Vancouver Help-Portrait 2009 Wrap up

The Vancouver Help-Portrait event at the Salvation Army's Grace Mansion was a huge success yesterday. I am so happy to have been a part if it and even more proud of all the volunteers that came out to help and support this event. I saw so many smiling faces and incredible reactions from individuals and families upon seeing and receiving their photos. A few individuals I talked with had never had their pictures taken before. One couple who lived across the street had just gotten married a few days ago but didn't have any pictures yet of them together and were so happy to get a portrait together. Another sweet elderly Chinese woman who came in with her grand daughter had never had make up on before in her whole life was treated to a great session by the volunteer make up artists and had her picture taken. She was all smiles!

The initial tallies indicate that we gave out approximately 200 portraits and had around 430 people come through. A huge success for our first year!

Special thanks to Ian Sheh for organizing this event in Vancouver.

Here is a link by one of the fellow volunteers to some behind the scenes shots.

Looking forward to next year.

Help Portrait - Vancouver 12-12-09

Having a way of giving back or just giving is something I always want to do with my photography. I've volunteered for workplace events and taking pictures of kids and their families with Santa but when I heard about the Help-Portrait movement I knew I had to get involved. Most of us think of having our photographs taken as something we take for granted. We'll print out a few for keepsakes or to give them to family. But there are also those who may be less fortunate or have never had a professional portrait done before. To be able to have their picture taken and getting an actual print of it to keep can be something very special.

Help-Portrait is a global movement of photographers who on December 12th this year will do just that. Take pictures but give back portraits. I've signed up to volunteer for the Vancouver group of Help-Portrait and I am very excited to be part of something like this.

I encourage all photographers to get involved in this and other events that give back to your communities and to people who really need it.

Antoni Gaudi's Casa Milà - Barcelona

By far one of Antoni Gaudi's most iconic and recognizable works of Modernista architecture is the Casa Milà (The Quarry). It was also a place where Gaudi lived and when you visit Casa Milà you can actually tour through his apartment although the most inspiring part of this building has to be the rooftop. The chimney-like adornments and even the shape of the undulating rooftop hold true to Gaudi's fascination with organic shapes. If you are ever in Barcelona you have to make sure you check this out. Here are some of the photos I took while I was there. You will find a combination of some B&W as well as some colour conversion work done in Lightroom and some blended HDR work as well. Hope you enjoy these!

Back from Spain

Back from our trip to Spain last month and it was amazing. From the delicious tapas and sangria in Madrid, to the bullring and Cathedral of Seville, to the breathtaking Sagrada Familia Cathedral and other works of art and architecture by famous Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona. It was a great two weeks. It's taken awhile to sort through the more than a thousand individual photos that I took during the trip so here are just a few to start things off.

Getting Married

The big date is coming up and I'll be getting married this coming weekend. That's why you may have noticed no updates to my blog recently. We will be going to Spain for our honeymoon and I for sure will have plenty of pictures from the trip for this blog. Stay tuned!

Abbotsford Airshow 2009

The annual Abbotsford Airshow was held this year from August 7th to 9th. I went on the Saturday and what is usually a sweltering August weekend for the show turned out to be an overcast and almost chilly day. This was probably better because I would have never lasted the five plus hours that we spent there in the blazing sun. The only downside to an overcast day and shooting airplanes flying in the sky is that everything throws your metering way off and your pictures turn out looking like you shot the planes against a pure white background. They had some static displays on the ground of fighter planes such as the A-10 Thunderbolts, CF-18 Hornets and F-15E Strike Eagles to name a few. Also on display were some huge military cargo planes. For the actual aerial show there were displays of CF-18 Hornets, F-16 Fighting Falcons, F/A-18F Super Hornets and some special highlights were the Heritage flight that had the P-51 Mustang "Impatient Virgin" and CF-18 Hornet together and also the show finale with the CAF Snowbirds. Here are some shots from the airshow.

Amazing Colors

Traditionally at this time of year we have our annual fireworks competition which draws enormous crowds out to English Bay and the Kitsilano area to watch. On the evening of July 25th however clouds started to roll in and what was supposed to be a nice sunny evening soon turned into showers. This of course drove a lot of the usual crowds away. But as the night went on it was soon to become one of the most impressive lightning storms I think this city has ever seen. If you ask me I think Mother Nature's light show is way better than any fireworks display. Also just as the sun was setting there was this amazingly vibrant color to the sky that I've never seen before so I rushed out and amidst the downpour I took a few quick pictures and composed this panorama of the view from Kitsilano looking towards English Bay and downtown Vancouver. No color correction or any Photoshop was used to post process any of these pictures. It really was that beautiful that night. Vancouver has not had a night like we had last night for a long time. Here are some more.