These cars were handmade in at GM’s design factory and are in town during the Olympics (GM is a vehicle sponsor). The fit and finish (and even some of the tech) wasn’t final yet as they are still tweaking the designs at this point.

It’s the first fully electric, plug-in vehicle and it was a lot of fun to drive. We were in a parking lot with a little track made out of cones around it and were able to get it going at a pretty good clip. Definitely ‘peppier’ than I was expecting.

I really like the idea of being able to simply plug the car into a normal wall outlet (you actually plug it into a box that plugs into the wall). It can currently go approximately 64 kms per charge running in practically silent electric mode. It will cost just under a $1 a day to charge the vehicle.

The driver’s dashboard:

The centre console:

This is what happens when you get the Volt up over 88 mph:

They even have an iPhone app that allows to you monitor many aspects of the vehicle as well as unlock/lock, start and charge it all remotely.

It’s all tied into the OnStar system. A free demo version of the Volt ‘Experience’ app is already on the (US) App Store if you want to check it out yourself…search for “OnStar Experience”.

I was also able to attach a camera to the windshield to get some driving video. Because it was a prototype, with a custom paint job, the engineers didn’t want me to attach the camera to any painted surfaces. I didn’t want to be the guy that damages a very expensive prototype either.

Here’s the resulting video with a cheeky soundtrack I added by Basement Jaxx that I think GM should licence for the Volt’s promotion:

It was a pretty cool opportunity to check out this pre-production vehicle, chat with a couple of the engineers who designed it and for the chance to drive it. I’ll be curious to see what changes get made when they finally put it into production next year. It’s supposed to hit the Canadian market in mid-2011.

You can view the rest of my photos on Flickr.

Thanks to GM Canada for letting me drive their prototype…I didn’t crash it either!

I’ll probably order the 32gb model with 3G radio. Not 100% sure I’d use the 3G network option but I’d rather have the option…especially since it’s unlocked – which is a big deal by the way. This could also be foreshadowing of the next iPhone device. The fact they even mentioned ‘unlocked’ is huge.

More later…like when real humans actually get their hands on it.

Update: This guy nails it with a great post on the iPad as well as a lot of things on the internet.

I highly recommend checking it out full size.

It was made with the Photo Collage tool that I wrote about previously….such a fun little tool.

While at dinner, we discussed the next details behind the next 12×12 Vancouver Photo Marathon…stay tuned as once we nail down a few more details, we’ll spill the beans…let’s just say you won’t need a winter coat for the next one.

So this weekend, I picked up a Delkin Fat Gecko Mini-Mount (Amazon link although I bought mine from London Drugs):

It’s a beefy suction cup mount for attaching your camera to all kinds of things…like your car:

I know what you’re thinking…but this mount is much more robust than the $12 mount I found on ebay (which I overloaded).

I wanted to try it out with some ’safer’ positions first that I could keep an eye on but after spending some time today with it stuck all over my car, driving at different speeds (including taking it on the highway) I trust it to carry my smaller cameras like the Kodak Zx1 and even my trusty Nikon P6000 pretty much while attached in any position to my car, inside or out. Driving from my home to downtown (about 30 minutes on the highway) over all kinds of turns and bumps resulted in no problems with the mount…it’s solid.

Here’s a video showing some of the different angles I shot during my ‘test drive’ today:

The mount also comes with an extension arm which lets you get out and away from the attach point better so I’ll be trying that next. I also need to dig out my wide angle and fisheye lenses to make the field of view on the Zx1 even wider.

UPDATE: Found my fisheye lens and added the extension arm to the Fat Gecko….the results are pretty awesome:

It makes me smile everytime I see it…and judging from the smiles on people following behind me (and pointing), it was a good investment. Now if only I could get my car to make the ‘transformer’ sound via my key fob, it would be perfect.

One of the reasons why I bought the P6000 was the fact that it had built in support to shoot time lapse movies. With support for large SD cards and a power adaptor, you should have no problem shooting 1000s of frames. I use a 16gb SD card in mine and can get well over 2000 frames with the settings below. The P6000 is also nice and small and easily put on a mini tripod or clamp to tuck it out of the way to make a good timelapse.

It can do this two different ways, one via the Movie mode (on the dial) and by choosing the ‘Time-Lapse Movie’ function or via the method I’m going to outline here. The benefit of using my method is that you have more control over the end result and each frame will be treated like a still photo.

You’ll need to be in something other than the auto mode…I usually use aperture priority but feel free to experiment with the settings as they can create some interesting results.

