Mar
20
Can you believe its been over a year since we’ve been in Canada… and coming up to a year living in this apartment. Just when things were getting cosy we’re packing our stuff again and moving into a new apartment. As much as we love our current place, we’re finding it a bit small for us now so we’re upgrading to a bigger place.
Rental costs Downtown are starting to get a ridiculous nowadays! People are charging such high premiums for shoebox apartments. The only way to find a decent sized place at a realistic price is to look outside of Downtown. Even then, you’ll be driving at least 20-30 minutes before the prices are “normal”.
Lucky for us we found a great place in a new building right in the heart of Yaletown and we won’t have to sell any organs to continue to afford to live Downtown. We love the lifestyle and location so it’s only fit to see we moving only 2 blocks from our current place! And so the tedious task of packing begins… This would be the fifth time we’ve packed up a house since leaving Australia. I think Tash and I are single handedly funding the survival of moving companies worldwide!
Hmmm… I wonder if people will think it’s weird if they see us walking down the street with a lounge suite and mattress… Who needs a mover?! I’ve seen stranger things happpen in Yaletown…
Mar
07
This is my cute little mocha baby niece Ella… a.k.a Ella-phant…
You ask why is she a mocha baby…? Well… if you follow the equation below:
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Heath |
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+ | Â |
Erandi |
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= | Â |
Ella-phant |
She’s 5.5 months now and is cuter than ever…
Here she is chilling with her crew in her crib… *ha* *ha*
Ella is having her christening this Saturday so to commemorate the day I made her a custom baby jump suite…
I can’t wait until I get to see you…! So, until then I’m going to spoil the crap out of you! If you mum says no to anything you want… Say Uncle Saj said it was OK!
Mar
06
Today I did a short shoot at Science World from the top of Cambie Bridge. Tonight was a perfect night with no clouds in the sky and the air was nice and crisp… not as cold as the previous night so it wasn’t uncomfortable. I wasn’t feeling very creative so I just did the standard panoramic shot with no creative framing, filters, or post processing work. Since I was taking the shots from the pedestrian strip on the bridge it proved to be quite a challenge to pull off the 10-20 second exposures. I had to time the shots between the traffic, because when the trucks and cars drove by it caused the bridge to vibrate and when you do long exposure shots they get blurry.
 
Until next time…
Mar
04
 While waiting for Tash to finish her shift at the Theatre I decided to head down to Granville Island to do some panoramic photos of Granville Bridge at night. It was raining earlier in the day and we even had a little bit of snowfall. Most of it had melted by the time I headed out and the sky was fairly clear. The shot was taken from behind the Granville Island Public Markets from the jetty where all of the Aquabuses dock (They Aquabuses are little Taxi’s boats that transport people back and forth across the waterway). This was the only shot that I was able to salvage from the 30 minute shoot because of 2 reasons…
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It was so damn cold that I lost feeling to all my fingers, but not before some excruciating pain prior to that because of the chilly winds… so my head wasn’t really in the frame of mind of being creative and focus was more so on how to keep warm without my fingers dropping off!
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Anyone that does night photography knows (or will find out through error) that they need to remove any sort of filters on the lens. I have UV lens filters on all of my lenses mainly to protect them. If anything hits the lens, it’s the filter that will get damaged instead of the $1200 lens. Having said that, when you are doing night shots, or anything that involves long exposures and lights you should remove the filters as they cause the light to diffuse and reflect off the filter and lens creating a blurry image. You won’t notice it on the LCD when you review it because it’s too small, but once you load the photos on a PC it will appear clear as day. One very careless mistake on my part. – Not a result you want to realize after experiencing mild hypothermia…
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So from a fairly disappointing shoot I created this one photo that I quite liked. The reason I like the shot is because of the lighting and the fact that it had rained a few hours before and the moist wood in the jetty produced a beautiful texture. In the cropped version of the photo you can see every nook and crack in the wood of the jetty. Today seems like it’s going to be nicer day so I might head out again and try my luck…
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Until next time…
Mar
04
I’ve started a new job at the Arts Club Theatre Company and I have been lucky enough to have been given 2 free tickets for each show that are on either Granville Island Stage or Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage. Our first show that we went to see was called “Glorious!”.
It is a comedy show about this character- Florence Foster Jenkins (based on a true story) who cannot sing, she can’t even hit a single note… she screeches and squeals. But the beauty of it is that it doesn’t stop her from her love and desire to sing. Nicola Cavendish who plays Florence had done such a good job, she creates her as being an absolutely hilarious, witty, merry, naive and clumsy at times. A very loveable character indeed. My favourite line from her was “There are people who say I cannot sing! But…no one who can say I didn’t sing!”. I thought that was a powerful saying and it could apply to a lot of aspects of people’s lives. This play teaches us to try and live our dreams even if you fail because at least you are brave enough to try, and also to live your life that is your own.
As some of you may already know that I’ve always loved going to theatres and watched live plays, it doesn’t matter what play it is (at most times), coz I feel like I always learn something from the actors as they are exposing their souls. I have a great appreciation for theatres, I feel that theatres are much more organic (especially the local ones) and definitely not influenced by the Hollywood Syndrome. It seems to me that theatre actors actually are COMPASSIONATE people who constantly strive to be good actors and not for the fame. However, if they end up there, they would most definitely deserve it more than some. This is why I’m so ecstatic that I am now a part of this industry that I love. I’m sure I will constantly learn and explore new things as I go.
The free tickets for each show… that’s just the icing on the cake 