Granville Island Night Photowalk

October 19, 2009 by Janis 10 Comments

After a pretty lame Saturday, I decided that I better do something productive with my Sunday. So I did. I ran 10.6km at Burnaby Lake with my good friends Liz and Di, and I went for a walk and did some shopping with my friend Sheralyn downtown, taking photos all along the way. I felt like I had been neglecting my camera lately, so I made a promise to myself take it with me more often when I go places. We saw this tree absolutely covered in ladybugs on the way back from our walk. Good thing I had my camera, eh?

So, I had been debating on whether to go on this evening photowalk or not, and finally decided to stop thinking about it and just do it. I’m very glad that I did.

There was a large turnout for it, more than I expected. We met on Granville Island, and there were 3 models there to shoot, which I also wasn’t totally expecting.

I took some shots of one of the models, Barbara, in front of these lights boxes (after some coaxing from Scott) and this is probably my favourite one of the bunch.

Meanwhile, the guys were all shooting using flash triggers, which I don’t have any experience with, but Jeremy loaned me his remote trigger and Peter helped me get the correct settings to get a good shot. He got me to shoot using manual settings, which I’ve never done; I always just shoot in either shutter priority or aperture priority, but this is what these photowalks are for, learning! Below you will see my beautiful subjects for my first “off-camera flash” experience.

Afterwards, we walked around Granville Island a little more and John let me borrow his tripod for some shots. I really have to thank all of these guys. I was pretty intimidated at the beginning, but they sure made me feel welcome. It ended up being a total learning experience for me, and I look forward to more photowalks like this in the future.

Here’s another one of my favourite photos from last night – John showing the models one of the shots on his camera. To view the rest of my photowalk set, click here.

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BarCamp Vancouver 2009

October 4, 2009 by Janis 4 Comments

On October 3rd, I attended my 2nd BarCamp. Last year’s BarCamp – I can’t believe it’s already been a year! – was my first ever “un-conference.”

What the heck is an un-conference? (Am I right?)

Well, it’s basically an event that doesn’t get organized until you show up. Although, it is planned by a small group of people who actually attend BarCamp, my brother being one of them. Anyone who attends has the opportunity to pitch an idea for a session, in under 30 seconds, and then it gets scheduled into the day. There were 5 rooms with 5 sessions happening at once, in the Discovery Parks building on Great Canadian Way, and you just got to choose which ones you would like to go to.

Last year, my brother shot a short video of me as we were leaving BarCamp, to ask what I thought of it. Check it out below.

This year, I think I was a little more into doing my own thing, and not just following Jordan to whatever sessions he wanted to go to. In the morning, I went on the photowalk session with a bunch of photographers whom I know and admire, and after lunch went to the photography-related session that talked about using programs like Aperture and Lightroom to manipulate your photos. Now, of course, I need to out and buy one of them, because you can do all kinds of crazy stuff with your photos, and tag them and organize them in so many different ways. It’s nuts.

There were many other great discussions yesterday, and I learned a lot from some very cool people who are doing amazing things in the tech world.

I will leave you with a few photos I took yesterday during the photowalk.


I was amazed at how few cars were there. Most people chose to carpool, cycle, or take transit.

Thank you everyone, and hope to see you all next year at BarCamp!

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My Grandpa

October 4, 2009 by Janis 1 Comment

The other night I went out with my Dad, brothers, Grandpa, uncles, and male cousins to a BC Lions game. Someone took this photo of my Grandpa Glenn and I, and after seeing it on my camera, he said, “Put it on the internet!” That just cracked me up.

My Grandpa is the king of gadgets. He’s the hardest person to buy gifts for, because when he sees somethings he wants, he just buys it immediately. He’s also the first guy to get anything, whether it’s a satellite dish, digital cable box, handheld GPS, iPod Touch – you name it, he’s got it. Although, the iPod Touch surprised us all. He one day complained that everyone had an iPod and he didn’t, so he went out and bought himself the latest and greatest thing on the market – just days before Christmas. Mind you, he had no idea how to set it up and put music on it, so my brother Jordan had to do it for him. Once he had music and some pictures on there, though, he was showing anyone who would pay attention to him. He’d throw on a Johnny Cash song, and then show you pictures of his fishing trip. It was hilarious.

So, I was going to just put this photo on Facebook and tag my Grandma Dot, who yes, actually is on Facebook, but Jordan suggested putting it on my website so that he’d always know where to find it (at least I hope!). So here’s my Grandpa Glenn, with “Grandpa’s girl,” at the BC Lions game.

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