This weekend I had the chance to check out the Flying Canucks…they aren’t hockey players, but they are amazing athletes who use trampolines to entertain people.
The team is comprised of former Olympic athletes and Cirque De Soleil performers, it is a high energy show that even has a DJ.
As you’ll see in the video, Olivier Lemieux actually took my little Kodak Zx1 on the trampoline with him for a few tricks:
Consider yourself warned as it may make some people a little queasy seeing the kind of moves his body goes through. There is also a brief picture in picture clip to give you an idea of what tricks are being performed from two perspectives. It’s not perfectly in sync but pretty close considering I only had one video camera at the event.
A big thanks to the Flying Canucks for having me out and for putting on a great show. They are performing March 5-7, 2010 at Metrotown Mall in Burnaby and then taking a break and will tour again this summer.
This past weekend was the showcase exhibition and awards presentation for the 12×12 Photo Marathon that took place last December.
On Friday, the organizing committee hung just over 600 photos at the Vancouver Photo Workshops space. Judging from the feedback from the attendees on Saturday, it was well worth the effort.
The marathon winners:
I setup my Nikon P6000 above the exit in the main studio room and shot this timelapse video of the event in one of the exhibition rooms (there were 7 in total!):
Keep an eye on the marathon website for a more detailed wrapup of the event (and detailed winners list) soon. All the photos taken during the marathon have now been made public on Flickr if you’d like to see all the entries.
Thanks to everyone that came out to see the results of the first Vancouver Photo Marathon…we’ve already started talking about the next one.
As recently as last week, I still hadn’t made a decision on what I was going to do during the Winter Games.
Originally I was thinking of going out of town to simply avoid the traffic snarls the games will surely bring (I work in North Vancouver) but those plans were dashed because my wife still has to work during that time…at least some it in her office in West Vancouver. After some thinking and talking to a few friends, I made the decision to take the entire block of time off from work.
So what am I going to do with my time? Plenty!
I’ve got a few things lined up already but I plan on simply being a photographic observer of the games and what they bring to Vancouver and the surrounding area. Yes, even the protests that will surely happen…I’m hoping to cover it all.
Regardless of how you feel about the games, there is no doubt that it will be a spectacle that Vancouver hasn’t seen since Expo 86…possibly even more so because of the scope of the games and the changes it’s brought to the city.
I don’t have any event tickets (at least I haven’t purchased or been given any as of yet) and I’m really more interested in all the ancillary events and gatherings that will occur all over the place outside of the actual sporting events. I figure the sporting events will already be covered by photographers with much better zoom lenses than I own.
As all the countries attending the games will be having open houses celebrating their country and athletes, I plan on doing my own world tour of these sites scattered throughout the city.
A number of friends will be involved in lots of different activities on their own and via the True North Media House so there should be no shortage of meetups, tweetups and photo ops.
Yes, I did apply for media credentials awhile back but was declined as this blog and my Flickr presencedoesn’t appear to be enough to warrant accreditation according to VANOC.That’s fine…all those credentials seem to give someone is a place to plug their laptop into the internet in a big media room…I have plenty of options for doing that via friends if necessary.
So if you’ve involved in an event that you’d like to me to visit/photograph during the games, feel free to contact me using my contact form or leave a comment here. I am also available to shoot your event (for hire) pending availability.
I’ll be posting all my photos to my Flickr stream as well I’ve got some plans for setup a sub site to capture all the events but everything will flow through here, like it always does via the sidebar.
My photos will all be posted with a Creative Commons license (like 99% of my photos are) but if you’re interested in using any of them for something other than personal use, feel free to contact me as well.
I’m looking forward to meeting a ton of people and taking thousands of photos over the two week period.
UPDATE: I received media credentials for the B.C. International Media Centre (BCMC) so things could get a whole lot more interesting.
Today, Duane helped get the ball rolling with the announcement that WordCamp Vancouver 2010 planning had begun with June 12th, 2010 the current tentative date.
I’ve attended a lot of WordCamps over the years…in a lot of different places. I’ve even had the honour to speak at a few of them too. This time around, I’m on the organizing committee…it remains to be seen if I’ll be speaking as it’s early days so we’ll see how things play out.
WordCamp has been a pretty fantastic place to meet some pretty awesome people, share information about the WordPress platform and have a great time. I learn something new every time I attend one.
If you’re interested in anything to do with blogging or WordPress, I encourage you to sign up for the email updates and/or follow us on Twitter. We’ll share more information as soon as we have more details!
Wow…what a day! This past Saturday was the 1st annual 12×12 Vancouver Photo Marathon…aka 12×12YVR.
I was on the organizing committee and spent (most of) the day at our homebase inside the Blenz Coffee in Yaletown answering questions, meeting other photographers, drawing themes for the participants to agonize over, helping with the marathon’s social media efforts and taking a lot of pictures of the event.
Morten has a great recap of the event up on the 12×12 site and I couldn’t have said it better than he does. Suffice to say, the response, participants, feedback, turnout, sponsors and the positive vibe the event generated far exceeded our humble expectations.
Back in September when the committee had it’s first meeting, we were concerned about being able to sell 40 tickets to the event….let alone having to turn away interested participants because we were at capacity.
There is no question that this was a gruelling challenge of endurance…not to mention a big chunk of time for folks to make available during one of the busiest times of the year. The challenge was also somewhat technical – having to contend with camera gear that may not have been used for years (or ever by some of the participants who bought or borrowed their gear just for the event).
We also witnessed heartbreak when one participant went to turn in her roll of film, only to discover that it possibly hadn’t been loaded in the camera correctly and despite shooting all 12 of the theme shots. We’re going to process the roll anyway just in the off chance that the camera did expose something.
We also had the weather to contend with…fortunately the snow held off until the day afterwards!
I mentioned that I spent almost the entire day inside Blenz. Ben and I managed to duck out twice to visit one of the event sponsors, the Vancouver Lookout at Harbour Centre. We went once in the early afternoon:
and then again after dark:
You can view all my photos from the event on Flickr or visit the 12×12 YVR Flickr Pool where we’ll be posting the entries once they are processed.
I have to say, I’m kind of envious of the participants…if I wasn’t directly involved in the event, I would have loved to taken the challenge myself.
UPDATE: Check out the details about the 12×12 YVR event, Raw Talent which will showcase the winners at the Vancouver Photo Workshops on Saturday, January 16th at 6pm.
