Fade to Play

Art is my life
It’s my air, my food
I’m not happy, or sane, or fulfilled, if I’m not creating
It’s everything
~Indigo

Last night I attended Indigo’s first solo show at the Verve Hair Lounge. It was a fun occasion and gave me an opportunity to witness her creativity and talent with oil on canvas firsthand.

Amber George (Verve owner) and Indigo – “weighted, I remain”

“She’s gone away”

A quiet moment before her show – “seven years later”

Food by Nuba Restaurant

Megan Mutch of Cerelia Winery

Beats by DJ Kilocee

I wish Indigo success with her future shows.

Sailor Jupiter, Sailor Mercury, & Sailor Mars

This year I attended Anime Evolution 2010 which was held August 13-15 at the University of British Columbia.

Anime Evolution is Vancouver’s premier event celebrating Japanese animation, manga, gaming, and every kind of related fandom. Our featured activities include interactive panel discussions with industry guests, cultural demonstrations, 24-hour video rooms, cosplay contests, an AMV contest, a charity auction, evening dances, and creative workshops. We also offer LAN, tabletop, LARP, and console gaming rooms.

Tuxedo Mask & Princess Serenity

It was a phenomenal learning experience at an event that has grown to over 6000 registered attendees from its early days at Simon Fraser University in 1998.

Sailor Jupiter & Sailor Mars

During AE 2010, I discovered J-pop (Japanese Pop), met members of Loading Ready Run, watched Anime Idol, and observed someone excel at Robot Unicorn Attack (still got the song in my head).

Princess Serenity

In addition, I made new friends and have become more integrated into the local anime and manga community.

Sailor Chaos & Sailor Iron Mouse

My experiences are shared in a series of photo essays beginning with the Sailor Moon photoshoot.

On Saturday I attended the annual Vancouver Zombie Walk. Many people were very creative with their look and had the walk or pose to match. I used the opportunity to take a few photos of the event which I posted to flickr.

You’re next

School is not in session

She won’t protect you

Thriller on repeat

Even Zombies get married

Zombie jr and mom

What do we want? Braaaainnsss

Ooh! Text message

See you next year!

Today I woke up early and headed to Creekside Park beside Russia House to watch a live outdoor taping of the Colbert Report. It was simply surreal to be there. I had an amazing time surrounded by many people in Canada gear. We sang O Canada, we chanted Go Canada Go and that was before Stephen Colbert even arrived.

Around 10:30am Stephen Colbert appeared and the crowd when wild with cheering and alot of flag waving. Although my feet were numb and cold as it was chilly, I’m so glad to be a part of this event. It was very cool to share this experience with my friends Nadia and Jenn (way to grab a prime spot).

He will be back again Thursday morning – I recommend being there by 6am for a good location, although I’m sure some people arrived at midnight.

Jenn and Nadia await Stephen Colbert

The crowd was quite large

Designed by Shepard Fairey, downloaded from colbertnation.com

We gave the Colbert Report permission to film us

Colbert arrives

I guess it’s important to hold out hope

Michael Bublé and Stephen Colbert sing O Canada to the tune of the Star-Spangled Banner

Colbert is loved in Canada

The complete Day 6 flickr set is available here

Hayfa Makes Music

Last Thursday I was privileged to attend a fundraiser for Coree @ The End Cafe, Vancouver.  She just got accepted to take part in an Otesha Project cycling and performing tour through British Columbia during the summer of 2009.

For those who haven’t heard of it, the Otesha Project (www.otesha.ca) was founded by two 21 year-old women in 2002 with the aim of mobilizing youth to create local and global change through their daily consumer choices. Coree and her team mates will cycle 2,253 km starting in Vancouver, cycling up the inside passage, across to the island, north to Port McNeil and then south again, ending in Victoria. During that time, they’ll deliver dozens of theatre-based performances and workshops that focus on the many ways our choices impact the world, and how we can make that impact more positive.

Three groups (Hayfa Makes Music, The Blenheim Street Project, and Leigh Denholm) performed.  The music was great. Definitely, check them out on myspace.

Leigh Denholm

The Blenheim Street Project

Kathleen Forrester


Hayfa Abichahine

John Cullen


The indie music scene in Vancouver is pretty cool.

Below are some of my favourite photos that I took in 2008 along with a commentary describing how it came to be.

50 mm (1.8), f/3.5, 1/160, ISO 100

On February 5th, I watched the Super Tuesday results and realised that Barack Obama was still in the race to be the democratic nominee. On February 6th, I found out that there might be a rally on February 8th in Seattle. I decided that I would make an effort to attend the rally. Around 2pm on February 7th, my friend Stephanie was able to confirm the rally was a go and we decided to head down that afternoon on the Greyhound. We spent the night at her friend’s house, waking up early the next morning to attend the rally.

While we waited in line, these girls were selling Obama cookies for $2. Unfortunately I only had Canadian money, which was not accepted by them, even though it was worth more than the US dollar at the time. February 8th was by far my favourite day in 2008, as I sat memorised as Barack Obama spoke and energised the crowd. The auditorium was full (18 000) with 3 500 listening outside in an overflow area. I still feel “fired up, and ready to go”.

50mm lens (1.8), f/5.6, 1/6, ISO 800)

I was getting some work done at Blenz cafe in Yaletown while having conversations with Ryo from Japan about why he was here in Vancouver and how he was enjoying his experiences in Canada. I decided to use the opportunity to take a photograph of him. He was surprised with the photo as he was focused on work, not me. He liked it, thanked me, and emailed it home to his friends.

