Here’s a couple local Vancouver projects that inspire me. I’ve documented each of them as they’ve developed over the past several months and recently published these editorials.
The Waldorf Hotel
“The Waldorf is a creative hub in the heart of East Vancouver where contemporary art, music, food and culture convene under one roof. The programming for the space will be both artistically expansive and thematically inclusive. The complex consists of thirty rooms, two restaurants (directed by Ernesto Gomez and executive chef Ned Bell), a Tiki bar (restored and retrofitted with a vintage analogue audiophile sound system), a hair salon (run by Barbarella Hair), a gift shop, a nightclub and a live music venue. In the works are a multi-media theater space and recording studio (tied to a residency program for visiting musicians).The Waldorf joins a new wave of Vancouver businesses that are conversing with the city, setting a benchmark for culture and hospitality.”
The Beatty Street Mural
“The Beatty Street Mural Project aims to explore the effects of applying various social networking concepts to a monumental public art installation. Creating an interactive platform between the community, the artists, photographers, bloggers, etc”
We are very lucky in Vancouver to have such a rich and diverse art community that has really supportive galleries and spaces for a wide variety of shows. W2 Woodwards just recently opened their art space in the Perel Gallery in the DTES, which serves a multi-purpose art space for shows, performances and workshops. Their most recent artist in resident is Jeremy Crowle, a Vancouver-Galiano Island painter, who’s new show will open next Thursday January 14th at 8 pm. His curated show titled ‘tHere in Spirit‘ is a collection of large-scale paintings that will be shown through the duration of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.
Jeremy Crowle is a prolific international artist whose main medium is painting but has dabbled in other aspects such as video, pastels and photography. His large paintings are often dynamic portraits that engage the audience in an environment of curated emotions.
Here is his show statement for ‘tHere in Spirit’:
“There are many times in which the boundaries of our two landscapes are blurred when our physical reality is a catalyst in creating our digital reality. Contextually each place is the same but our response can be pulled towards the easier, accessible digital landscape that sustains gratification at any given moment. Do we give priority to our digital environment? Wherever our priority lives, our loyalty and responsibility will follow suit no matter what our intended course may have been.
Time and direction can be subtle commentaries on space as they exist in their most rudimentary forms. Here or there, we can encourage the experience of reaction through a physical environment that promotes a responsive, internal dialogue. The boundaries of our physical environment are met against the boundaries of our digital environment, creating a dynamic relationship of question and response.”
I am huge fan of Jeremy’s work, not only because he is my best friend but also because of his immense talent that shines through everyone of his creations. The two of us have collaborated on a projects, mixing my photography with his painting. It is always really awesome when I am able to create art with the best of my friends! There is also a growing collection of his art, hanging at my studio which creates the air of having my own personal gallery at home.
Jeremy is also hosting a week long workshop at the W2 Letterpress that is housed at the W2-Perel Gallery. This workshop will consist of 5 full days of hands on learning about this amazing printing process. With hundreds of different organized types, the W2 Letterpress is a great experience of analog art creation and historical based learning of the evolution of printing. There is still time to sign-up to be a part of this awesome workshop!
I’ve been spending a lot of time this year working to turn my photography from a project into a business. I’ve been making photographs way more often, on larger and more well paying projects, while still staying involved in the internet and technology industry. For me (tech + art = happiness).
In an effort to catch everyone up on what we’ve been up to lately we’ve posted a series of recap blog posts over on our site. In the near term we’ll be updating our portfolio, pulling together an accurate client list, and exploring other creative ways of getting our work in front of the right people. We’ve been working really hard on getting this ship in shape for the future as well as shooting almost everyday.
As a part of making sure that our studio runs like a well oiled machine we’ve brought on Danielle Sipple as our Studio Manager. She’s been working on photo editing, photoshoot production, estimating, invoicing, and promotions. She’s awesome and if you work with me and the team over at Static you’ll likely meet her.
South by Southwest 2009 – Band & Live Music Photography – The next big trip for Static Photography was traveling down to the southern section of Austin, Texas for the yearly festival of South by Southwest . SXSW includes four days of Interactive and Film followed by four final days of Music.
