the rounds on a handful of sites promoting the environmental sustainability aspect of the stadium, most noticeably the recycled tires that makes up the field turf.
inhabitat.com:
Vancouver Soccer Stadium Made With 22,000 Recycled Tires
by Bridgette Meinhold, 06/29/10
Inhabitat used my photos to highlight the use of “22,000 recycled tires, amounting to 346,000 pounds of crumb rubber,” in the field turf that makes up the playing surface of Empire Field. While that’s pretty cool in itself, the playing field can actually be altered in terms of response by either vacuuming up those tiny bits of rubber or adding more to change the amount of bounce you get from the field.
They found my photos on Flickr and published them in a post with proper attribution. That’s social networking done right.
ecopnues.it:
Lo stadio da calcio di Vancouver costruito con 22.000 pneumatici fuori uso
I was contacted directly about using my photos in this post, and that request was in English. As you can tell by the title of this post, all of this site is in Italian. Ecopnues is an Italian website that focuses on the use of recycled tires, taking a cue from the previous post I’ve already highlighted.
What fascinates me is the theme of sustainability being immensely popular around the world. Empire Field certainly has its critics, but in the bigger picture, the long term benefits to the communities around this area is viewed positively by many.
Rebecca also has a post with many of my photos as well as her trip to see the field on the day it was unveiled to the media.
Empire Field is a limited time experience and well worth it. If you go and are the adventurous type, get some seats in the end zones. Space was so limited in the construction of this stadium that they couldn’t put nets up to prevent balls from going into the stands.
How’s that for a souvenir? Well, that is if you’re willing to work for it.
Yaletown from the Olympic Village without trying
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.