January 30 2011 - Vanier Park

Reflected landscape in Water #7

Water #7  and view of English Bay

Water #7 by Jun Ren
part of Vancouver Biennale

Happy Boxer in Vanier Park

After a saturated Saturday, everyone in the city was enjoying a sunny Sunday. 

Lots of people were out walking, jogging, biking, kayaking or sailing.

Hopefully the sun will stick around for a few days.

January 29 2011 - Granville Island

Seawall near Granville Island

Tacones (one oyster, one seared tuna) at Go Fish!
at the public wharf near Granville Island

bike lock-up on Granville Island

Food Porn

 Once again, I'm up past my bedtime... this time way, way past.  I stayed late at the office and no new photos for Friday.  Instead I came home, flaked out on the couch and started to think about my previous post and food and photography.

  Photographing food is harder than it looks.  It's not something I've ever had a burning desire to do.  I'd rather just eat it.  And then go outside and shoot.  However, since I've embarked on my pic-a-day project, I've had to focus - literally -  on my quotidien existence.  I have to confess I don't find much of my immediate domestic surroundings to be very photogenic... not yet anyway.  I suspect I just need to look a little closer.  But I have always found food to be quite beautiful.  Especially produce.  I love to lurk and to linger in produce sections, admiring the roundness, the firmness, the shininess, sometimes the wet and the gooey....  Yes, I'm a food voyeur as well as a gourmand.  So why not photograph my food?  I suspect that until the days get longer and drier around here, I will be eating later and later as I tackle the unique challenges of trying to make my groceries look handsome in two dimensions.


  Until I get better at that task, why not check out this blog:  http://foodgawker.com/.
The title says it all.  This site selects the best photos from all the food blogs on the web and puts them in one spot.  And if you click on the photo, you can usually get the recipe.  So you can cook, or just look and drool.

January 27 2011 - Good Groceries

  

yum, yam gnocchi!

and fresh berries
 for dessert

January 18 2011 - A Litigious Society (my world)

in a lobby for lawyers

January 17 2011 - A Free Society (the wider world)

Martin Luther King Day

on the tellie

January 16 2011 - My City (in the natural world)

The sun tries to shine through thinning cloud cover

casting a silvery glow on the condos across False Creek.

Playing catch-up again

   So earlier today (as in January 26th... technically it's the 27th, but once again I'm up past my bedtime) I set out to the office with my camera in the trunk.  It was sunny for a change and I so wanted to capture a sunlit city.  But... I got busy, it got dark, and well, then I went out for supper with a colleague and no photos!!  


   I am, however, still playing catch-up and posting photos taken before I got this blog up and running.  So, below are photos from the 12th, 14th and 15th of January (No. 13 was a very bad day and we will just forget it existed... in the same spirit as elevator manufacturers ...)


   Hopefully I will have something fresh for today's date, after I get some sleep and start another day....

January 15 2001 - Gastown

These three photos were taken in Gastown on a very soggy Saturday afternoon.  

I didn't want to take my camera out in the rain, so I used my

trusty iPhone once again.

Wet evening in Gastown

Steam clock on Water Street
(berry pop flash with Hipstamatic)

The Black Frog:
an ex-pat Edmonton bar in Gastown
(Great place to cheer on the Oilers in Vancouver ;-))

January 14 2011 - Time

January 12 2011 - Beauty

stencilled graffiti, Granville Island

One man's opinion on 365 day photo projects.... and this chick's response.

I recently came across this commentary on 365 day photo projects.  It addresses some of the thoughts I've had about these pic-a-day projects:  http://www.chuqui.com/2011/01/why-i-dont-like-photo-a-day-projects/


I understand the pressure he is describing, which is why I've given myself the leeway - evident in this blog's title - of not HAVING to photograph something every single day.  Nonetheless, the goal of daily shooting does force me to look around my environment in a different way and to perhaps photograph things that I might not otherwise.  Certainly, few of the pics I've snapped so far are really representative of the types of subjects to which I am normally drawn (landscape).


On the other hand, I do "cheat" a lot... using my iPhone when there's nothing else at hand. But this is not necessarily a bad thing, either.  Professional photographer Chase Jarvis argues (to such an extent it's also the title of a book of his) The Best Camera is the One That's With You: http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2009/09/the-best-camera-iphone-app-book-community/ .  I am learning how to do more interesting things with my iPhone without having all the features an SLR camera affords.  Of course, the Hipstamatic and photofx apps I have make this a lot more fun!


Some people say that while they post every day on their 365 sites, they don't necessarily take the photo that day.  Instead they keep an "evergreen file" that they draw on when they haven't got a fresh photo.  I feel some ambivalence about this.  I feel like it's cheating just a little.  But these are early days; I might have to resort to that at some point.  (In the mean time, I'm still playing catch up with the pics I took before I got this blog up, so the chronology will be a bit jumbled for the next few days.)


So what do you think?

January 25 2011 - Two Annies

Two "Annies"
(St. John's Ambulance classroom)

January 24 2011 - Light Painting

Candleholder trailing light

January 9 2011 (a day I could not forget after all....)

Dusky reflections
(Kits Beach, taken with iPhone and Hipstamatic app)

It was Sunday night and cold... the sun came out between downpours and lit the sky up pink.

January 11 2011 - I've looked at Lamp from both sides now....

During these short days of winter, I don't always get a chance to photograph outdoors, my favourite place to be, because I'm indoors at work all day.  It is a challenge to find something interesting in the familiar sometimes when I get home and I'm tired.  I love this lamp, that its base is illuminated from within, the Hershey Kiss feel to it.  I also like that you can see the reflection of the lightbulb on the glass table on which the lamp sits in the photo below.

Lamp base on glass table - taken with Hipstamatic phone app

January 10 2011 (I think I missed the 9th) - Indoor/Outdoor

 The day started with a walk outdoors, where I discovered a shrine some anonymous person placed at the foot of a tree in a neighbourhood park.  The sun made a brief appearance and made pretty shadows at my backdoor.

Then in the evening I made a proper meal for the first time in a long time.  I love fresh artichokes.  A lot of work, but beautiful.
       This is a tale of two chokes.  One shot with my proper camera; the other with my iPhone and the Hipstamatic app.

January 8 2011 - near Vancouver Photo Workshops

These were also taken on January 8, earlier in the afternoon, near Vancouver Photo Workshops.

2286 Ontario Street

Cafe Window

January 8 2011 - Classic on 7th Avenue