As we head into August, I’m getting a little excited for the third installment of the Live At Squamish music festival.
Embarrassingly enough, I never posted about last year’s experience, highlighting some of my favorite photos that I took during the event. I’m fortunate to get access to this event through Miss604.com, and Rebecca is dialed in for 2012 again.
Continue reading “Retrospective: Live at Squamish 2011”
You can get the full story on Rebecca’s site, but we made our way to downtown New Westminster a few weekends ago to explore the area. And quite honestly, I was really impressed by a place I thought I somewhat already knew.
Whatever you think you’ve known about the area of the New West core, it’s probably changed over the past few years.
Snapped this photo while photowalking during Hats Off Day in Burnaby Heights on Saturday. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard of this event, especially since Miss604.com was a media sponsor.
I feel like I caught summer in this brief moment, even though it’s still, technically, spring.
Bottom line, this is an impressive affair. So many people, so many sights, sounds, and food. You could not have asked for a better day, and my slight sunburn is a tribute to that.
See all of my photos in this Flickr set and the recap post on Miss604.com.
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”
On an early October 4th morning, I ventured down to Concord Place with Rebecca to check out this year’s CIBC Run For The Cure. Across the entire country of Canada, people were running and walking to raise money to help find a cure for breast cancer. Being that we were invited to check out the festivities, I knew it would be a great opportunity to get some more practice in with my Nikon D90. This would be the first, large scale event with my new camera, so it was tough to pass up.
I should mention that this is the first time since 2007 that I haven’t participated in the Run For The Cure. We were invited to run by the organizers if we wanted, but the jam filled weekend of BarCampVancouver and other sixty4media projects kept us fairly swamped that weekend. Perhaps next year, and I’m always up for a good run, no matter what the cause.
That being said, here’s a selection of photos that were some of the best to me. I’m still getting a handle on technique, but these types of events are incredibly fun while difficult to shoot. So many great opportunities for getting great captures, but you just have to be in the right place at the right time.
This cat was cruising along on top of this guy’s head as he set out from the start line. With all of the dogs participating in the event, I can see why. Still, the way it’s perched on top of the hat makes me think that this is a regular thing. Just need the perfect Lolcats caption for it.
Pamela Martin, ladies and gentlemen. Quick eye contact, raised my camera, and she flashed me that perfect, Channel 9 smile.
I saw these three in the distance. They were all pushing themselves to make it to the finish line, coming in around the top 10% of all the other runners. One of them waived to go ahead and finish without them, but they instead locked hands, one of them let out a “we can do this!”, and put their heads down to finish that last 100 meters together. Kind of pulled on the heart strings.
A “most interesting man in the world” moment.
You can see all of my photos from this event on Flickr. Rebecca has a full write-up as well.
Last Thursday, Rebecca and I saw Death Cab For Cutie at Pacific Coliseum with opening acts Ra Ra Riot and New Poronographers. Thanks to some appreciation from Live Nation and our social media endeavors, we got a photo pass to send me into the pit at the front of the stage for each band.
Unfortunately, traffic made us too late to catch Ra Ra Riot, but the New Pornographers put on a really great performance, in their hometown no less. My time inside ended as they kicked into “Use It”, but their set was pretty fantastic from what I got to hear.
The highlight of the night was certainly Death Cab For Cutie, a band that I’ve been following for a number of years, from their indie label days to their hefty deal with one of the big boys. This was certainly a treat, but shooting from the front of a stage that’s about five feet high and in low light wasn’t easy.
This was my first time seeing these guys in all the years I’ve been following their music. A funny story is when I was at SXSW in 2003, I was doing the typical bounce around the city one of the nights to see as much live music as I possibly could. If you’ve been to Austin, TX during the madness that is SXSW, you know how this goes.
Death Cab was a band that I had played a number of times and really liked during my days at KRUI, but I wasn’t completely familiar with their library of tunes nor really knew what they looked like. After seeing another one of my other favorite acts, Shiner, I was supposed to link up with our whole crew from the station at the Death Cab For Cutie performance a few blocks away. Of course, this is SXSW, so getting from one part of the city to another, in a town that you’ve never been to before, with all sorts of loudness and craziness coming from what seems like everywhere, I ended up in the wrong venue.
The odd thing is, the act on stage, who I thought for a brief moment was actually Death Cab For Cutie, was actually The Promise Ring. Those guys were amazing, and I’m really thankful I made this mistake because they ended up calling it quits not too long after (splitting up to another act worth checking out, Maritime, comprised of members from another favorite band but now also defunct, The Dismemberment Plan).
Death Cab For Cutie put on an amazing show that I got to finish watching from my seat. They played a lot of good stuff from their first few albums, which are probably my favorites in terms of their catalog. The sound was also excellent, something that is often not so great in large venues like this. Still, there is a large part of me that wishes I could see them perform in a small venue during those earlier days in Austin.
You can see all my photos from the show on Flickr.
I know we’re almost through the month of July, but the City of Surrey held their annual Canada Day celebrations at Cloverdale Millennium Amphitheatre on July 1st. Miss604.com was an official sponsor of the day’s events (posts: Opening Ceremonies, Performances, Bif Naked), so Rebecca and I ventured out to wander the grounds, see the sights, and, of course, shoot some photos.
Just to highlight the very well organized event, here’s a few of my favorite shots from the day.
It’s a bit of a tradition to bring out a table full of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with red and white frosting, all arranged as the flag of Canada. Once the day is officially opened by the mayor of Surrey, people can come up and get one from various members of the city council, including the mayor herself, Diane Watts.
Local hip-hop act, Sweatshop Union.
An amazing performance by You Say Party! We Say Die!
Bif Naked was loud and in charge, as expected.
54-40 headlined the main stage and put on a stellar performance.
I have plenty more shots in my set on Flickr. Many thanks to the organizers of Surrey Canada Day 2009 for their hosting and making sure the day was a success. I keep being impressed with the events that Surrey puts on. Their events planning crew really know what it means to have something to do with your family and friends.
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:
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.
Continue reading “Surrey Winterfest 2009”
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.