Creative Class Gets Together at Pecha Kucha Night 5 in Vancouver – Translated as the sound of conversation Pecha Kucha is the optimized vision of creative presentations. At every Pecha Kucha Night around the world, each presenter is allowed 20 images shown at 20 seconds a piece, with a grand total of 6 minutes and 40 seconds for their entire presentation. Having this time limit really keeps presentations down to just the good stuff.
This was the fifth time that Pecha Kucha has happened in Vancouver . Kris Krug was chosen with 11 other presenters to speak on varying topics. Krug’s discussion was a visual handbook on open-sharing . He was positioned along side Rex Weyler ‘s photo presentation from the startup of Greenpeace , Dolly Hopkins ‘ discussion on her involvement with the Illuminaries Festival , and Shawna Cox ‘s documentary adventure with the desert races.
Matt Hern started the Purple Thistle back in 2001 with 7 teenage youth. Carla Bergman is an adult mentor who helps the youth run the collective today. Carla is also the founder of Rain zine which features art and writing from youth at the Purple Thistle as well as us at Static Photography .
Lotsa other stuff goin’ on out there for us too but no time or space for it here. Follow me on Twitter. See ya soon!
Today was an interesting day. I went to the protest in the video above. I had friends, bloggers, who i respect, on both sides of the line: Jonathan Narvey wearing his Star of David shirt supporting Israel on one side and Sean Orr lookin like a commie-pinko-hippy-faggot on the Palestine side. Both are smart, articulate, compassionate guys but this is a topic on which it seems there is little common ground and the two found them hollaring accross the street at each other before they recognized each other.
I spent time filming on both sides of the straight and while we were hanging out JNarvey asked me what my take on this all was. I paused for a good long while, choosing my words careful in order not to become snared in typical rebuttals or knee-jerk responses. My answer was something like…
It makes me sad that in 2008 there is a such an immovable mountain of a conflict whose central tenants seem to be based on racism and religious intolerance. On both sides. All sides.
I feel sad and my had hangs a lil lower every time I hear about an escalation of the violence in the middle east. I like to be positive and optimistic in general and am frustrated not only in the terrible things that are taking place in terms of violence, but also that we don’t seem to even have the institutions in which we can seek forgiveness and resolution. I’m disappointed in all of us.
I’m gonna piggyback off Bex’s idea of the Best of 604 Awards to hand out my own awards. One person from each of the winning sites wins a portrait photography shoot, at my studio, whenever they like. *drumroll* And my winners for the Best of 604 awards are:
Favourite Food Site, Directory or Blog Scout Magazine (http://scoutmagazine.ca) – My award in this category goes the Old Kid on the New Block. Andrew Morrison is doin’ a great job with Scout.
Favourite Multi-Author Site or Blog The Tyee (http://thetyee.ca) – several good contenders in this category including Beyond Robson and Sexy in Vancity… but while still kinda ‘not getting it’ The Tyee fills a big whole in the blogoworldisphere and readin’ it makes me smarter.
Favourite Site of Blog for News Now Public (http://nowpublic.com) – bein’ innovative on an international level from right here in Vancouver earns these guys the award in the news site category.
Favourite Site or Blog for Politics Matthew Good (http://matthewgood.org) – in general political blogs grate on my soul but Matt Good does a wicked job with his blog/site/community where he provides insights and analysis on world affairs from a very personal perspective.
Favourite Sports Site or Blog
Ha… I don’t have a favorite sports site or blog.
Vote: Best Style/Fashion Site or Blog
In this category we have a tie between Terri Potratz (http://theconveyorbelt.com) and Victoria Potter (http://demicouture.ca). Hear me now believe me later I think Vancouver blogs stand out in this category. Victoria and Terri have both done an exceptional job developing their voice on their sites. I tune into to both just to read their wit and humor on the topics they cover. Good job guys!
Favourite Tech Site or Blog
This is a tough one as Boris, Steven, Alexa, and Tod are all smart cookies… but the winner in this category and overall winner for most improved goes to the peeps over at Techvibes (http://techvibes.com/blog).
Favourite Personal Site of Blog
First off I’d like to point out there are like 500 nominees in this category. *sheesh* Pls I don’t want hate mail from all the looooosers. Let’s all play nice. In light of all the awesomeness represented in this category I’ve decided to pick my top 3. The winner in this category are……. ….. …. .. Derek Miller (http://penmachine.com), Alex Waterhouse Hayward (http://alexwaterhousehayward.com/blog/blog.html), Duane Storey (http://duanestorey.com). Derek is brave and inspiring, Alex is creative and insightful, and Duane is interesting, funny and I like his code.