First thing you’ll want to do is setup your shot using whatever settings you’d use to capture a good still image. This includes focus, exposure, aperature, shutter, etc. Take a few test shots to make sure it works for you.

Then enter the MENU and under the SHOOTING option, choose CONTINUOUS:

Then choose INTVL TIMER SHOOTING:

Then choose your interval time:

Depending on what you’re hoping to capture, this can vary and you’ll want to experiment. Unfortunately, the P6000 can only do intervals as short as one frame every 30 seconds. I wish this went lower but it’s probably a safety measure to ensure the sensor doesn’t burn out. I almost always choose 30s. You’ll want to think about how long the end resulting video will be. In the case of the 12×12 timelapse (at the end of this post), I planned for about 5 hours of shooting (the length of the event).

You’ll also want to adjust the image quality for your timelapses:

I always set it to FINE (jpeg)…it yields great image quality without excess filesize….as I usually shoot in RAW for stills, make sure you check this before starting or you’ll fill your memory card up faster and also run into issues later when creating the movie.

I usually set the IMAGE SIZE to 1600×1200 which gives me slightly better than HD image sizes that gives me a little room for cropping/letterboxing the image frame for HD later (iMovie 09 handles this without doing anything). As the P6000 doesn’t shoot HD video natively, this is the best way to do it that I’ve found.

Hit the shutter button and get ready to wait for awhile to get a substantial amount of frames. This could be a few hours or all day. Ideally you won’t move the camera at all but if you plan it right, it can add some interesting results to the video.

Once you’ve finished shooting your timelapse, you’ll have to turn the camera off to stop it from shooting anymore or navigate to the menu and change the shooting mode from CONTINUOUS.

Creating the Movie
I’m using a Mac with Quicktime 7 to create my video but there are probably a bunch of different apps to do this on a PC or Linux. If you’re running OSX Snow Leopard, you’ll need to install Quicktime 7 from your Snow Leopard disc as it’s not installed by default (Quicktime 8 is).

Upon launching Quicktime 7, you’ll want to open an IMAGE SEQUENCE:

Point this at the folder of your memory card and choose the first image in the sequence. Quicktime will know to import the rest of the sequence. This can also be fun to do with still images to create a fun movie but that’s a topic for another post.

Another minor shortcoming of the P6000 is that time lapse sequences are limited to 200 images per folder. This means you’ll have to create multiple image sequences (depending on the length of your timelapse) and join them later in your editing software. Repeat this process for each of the folders of images, again depending on how many frames you shot.

You’ll then be prompted to choose a frame rate. Once again, this will require some experimentation depending on what you’ve shot.

Once you’ve selected the frame rate, Quicktime will build a movie from your images. This can take some time and if you used the settings I described, it may not even be very playable on your computer due to the high resolution nature of the sequence. Make sure you save the file as it doesn’t do this by default. If you have multiple sequence folders, repeat this process and name the movies accordingly.

The end result looks something like this once dropped into an editing package (in this case iMovie 09 where I added titles, music and fades):

I exported the resulting video in HD from iMovie and then uploaded it to Flickr which supports short HD movies. I’m also a fan of Vimeo and occasionally use YouTube.

Keep in mind that while I’m using the P6000 in this example, similar functions exist in other cameras and the basic concepts should apply to them all. I recently bought an intravalometer for my DSLR to accomplish the same thing with the added flexibility of other lens options….something which the P6000 is also capable of, albeit more limited.

Have fun!

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.

You can view all my photos from the event on Flickr.

You can read my original submission (from back in July). Unfortunately, our session won’t be a full panel with all the speakers I had originally proposed, but a few of them are hoping to still come out and be a part of the conversation. If you’re going to be in Austin, we’d love to have you come out at 3:30pm and join us. Have a listen:

SXSWi 2010: Do Cool Kids Leave when the Suits Arrive?

Not quite sure yet how the folks at SXSW will utilize this podcast (they asked for it) but I thought we should post it here.

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 presence doesn’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.

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!

I’ve decided to make it a daily photo kind of site. Using a new theme (Duotone) which changes the screen colours based on the photo being presented, I’ll post a new photo each day from my favorites.

Feel free to leave a comment on any photo if you’re so inclined. I’m going to try to mix in some older photos and some newer ones that have never been published before.

The first photos of the year are already up if you’d care to visit. I’ll see if I can find a slick way of pulling these daily thumbnails into the sidebar here in the near future.

Hopefully, I helped to clarify some things for folks out there.

