My Capture Photography Festival 2018 Canada Line Competition entry

(I entered the "Capture Photography Festival 2018 Canada Line Competition" today and thought I'd post the Artist Statement and the five photos that I submitted.)

The arrival of the digital camera age has enabled me to carry a camera in my pocket on an almost full time basis since the purchase of my first non-film point-and-shoot in 2007. And now of course it’s even easier due to the prevalence of an integral camera included within every smartphone. In my everyday travels in and about Vancouver I strive to document the city’s evolution in varying perspectives, from natural phenomena, in this case seasonal canopies (spring, autumn and winter), to construction projects, i.e., a very specific cut and cover project employed to create the King Edward subway station.

Although a theme was not specified this year, my "Capture Photography Festival 2018 Canada Line Competition" submission none-the-less has one relating to canopies and covers. An archival photo of mine documents the initial cut and cover construction method employed to create the King Edward Station in and around 2007. Last year I photographed the station’s continuing evolution that added residential accommodation above it. Rounding out the Canopy/Cover theme are seasonal displays of regional leaves and blossoms, and snowfall (incidentally occurring outside the station), closing with an avian canopy of regional crows during their daily aerial commute across the city.

Autumn Canopy (2009)

Avian Canopy (2010)

Cut & Cover at King Ed Stn (2007)

Snow Cover at King Ed Stn (2016)

Spring Canopy (2014)

Seasonal Smorgasbord

We've really had a smorgasbord of weather lately. As I write this post its snowing outside. I fondly recall that last weekend the mercury hit about 18 degrees. Then by mid-week the forecast was predicting a temperature plunge with at least a possibility, if not a likelihood, of snow for this weekend. Needless to say I pushed up snow tire installation on my schedule, at least to Shauna's car. She has to traverse the hills of West Van while my office in is the flatlands of Richmond.

It turns out my Monsters Inc. pumpkin was a pretty popular choice this year; I saw
about three of them in my neighbourhood.

Only a week post-pumpkin and we've already had a dusting of snow
(Wednesday night), which evidently was more of an accumulation elsewhere
in the region.

Does this mean one of the big sparrows at Olympic Village has now been
crowned "The Great Pumpkin"?

Deer Lake in Late October

Our weekly run location was Deer Lake yesterday. The weather was perfect, quite unseasonably warm for this close to Hallowe'en.

Tragically Hip-less-ness

We’re now ten days into Tragically Hip-less-ness.

So far so good I guess.

I did another road trip this week which involved about 6 hours of driving on Vancouver Island, from north to south. It was a perfect opportunity to load up the CD player for some “Hip” audio therapy, blasted at fairly high volume. Of the CDs I brought with me I played them all through twice at least before swapping discs. Almost at the end on one song, “Thompson Girl”, I remember snapping back into reality thinking that I’d actually forgotten for a couple or three minutes that Gord was no longer with us. I think that's a good sign in terms of starting to recover from the shock.

And in terms of lasting legacy, if I were him I'd want people to be able to lose themselves in my music at least once in a while.

Empire Landmark Hotel

Shauna came across an interesting garage sale-style event while web surfing yesterday. Somehow I'd not heard of it before despite it being an on-going event for a week already.

The Empire Landmark Hotel on Robson Street is the second structure in Vancouver to feature a revolving restaurant in its penthouse. Unfortunately we've now missed our chance to dine there as the site will be redeveloped with two condo high-rise towers in the near future. In other words, that site's gonna get a big surprising real soon, implosion style.

Interestingly, there was a TV news report earlier this week profiling a huge sale that was slated to occur all week of everything related to the hotel. We only heard about it on the sale's last day, but decided it was a good rainy day outing, and a last chance to see one of Vancouver's "Landmark" buildings.

Empire Landmark Hotel

Need a bar for your basement? Make'em an offer! What's the worst they
could say? 

Ever had the desire to host your own episode of "Iron Chef"? Again, make'em
an offer!

Coincidentally, a walk-through such as this excursion turned out to be is exactly what I do for my job. I conduct property condition assessments, mostly for transactional due diligence, which generally involve a tour of a building from its roof to its basement, viewing interior finishes, heating/cooling systems, electrical systems, fire/life safety items, windows (for potential signs of leakage), etc. As such on this day, at least once I had to refrain from pressing the shutter for anything but an item of interest to me, not for the needs of report preparation.

Need any chairs for your next house party? Christmas party? Wedding?
Bar mitzvah? 

Despite the somewhat haphazard appearance of the linens room, we did
actually pick up a couple of new pillows for 2 bucks each.

"Two fifty for a flat screen

A big smokin' deal to be clear

Happy hour, happy hour

Happy hour is here!"

(Intended to be sung to the tune of "Little Bones" by I think you-know-who)

If you painted each one a different colour you could complement your new
basement bar with a Rubik's Cube-themed refrigeration system.

Twenty-fourth floor views of the "Shangri-La" and the tower of "he whose
name shall not be spoken", high altitude competitors both clawing at the sky.

Twenty-fourth floor view of the West End and English Bay.

Twenty-something-ieth floor in the direction of Coal Harbour and Stanley
Park

Monster mushrooms

I think I may have stumbled upon a local, fast-growing, organic housing solution for Greater Vancouver. If it keeps raining like it has lately, who knows how big these things will grow!

Long Time Running

It's been a tragic week for us "Hip" fans. As I sit here wearing my Tragically Hip 2016 concert t-shirt, having watched and listened to TV and radio tributes all weekend, I guess all that remains is to wait to see if Ry Cooder actually will sing his eulogy.

I think the ultimate take-away from the whole experience is to admire how unselfishly a personal tragedy was diverted towards an urgent national issue. Gord emphasized more than a couple of times the "down here" versus "up there" mentality that exists. I think he's right. Living mostly along the 49th parallel we have it pretty good, with all necessities close at hand, and available employment and income, by and large. Isn't it about time we try to bridge the cultural gap?

Thanks Gord, of course for all the great music over three decades, but also for the big kick-in-the-pants to include and value the North in Canada's multi-cultural mission statement. Perhaps we could call it a "13 Mission Cap" for the 10 provinces and 3 territories included under the Canadian umbrella.