Had a few cool links to check out this morning, click the photo to go to the link. I found out via NPAC’s twitter account that a Q&A with me had been posted to the website’s front page. Also, I got an email saying that my video on my project in Rwanda had made it onto globeandmail.com

At 5 o’clock Wednesday my New Year’s Eve plans were to lay low, have a few celebratory beverages, and continue to nurse a nagging cold that had been bugging me for days. I called up Tristan and asked him his plans, he stated he was thinking of taking a train out of town for some of his time off, something that I immediately realized would be a great adventure. After a couple of phone calls, and some hurried packing, we picked up Victoria and were cruising south on a road trip. No better way to ring in the New Year.

So here is the my own personal forecast for myself in 2009: More Adventure.
Pike Place Market - Seattle Five seconds after NYE marriage proposal - Seattle Astoria Bridge (Over Four Miles Long) - Astoria, OregonFoggy Woods - North Plains, OregonRoad - Lewis and Clark State Park, WashingtonBurnt Paper - Cannon Beach, OregonDog Walker - Cannon Beach, OregonSmall Dog vs. RC Car - Cannon Beach, OregonVictoria & Tristan - Cannon Beach, OregonMan & Dog - Cannon Beach, OregonCannon Beach, OregonCannon Beach, OregonCannon Beach, OregonOcean Ave. - Cannon Beach, OregonTristan - Cannon Beach, Oregon

And here is the great video Tristan did on our trip:

In 2008 I:Started off my year on The Big Island of Hawaii photographing the Paniolo Cowboys. More photos are on my website.Photographed this Buddhist Nun drinking tea during a freak March snow-storm in Richmond.Photographed this feature on the first day of Spring in Steveston.  These girls were on spring break and go to the school my cousin teaches at.Started a personal project using my Hasselblad to photograph the hands of inspiring people, which I will be continuing in 2009.Climbed a tree with some friends.Road my motorcycle. LOTS.Photographed a bunch of weddings, which I really enjoyed and made a lot of pictures I really liked, this being one of them.Hiked the Chief in Squamish 3+ times. One of my favourite spots around, some of the best days of the yearQuit my staff job and traveled to Rwanda, land of a thousand hills, to teach photography to youth in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda.Photographed some very interesting people in foreign countries.Taught photography to some amazing kids in Rwanda.. Went to DR Congo, saw and heard the testimony of rape victims in North Kivu, still can’t understand how human beings can do this to one another. Went to the Eddie Adams Workshop, met some great people and learned a lot.

There is a lot more, but I seem to have run out of time. An update to this post will come soon.

Here is what I thought to be one of the best presentations at Eddie Adams this year. Platon was a hilarious down-to-earth guy with that British wit, you couldn’t help but laugh your way through his talk.
Audio from Vincent Laforet’s blog at http://blog.vincentlaforet.com/
Platons website: http://www.platonphoto.com/

Some days, you just have to go shoot photos for yourself, for the fun of it.  
Man and his dog, Jericho Beach.

A couple of my fav stills shooting the beautiful ladies down at Beauty Night on the Downtown Eastside tonight. I am shooting video and stills in order to put together a multimedia production for the non-profit organization. To find out more, go here.

I am now freelancing in Vancouver while continueing to edit my work from Africa and line up more in-depth projects in BC. Here is a shot from an assignment Monday to photograph Arthur Griffiths, who is the Liberal candidate in the Vancouver-Burrard provincial by-election, being held today.

Vancouver businessman Arthur Griffiths, former owner of the Canucks and Grizzlies is trading the luxury box for the ballot box. Brett Beadle for National Post

Here are some of my photos from the Eddie Adams Workshop. I am hoping to edit together my audio and video for a more complete multimedia package so right now I am just going to put up the stills with no captions.

My assignment was to focus on Orchard Street, the most troubled street in town, and to photograph how people interacted inside this small community with huge problems. A man was murdered a few days previous on one of the porches of the houses on the street. The story is that one man, Dalvin Beltran, who was at one time family friends with the victim, came to try to get a cigarette from someone at the house late at night. A fight ensued, and Ismael Hernandez, 45, was stabbed to death with a 10-inch knife. He bled to death on his front porch. All over a single cigarette.

 From the Barnstorm XXI site:

I think I’m missing in this version of the shot, but they took about 10-15 so maybe I can get one where I can find myself.

Our team of 10 were challenged to work together to form one cohesive multimedia package with the overall theme of “Six Degrees of Separation” It was an interesting exercise in working together as a large team to cover an overall topic with the goal of creating an interactive multimedia piece in a short period of time.  When our piece is put online I will link to it, so you can judge our efforts.From PDN http://www.pdnpulse.com/2008/10/new-camera-tech.html

Vincent Laforet took his recent proselytizing on behalf of emerging camera technology to the Eddie Adams Workshop this past weekend. On the back of his much-talked-about test run of the Canon EOS 5D Mark II prototype, during which he created a faux commercial for just over $4,000, Laforet, a Canon shooter, got Workshop sponsor Nikon to lend his students recently released D90 cameras to shoot their project.

The assignment of Laforet’s Silver Team was to create a seamless multimedia presentation from still photographs, video footage and audio interviews gathered by the 10 students over the course of the weekend. Laforet’s team had the help of two editors—Detroit Free Press staffers Nancy Andrews and Kathy Kieliszewski—and also had suped-up technical capabilities to help them handle the workflow. As of early Monday afternoon, Laforet was still unsure whether the project would come together in time for the team presentations that night. A couple of hiccups aside, the group was able to present their work.

Earlier in the afternoon, Laforet suggested to me that the new cameras, which allow image makers to create commercial-quality still and video images working on their own in low light, were a major technological advancement along the lines of the daguerreotype, the Brownie and the 35 millimeter. However, he said, the technology in the Nikon D90s and the Canon EOS 5D Mark II’s would be a bigger advancement than those preceding landmarks, because, he said, it would “redefine what our jobs are” as photographers. Given their technical skill sets and stylistic sensibilities, photojournalists, Laforet thinks, are the people best equipped to utilize this new imaging technology.

Whether or not you agree on these two points, the Silver Team experiment was certainly an interesting look at how multimedia reportage and the work of photojournalists might evolve. It’s conceivable that a group of several multimedia reporters working alone could cover an event—a military action or political convention, for instance—each collecting high-quality still photography, video footage and audio material from different perspectives. That raw material could be delivered each day to editors and multimedia producers, who could then create an integrated, in-depth, multidimensional narrative to deliver to their audience.