Here’s the segments edited together from the news broadcast which originally aired on December 31st on CBC News (Vancouver) which I captured with my TiVo (sadly not in high definition but I needed a haircut anyway):

Thanks to my pal, Tris Hussey for the recommendation to the CBC producers.

The form factor of the Juice Pack Air is very similar to the iPhone…it’s a similar shiny hard plastic case that completely envelops the iPhone. I kind of wish it wasn’t so shiny as for a case, it doesn’t offer any slip protection like most cases do. I’d prefer a matte finish or even a rubberized coating. All the iPhone’s buttons and switches are still accessible except the dock connector:

In its place is a micro USB port and a slider switch. The Juice Pack comes with the necessary micro USB cable that facilitates charging the Juice Pack and allows you to sync your iPhone while in the case. I wish it was a more common mini USB cable but at least it’s not a proprietary plug/cable although I don’t believe I have any other devices (or cables) that are micro USB so it’s one more cable you need to carry and hope you don’t lose. At least Mophie sells replacement cables inexpensively on their website.

The switch allows you to control when the iPhone receives its charge from the Juice Pack. You can charge it up and leave it in standby mode until you need it.

As I mentioned earlier, everyone on the iPhone is still available to use, including the camera as you can see above. The photo should also give you a good idea of how much extra bulk the case/battery adds to the iPhone. I have to say, when I first held a Juice Pack, it seemed bulky but after having this one for a couple of days, it’s really not a big deal.

The Juice Pack has a ‘fuel gauge’ and button on the back of the case:

This is similar to Apple laptops that display how much power is left in the battery. While charging, these light up and blink to indicate how far along the charge is. Press the button at any time and you’ll know how much juice is left in the case.

The only real shortcoming this device has is the inability to charge the iPhone battery directly through the case while plugged into your computer (or similar USB power port). You can only charge up the Juice Pack and then charge the iPhone by depleting the Juice Pack. I would have preferred to be able to charge up both (sequentially is fine) so that you have both fully charged up before heading out. The way it is now, you have to charge them separately. Removing the iPhone from the case is easy enough but it would be easier if you didn’t have to.

I don’t plan on using the case all the time, just on those days that I know I’ll be out for an extended time and don’t want to worry about my iPhone dying while using it heavily.

UPDATE (Jan 7, 2010): Thanks to C.K.’s suggestion in the comments, it does appear that the syncing while in the Juice Pack Air issue is related to a bad cable. I swapped cables and it worked fine. Contact Mophie’s support to get a replacement. Mine is on it’s way.

It was friggin’ cold though…next time I’ll plan ahead and bring a jacket (I wasn’t quite prepared for the winter temperatures since I was going to work).

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.

This further means that in just over three months, I’ll be eating most of my meals here:

Thanks to everyone that voted and helped me get selected. More details soon!

Huh? Were you in an opera?
Kind of. Back when I was in high school, I had the opportunity to be an extra in Aida which was being performed at BC Place stadium – I had to audition for the part which consisted of being tall enough to march around the stage. It was a huge event back in the late 80’s. My main memories of the event was being herded around the catacombs underneath the stadium for wardrobe and makeup. I was a foot soldier and had to wear a uniform and some kind of bronzer makeup since we were all supposed to be egyptian. I never actually got to see much of the opera since I was either backstage 99% of the time or marching around the giant stage behind the large animals (and the guy with the shovel to clean up after them). Sadly, I can’t find much on the internet about the event.

So tonight, I’m bringing my camera and laptop down to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre to see the opening night performance of Norma. No, I won’t be blogging WHILE the performance is going on. That will happen during the intermission and afterward.

Joining me will be a few friends including Gus and Emme as well as a few others that I’ve yet to meet. I’ll be updating this post with photos and my experiences as the evening unfolds so stay tuned!

Opera Update – the day after
Unfortunately there was some technical issues with the internet access at the theatre so I wasn’t able to post any photos or updates during the evening.

It’s a little hard to see but notice the surtitles above the stage are a suggestion to follow the Vancouver Opera on Twitter.

We had a chance to get a tour of backstage and the sets before the show.

The set was pretty impressive up close (apparently it took 36 hours to assemble) and to be able to walk around on it beforehand was interesting for me because of my theatre background. Everyone was surprisingly calm considering this was opening night.

So what did I think?
Having been my first (real) time at the opera, it certainly was a spectacle to see.

