West End of Vancouver in Spring Time

Looking down Robson Street: From Broughton Street, looking down towards Denman Street. (Photo by John Bollwitt)

I took this photo last April while on a bit of an assignment by Rebecca to “just get some shots of Robson Street”. She sends me out of photowalks from time to time to gather shots for various material that she publishes. Going back through some old photos, I rediscovered this one.

This really captures why we like the West End of Vancouver as much as we do. We you get down to this end of Robson, things slow down a little, and the city isn’t as loud. This was in April when it was just starting to get warm and the sun bathed the city for much longer than anyone expected.

I especially like the nice convertible in this shot, patiently waiting for the guy crossing the street. If this were a Sunday morning, that would probably be a Lamborghini and in multiples of three to five. They seem to have a bit of a driving club around these parts when the weather is nice enough to bring them out.

Photowalk: Iona Beach

Google Maps is chalk full of places for you to discover locations that are begging to be explored, especially with a camera. One of these is Iona Beach, an area Rebecca and I have wanted to check out for a while.

Iona Beach: April 2010

Once you get past the airport and head out to this narrow stretch of land, you can walk along a good mile of shoreline and vast sandbars during low tide. Aside from the number of tires and lumber products in my shots, this is really a beautiful place. You could easily spend a day at the beach out here, but the pet friendly folks were all over on this day.

The weather was cool and cloudy when we started out, but the sun and warmth eventually showed up as we hit the turn around point to venture back.
Continue reading “Photowalk: Iona Beach”

Photowalk: -20 Days to Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics

I know that at time of publishing this post, the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics are eight days away. The photos contained in this post are from January 23rd, just twenty days before the opening ceremonies. Rebecca and I wandered on foot from the Olympic Village to downtown with our cameras.

A lot of what you see in the post has changed quite a bit, but I thought it would be interesting to have these posted for the sake of Vancouver history.

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

This is one of the gates to get you into the Olympic Village. It reminds me of when I traveled to Berlin with my parents, brother, and sister-in-law and visited Checkpoint Charlie. Inviting, don’t you think?

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

I heard this would happen, and no building is too large or tall to put wrap on.

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

I pass by the official countdown clock everyday and never forget to sneak a peak of it. And more recently, I too was a tourist in my own city.

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

I used to work in the building pictured above. My first radio gig in Vancouver.

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

Steps out of Robson Square. While they looked painted, they’re actually wrapped.

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

The Robson Square Ice Rink in the opposite direction of the stairs. This will probably be a stopping point more than a few times depending on the mayhem going on here.

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

Granville Street with art installations and an ode to Hole In The Wall. Well, not really, but you could just imagine if it was.

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

These venue signs went up practically overnight. I’d like to see them keep these with references to popular landmarks in Vancouver after the games.

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

What do you do with a building in downtown Vancouver that is under complete renovation? You wrap a huge, Canadian flag around it.

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

Canada Place is for the media and accredited guests. Getting down here during the games will be tough unless you’re on foot.

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

No one is completely sure what’s inside these walls. It might be a “satellite cauldron” for the Olympic flame. Some even say this is where the actual flame will reside, which isn’t crazy being that the Olympic stadium, BC Place, is a dome.

-20 Days to Vancouver 2010

Finally, the “VANOC Only” signs that are popping up all over the city. Unless you have that going for you, driving should be the last thing on your mind during these games in Vancouver.

Kudos to John Biehler who let me borrow his 35mm lens for some of these shots. You can see the entire set of photos from this photowalk on Flickr.

I’ll be posting more photos over the next few weeks as my adventures with True North Media House will see us doing photowalks among the other various things we get ourselves into. I don’t usually put explanations on my photos, but I’m doing this more for my family and friends who are watching these events from afar. I wish they could all be here to experience this once in a lifetime event, and this is my best attempt to share that with them as well as the world.

Photowalking around the Iowa countryside

Rebecca and I are back in Iowa for the New Year celebration with my family. Even though it’s cold outside, and I mean really cold, we braved the elements to take a venture around the countryside to see what we could find and do a little photowalking.

Here are a handful of my favorite shots from the trip, all shot with my 18-105mm lens.