Favourite Company or Business Blog Raincity Studios (http://raincitystudios.com/blogs-and-pods) – before you accuse me of nepotism have you read this stuff? About the Olympics? About Drupal? About jQuery? About community building? About uses of technology for mission-based work/social change? I’m proud of the work we do here and happily give the award to the whole RCS crew that contributes to making it one of the best corporate blogs I’ve ever seen. *assslap*
Last Week The Vancouver Sun and NowPublic posted a list of the ‘Top 20 Web Visible’ people in Vancouver. I was number 4 on the list. Their methodology was questionable, but I’m always stoked and humbled to be included with the likes of the other 19 on the list. Thank you thank you thank you!
Some people who seem frustrated to have placed below me on the list have questioned my position considering I haven’t posted on this blog since August. True guys. I haven’t. But the list wasn’t called ‘Highest Traffic Blogs’ it was called ‘Most Web Visible’. News flash: We’re moving from a web of pages, to a web of streams. Buy me a beer and I’ll tell explain what that means. In the mean time you may want to check out some of the places I’m visible on the web that aren’t this blog.
Twitter – my daily microblog updates from my mobile phone. My Facebook status messages also get updated automagically via Twitter.
Flickr – 20,000 Creative Commons licensed photos and growing.
YouTube – I love Videoblogging and have posted about 200 episodes. Wish I had more time and better gear!
LinkedIn – I currate my CV here. 114 endorsements and recommendations from customers and partners and employees and 1000+ professional contacts.
Dopplr – I’ve been travelling a ton and use Dopplr to publicize my comings and goings and see who will be at the same place at the same time. It’s rad. Check it!
FriendFeed – Next level geek shit. The way to follow the web of streams.
Delicious – I still post interesting links and pointers here though I have gotten a bit lazy and sometimes just ‘Share of Facebook’.
Facebook – A good catchall for my less media savvy friends and family. I point all my streams there. Ends up looking like I spend a lot more time on Facebook than I actually do.
I’m equally delinquent in updating these sites as well but I also blog at Static Photography and Raincity Studios among other places. Anyway, congrats to all the other geeks and nerds who made this list. Don’t listen to the haters and trolls. Much love!
Check out the new ION Magazine blog – featuring Daily(ish) Reviews, behind-the-scenes peeks at fashion and music shoots, and access to guest list and insider info on the by-now-legendary ION parties. They assure me that 08 is going to be next-level, and Static Photography and Kris Krug will be a part of it all! Good work Fiona, Vanessa, and Michael.
PS. We’ve also recently created a ION Magazine Flickr group. Submit your photos there and have them included in the magazine and the blog. Here’s some more info…
We often find ourselves in the position of needing striking imagery to accompany a piece, when we don’t want to necessarily literally represent the content of the article.
Show us your favorites! Images you have no use for but would love to see published – each issue, we feature one or two random photographs in an editorial capacity, either running with our editor’s letter, or with our News from Nowhere column.
For a couple of years now, we’ve had the privilege of mining the fantastic collection of the talented Miss Toby-Marie Bannister and her obscure and dreamy images and would like to continue that successful partnership as well as to grow the concept to include submissions from other talented Canadians and photographers from around the world.
Photographers of course receive full credit in a national Canadian glossy magazine, with the whole magazine available online as well at www.ionmagazine.ca – new website launching early February 2008.
We want evocative! Moody! Exciting! Captured moments! Random association!
For the past 2 semesters I've been teaching at VFS in the Entertainment Business Management faculty. I teach 'Internet Technologies 101' and 'Internet Technologies 202'.
As a part of our final project for 'Internet Technologies 202' each of the students has been creating and maintaining their own WordPress.com blog. With Matt coming into town, and so many awesome social media types on hand for Nothern Voice I decided what better way to toss them all into the deep end, than requiring that they all come to Northern Voice to pass my class. *evil grin*
If you’re interested in photography, cameras, or just want to talk a cool walk through East Van… it would be great to see lots of you out there. Here’s the details. Get in touch with me if you have any questions.