I arrived a little early to get setup but there were plenty of guests already lining up to get in. The people that came out were no different than fans of any kind of concert…these ones just seemed to be better dressed. Speaking of which, I was surprised to see such a range of people wearing everything from tuxedos to jeans. I was half expecting it to be like some scene from Batman with a sea of penguin suits but it was much more diverse. Certainly, many women used this opportunity to dress to the nines…I don’t recall seeing that many stilettos in one place before. I think that’s one aspect that people really enjoy about the Opera is that it’s a chance to dress up and have fun.

The Music
I’m the first to admit that I don’t have any opera music on my iPod. Norma was sung in Italian so I didn’t understand any of it except when they sung the name ‘Norma’ since it appears to not have any Italian equivalent. Fortunately (or not), there are projected titles above the stage (called surtitles) where everything is translated. It had been suggested (by friends who are opera fans) to avoid reading the surtitles as they generally are literal translations and despite the singing being beautiful, are generally kind of mundane words describing a point in the story. This proved to be generally true although it was more distracting to be looking at the stage, then look up top for the translations, then back at the stage for the action as there was quite a bit of eye travel distance from my vantage point. I was still able to follow along fairly well although I did have a basic understanding of the storyline ahead of time. The surtitles also seemed to approach Engrish on a few occasions so I had to contain my snickering a couple of times: “My joy is complete!”

There was a few times during the performance where either a costume or a set change reminded me of World of Warcraft. Nerdy yes. But I guess it’s unavoidable when you play too many videogames. Particularly when either Norma and Pollione are singing…they just looked like NPCs from WoW. Even the set was lit like it was straight out of Ironforge. I can only imagine the game designers were influenced by opera in some way. This is what happens when a geek goes to the opera.

I certainly wasn’t sure what to expect going into Norma but actually did enjoy myself. Because I wasn’t familiar with the music or story though, it’s kind of like going to see a band whose music you don’t know. You’ll still enjoy it but it gets better if you’ve heard the music before. It was brought to my attention though, that this particular production was special because in the opera world, the cast that had been assembled is like a dream team of singers. Judging from the crowd reactions during the curtain call, it was kind of a big deal.

Apparently opera people like to party backstage:

It was cool to meet Mark Donnelley backstage at the after party who regularly sings the national anthems at the Vancouver Canucks hockey games just a few blocks away at GM Place. He actually sang the anthem at the game before joining the cast on stage that night. He’s got a pretty cool Canucks business card with the job title ‘Anthem Singer’ on it too.

The cast backstage:

I actually did have a good time at the opera…despite being a newbie. It also helps to have good company to talk about what you’re experiencing but that goes for any night out.

Thanks to Ling Chan and everyone at the Vancouver Opera for taking care of us during our visit. Be sure to check out all my photos from the Opera on Flickr.

We were shown a number of different types of mobile devices, some already on the market and some coming soon in a casual, roundtable format.

Let’s start with the LG New Chocolate BL40:

The New Chocolate is wider (taller) than the iPhone 3GS and has a very vivid and bright screen in an aspect ratio better suited for movies as you can see “Star Trek” playing on the iPhone in full, widescreen compared to the “Avatar” trailer playing on the BL40.

It has a slick, 3D cube style interface (which LG calls their ‘S-Class’ interface) that is manipulated via the large, touchscreen interface. There was no denying that it’s a beautiful media playing device that also happens to be a phone.

Unfortunately, it’s not a smartphone so I wasn’t really all that interested in it personally. It also is only available exclusively on the Telus network in North America so it’s even further limited to who can actually get it.

Take me to your Android
The next device we were shown was the LG Eve (available from Rogers in Canada), which sports the Android operating system:

I’ve been interested in finding a decent Android handset…I was unimpressed with the HTC varieties…mostly because they seemed cheap and flimsy in my hand. The Eve didn’t. In fact, it felt very nice in your hand with it’s rounded edges and smooth side flip keyboard which you could easily manipulate with one hand.

It’s slightly smaller than the iPhone but is a little thicker….but it seemed to be a good size to fit in the palm. Definitely more comfortable than the tablet style design of the iPhone.

The Eve sports a 5 megapixel camera with flash and a number of LG developed native apps that allow you to edit your photos and video right on the phone and then share with various social network sites. There were over 50 different effects you could apply to a photo, not unlike some of the many camera apps available on the iPhone. Also, the video editing software is surprisingly capable for making VGA sized videos complete with titles, transitions, a soundtrack and basic trim editing that you can then upload directly to YouTube.

I’m not going to go into all the features/specs of the Eve as it’s available elsewhere but I’ll try to answer a couple of obvious questions based on my limited time playing with the device.