Iowa Countryside Photowalk/drive

Iowa Countryside Photowalk/drive

Iowa Countryside Photowalk/drive

Iowa Countryside Photowalk/drive

Iowa Countryside Photowalk/drive

Iowa Countryside Photowalk/drive

Iowa Countryside Photowalk/drive

The bridge in the above photo was built around the turn of the 20th century, and I’ve wanted to get some photos of it for a long time. It was so cold that I wasn’t overly happy with how a lot of them turned out, and you can see evidence of this in the photo below that Rebecca took of my while I was probably taking this exact photo above.

As cold as it was and as thick as my gloves were, it didn’t lend to a lot of time to mess around with any settings on my Nikon D90. In time, I hope to understand my camera more so I can plan ahead a little more. The -20F wind chills were just not the most ideal conditions to take the time to make such adjustments.

Working from a true remote location

Hello from gorgeous, sunny, humid, and beautiful Punta Cana.

Punta Cana: July 2009

The opportunity came up to come down here for the day job and do some preparation for an upcoming, potential broadcast related matter. It’s a short jaunt, but the hard work is over for the most part. Rebecca made the trip with me, so we have about a day and a half to enjoy the Dominican Republic a little bit, starting with a small photowalk we did this morning.

Early morning beach stroll

Early morning beach stroll

Sunrise in Punta Cana

Early morning beach stroll

Punta Cana: July 2009

Early morning beach stroll

It’ll be tough to leave this place, but we want to come back at some point. A few days can’t do this place justice, so it’s safe to say that we’re not sleeping a lot so we can enjoy as much time here as we can. The beaches are gorgeous, the water is warm, and I basically collapsed and feel asleep in a chair while listening to the waves come in. That’s the way everyday should be after a morning of being on the clock.

Signs of spring

When making the post previous to this one, I forgot about the group of photos that I shot early last week as well. This was a photowalk during a very amazing, early spring day here in Vancouver.

Spring Time in Stanley Park

Spring Time in Barclay Square

Spring Time in Stanley Park

Spring Time in Barclay Square

Spring Time in Barclay Square

Spring Time in Barclay Square

Spring Time in Barclay Square

See all the photos from this set on Flickr.

More adventures of a wannabe photographer on Granville Street

I went for a photowalk with John Biehler after catching the Canucks game with him last week. He always has a variety of fun gear that he’s trying out and experimenting with, so I tagged along to push my knowledge of my Canon S5 IS[wiki] a little bit further.

Night photography is always tricky for a camera like this due to having to hold very still in the low light (which is often the case for many photographers), so I constantly found myself leaning up against light posts or taking about five or six shots while hoping something reasonable came out. Since I can’t swap the lens on this, I’m stuck with trying out different settings and the exposures it gives me.

Granville Street Photowalk

Granville Street Photowalk

Granville Street Photowalk

Granville Street Photowalk

You can see all of the photos here.

Follow-up on BarCampVancouver 2008

BarCampVancouver2008 Photocamp

BarCampVancouver 2008 seemed to come up on us all too quickly, and I would have to declare the event an overall success. From the party on Friday night to the all day affair on Saturday, Granville Island was a great campus this year. We completely lucked out on the weather as well, so you can’t ask much more than that.

BarCampVancouver2008 WordCamp

WordCamp was also a really great event that I got to be apart of. I tried to help out with the planning alongside Duane and Rebecca, but there was a bit more to be done the day of than expected. After some quick ghetto engineering, the screen and projector worked out great, and the sessions were all really good. Hopefully my involvement in the genius Q&A portion of the day made sense for many of the attendees, and for a really great run down on the sessions, check out Rebecca’s post.

BarCampVancouver2008 Photocamp

Photocamp was another point of enjoyment for myself. I mostly caught the last few sessions with Tris Hussey, Derek Miller, and John Biehler, but they were well worth the time to learn a bit more about photo sharing sites and various pieces of gear that I’m all too poor to spend money on.

The day concluded with a brief photowalk around Granville Island, so I’ll include a few shots or you can see the entire set on Flickr.

BarCampVancouver2008 Photowalk

BarCampVancouver2008 Photowalk

BarCampVancouver2008 Photowalk

BarCampVancouver2008 Photowalk

BarCampVancouver2008 Photowalk

BarCampVancouver2008 Photowalk

Good times, and I can’t wait to do it again next year.