PhotoWalk
- signup on FaceBook
- meet at WorkSpace
- 11pm, Friday August 17th
PhotoCamp
- signup on the Wiki
- @ Workspace during BarCamp Vancouver
- TBD, Sunday August 18th
Back in Vancouver for a week after a few days in Seattle at Gnomedex. Gnomedex is a secret club of uber geeks that gets together once a year to hang, chill, chat, chest beat, network, share, and collaborate. Or something. It’s put on by friends Chris and Ponzi and draws a great group of nerds, dorks, and geeks from around the globe. I got the chance to hang with lots of old friends like Ethan, Lee, Mark, Dave, Darren, Scott, Schlomo, and Jay and met lots of new ones like Guy, Cali, Jacob, Molly, and others.
I took this quiz that Thomas Hawk pointed me towards and the results that were ‘the robot’ thinks that my photography most resembles Helmut Newton’s… who happens to be one of my inspirations. Awesome.
My buddies over at Burnkit, the hottest web design and creative services firm in Vancouver, launched their new website today… and it’s smokin’. They are a part of a bunch of boutique design agencies that are participating in a web redesign contest called May 1st ReBoot.
The site features video embedded in Flash and lots of awesome photos of the Burnkit team and their stunning new offices in Railtown. I was honored to find upon clicking through the super creative ‘Team’ section of the site that a couple of myphotos had been used on Jeremy Crowle’s profile. Swedish! I should probably also mention, that like any uber-hip new media outfit… they have their own Facebook group.
Solid work guys. Can’t wait to see what you come up with next.
We've really been learning a ton about flashes, strobes and studio lighting for fashion photography in the past year and one of the main avenues for my education has been assisting other working photographers on their creative projects.
Recently we had the chance to go to a local Gastown boxing training gym to assist on a shoot for Trevor Brady. We brought our new lights and between the 2 of us we lit 4 different locations and came up with these shots.
We spent most of the time on set setting up and testing lighting and cameras, but also had the opportunity to step in and Trevor took a couple testshots of Kris this time around and published them with the rest of the images. *blue steel* Careful, now he's a 'male model. Ha.
Trevor is a true creative talent… We're big fans of him as a person of his work as well. He's been super gracious and knowledgable and very fun to hang out with. Thanks again man.
Some cold wet Saturday's in Vancouver it's just plain hard to get rolling. To fire up our creative juices this weekend, Static pulled together a shoot with aspiring models Margaret Torgerson, Jordan Petryk and Bill MacEwan to build up their portfolios and have some fun.
We recently had the chance to wander around Gastown and dowtown Vancouver with actor and musician Mark Huculak. He looks like Justin Timberlake and sounds like Akon and he was an absolute pleasure to hang-out with and shoot.
If you’re an actor or actress (or model or dancer or DJ or comedian) looking to have headshots or portraits taken and/or build your portfolio please don’t hesitate to drop us an email or give us a call. We’re fun, easy to talk to and affordable… look at the results!
I recently assisted on a photoshoot with awesome Vancouver fashion photographer Trevor Brady. Trevor is an amazing guy with fingers in lots of different creative pies: from the web, to retail, to photography.
I brought out my new Alien Bees studio lighting and we tinkered around with our 5 lights combined. I learned a ton about studio lighting gear and am excited about another upcoming shoot that I will be assisting him on at at boxing studio here in Gastown. Stay tuned.
Thanks Trev for having me out and to everyone who collaborated on this super creative shoot.
Congratulation to Natalie, she has recently been picked up by the Vancouver modeling agency L2 Models and has used several of the shots she worked on with Static in her portfolio.
I recently had the chance to shoot for Denyss Halo of The Black Halos and have a 2nd booking with the whole band coming up soon. Thx to kdon and Patron of Discollection for styling the shoot!
For 3 years I was the editor-in-chief of a great online magazine called *spark. It was a culture and technology monthly with a philosophical bent and great design and photography. Here are the archived issues.
The Waldorf Hotel & The Beatty Street Mural - Comments (1)
No seriously tho, I’m friends with every nominated photographer in the category and not lookin’ to start a war. Love to all! 
In the mean time you may want to check out some of the places I’m visible on the web that aren’t this blog.
kk+ Elsewhere
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