Would it replace your iPhone?
No. At least not entirely. If I didn’t already have an iPhone, I’d most likely give it a serious consideration. There are some definite features that I like on the Eve that are better than on the iPhone (camera, flash, form factor in hand, microSD expandability) but I still found the interface somewhat counter intuitive and cluttered. The iPhone still seems to shine because of it’s simplicity and lack of buttons. The Eve has more physical buttons and a busier looking interface. This may suite you more than other people – I think it boils down to personal preference…my opinion on the UI would surely change the more time I had to use it, but it’s not as easy as the iPhone to simply pick up and start using with little knowledge of the UI.

I’m more interested in having a device like this to spend more time in Android land…this one certainly felt good.

Android is an interesting platform for smartphones that like it or not is constantly being compared to the iPhone. I’m very interested in seeing it mature and compete against the iPhone.

No Mac Support
I was kind of disappointed and surprised to hear that all these phones come only with software for Windows to allow you to sync your contacts, media, etc. but aren’t directly compatible with Apple computers. It sounded like some things could be manually synced because they weren’t in proprietary formats but I wasn’t able to test that aspect during my time with the devices. They apparently appear as mass storage devices when plugged in via USB with your content accessible via the file system.

One thing that kept coming to mind during the event is that LG is creating some interesting mobile and media technology, but like many mobile device manufacturers, their offerings are locked into carrier specific networks rather than being open and available to anyone. As well, some of these devices could stand on their own as great media players or wifi enabled internet devices without a phone component (ala iPod Touch) – as I mentioned, I’d love to have the the Eve to be able to play more with the Android operating system without requiring me to either switch from my iPhone or swap sim cards…I’m also not prepared to get two mobile plans just to play with the technology (unless someone wants to give it to me) so I’m less likely to switch to an Android device because I haven’t been able to experience the platform enough without a huge cost. Speaking with Blackberry (and PC) users, it’s a common issue…people are reluctant to change platforms unless they are confident they can get into their comfort zone quickly so they stick with what they know.

Calling Dick Tracy
We also got to see and play with LG’s newest version of video phone watch – yes a watch that is a phone with a video camera!

Unfortunately, it’s not currently available in the North American market (but it’s coming) so we weren’t able to try a call but were able to see how the built in camera worked and displayed video images on the watch – just like iChat on your MacBook, it was pretty slick and speedy. The size of the watch wasn’t ridiculous but probably big for many people. I’d wear one in a heartbeat. I’m looking forward to checking this device out further once it’s available in North America.

Lastly, we were also shown a new phone that hasn’t been released yet (the LG IQ) that was running the Windows Mobile operating system (yes it’s still around)…but I didn’t really get a chance to play with it much so I’ll leave it out of this post.

Mo’Money
The final thing we did during the event was the Mobile Charity Challenge. This was a series of tasks everyone was asked to do using the phones we had just been shown. The winner of the challenge would be awarded a surprisingly huge $5000 to the charity of their choice. It was a good way to spend some time with the devices doing some common things the average person would do with the phones.

I ended up winning because of a video I (quickly) shot and edited on the Eve (I didn’t keep a copy of it) and won $5000 for Movember (a month long campaign to benefit prostate cancer research).

It was a great way to end the event, especially because I was attending the Movember wrap up gala right after the LG event…nothing beats being able to present an oversized novelty cheque at a charity event!

Thanks to LG Canada for hosting an interesting evening and making an extremely generous donation to my chosen charity.

What is it? It’s a twelve hour event where participants will check in, receive a roll of 35mm film and then each hour, will be giving a theme of which to shoot one exposure. At the end of the event, the participants will hand in their film, with twelve exposures on it – one for each hourly theme. The cost is only $12 which covers the cost of the film and processing.

The photo above is me, back in high school shooting with a Pentax K1000.

I’m on the event organizing committee and am really looking forward to seeing this event unfold as I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. Be sure to get the details and sign up on the 12×12 site as space is limited. All you need is a working 35mm film camera (any kind) and $12 to participate – you don’t need to be a pro photographer! If you have any questions, check out the FAQ.

I’m excited to be included as I believe this will be my first ‘official’ public showing…even if it is in a slideshow with 98 other awesome local photographers. My portion includes my favorite shot from the Fire on the Water shoot I did last month with Barbara Kozicki (who also just relaunched her site featuring photos from that shoot):

It shaping up to also be a meetup of sorts for the photogs as some of us have never met, just virtually via Flickr, Twitter, etc.

If you’re interested in coming out, get the details over at Vancouver Is Awesome.

Looking forward to it!