50 mm lens (1.8), f/4.5, 1/40, ISO 800

I attended Congress 2008 this year on a media pass as it was taking place here at UBC. I hadn’t heard about Richard Florida before, but after reading about him at the conference, I knew I had to see his talk.

After his presentation, when he was taking questions, I took this picture. I thought it represented well his confidence in speaking without notes and the cool way he told stories about urban life. I bought his book Who’s my City? and got it autographed. A very good day.

50 mm lens (1.4 USM), f/2.5, 1/1600, ISO 100

For a year, I took a daily self-portrait for a popular flickr group called 365 days. It was a beautiful day so following an afternoon workout, I went outside and tried a number of different poses and stretches before settling on this picture. Of the 365 self-portraits, it is my favourite one, because I probably won’t be this fit again.

50 mm lens (1.4 USM), f/2.5, 1/160, ISO 800

At the VIDFEST PopVox awards after Jenn Lowther and Nadia Nascimento won an award for memelabs, I went outside with Nadia and took a picture of her in front of the train car. It was a beautiful setting and she looked great which helped with my confidence. This picture has inspired me to learn to take more fashion photos in the future.

Canon SD 400

The day before I headed down to SXSW, I was walking by a candy store in Vancouver and in the window display was a Junior Mints lunch box. I thought it would be the perfect gift for someone I was meeting there for the first time – ijustine.

I gave it to Justine with treats inside at Gary Vaynerchuk’s impromptu twitter party at the Cork & Co. It was placed in a plastic bag inside a larger cloth bag so she didn’t have time to look inside the bag as she was running to dinner .

I took this picture outside the DIGG party that night.  She told me she loved the gift and she showed me how she was using it as a purse – rad! She had already eaten the treats at dinner leaving lots of room for night-out essentials.

Relevance: Photography is fun for me.

In December I rented a couple lens (Canon 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM & Canon 16-35mm f2.8 L II USM) as well as a tripod from Beau Photo and took photographs at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and West Vancouver.

Special thanks to Lisa Bettany, who tweeted about Beau Photo as a place where she rents equipment. I have found the people there to be very friendly and accommodating. It is also convenient to reach from where I live.

I thought that the first day of the new month, I would share my favourite photos that I had taken the previous month with my Canon Rebel XTi, note the relevant statistics, and outline how the photograph came to be.

50mm lens (1.4 USM), f/16.0, 1/60, ISO 200

On December 14th, after the first snowfall, I walked across the Granville Bridge and took this picture of the boats on English Bay. You can also see the mountains in the distance. This is the first photograph I have taken from the bridge. As I stood watching the water, I felt it was a good moment for a photograph, to remember my experiences walking across the bridge for the first time.



10-22mm lens, 13mm, f/20, 1/10, ISO 100

The Irving K Barber Learning Centre is simply a beautiful place to study. It is a favourite place among many students and it is packed during exams. One of rooms I like to work in is the Ridington Room which has a beautiful chandelier designed by John Nutter.

On December 16th, for this picture, I wanted to provide a different perspective than the usual head-on photograph from the upper level. I had the chandelier lighted and pointed my camera to the ceiling while using my tripod low to the ground. My objective with taking evening photographs was to use the window as a mirror of the chandelier, which resulted in this final image.



16-35mm lens, 22mm, f/25, 1/30, ISO 100

On December 21st, I went outside to see how much snow had been accumulating through the night. I wanted to take a photograph outside and thought that the bike covered in snow would make a interesting picture. Initially I tried a number of pictures with different settings using my tripod, but when I looked at them on my laptop, I wasn’t happy with the shadows.

So I added my Canon 580 EXII flash for a shot and felt happy with the final result. The light peaking through the bike was an added bonus as I didn’t notice it until I was post-editing my pictures.



16-35mm lens, 25mm, f/10, 1/250, ISO 200

On Christmas Day, I woke up and observed that the sky was fairly blue and partly sunny. I realised that this was a pause between snowfalls, so I grabbed my tripod and lenses and spend a couple hours taking photos on campus. I then thought I should take some pictures in Vancouver so I headed downtown to take photographs of the mountains.

On the way as I was passing Kitsilano Beach Park, I got off the bus for some spontaneous pictures. The park was busier than I expected as many families were taking a walk around enjoying the Christmas day weather.



16-35mm lens, 10mm, f/25, 1/20, ISO 800

Once downtown on Christmas Day, I decided to travel to West Vancouver using the seabus from the Vancouver Harbourfront. On the trip back to Vancouver, as it started to get darker, I took photos just before we arrived back at the harbour. This one taken at 4:37pm shows a beautiful view of the city. The sky was darker than visible in the picture. The higher ISO (800) provided a lighter sky which complemented the exquisite reflection on the water.

Relevance: Sharing my love of photography

Jailhouse EP by hayfa makes music

Last Thursday, I was asked by Hayfa of hayfa makes music to photograph her EP Release party. It was a privilege to do and I learned alot from the experience about lighting, proper exposure, and in general what is needed to correctly photograph a concert.

alexandra taub – hayfa makes music – jailhouse EP release party

As it was the first time I was trying out a new lens (50mm 1.4 USM), it was an adjustment to get a feel for the types of pictures I could take as well as determine the limits of the lens based on my environment. I know what I will do differently next time and look forward to the next opportunity to shoot an indoor concert.

Photography is a learning experience and I am always looking to improve through advice from others and from photo-taking. You can view the pictures in a Flickr set here.

Hayfa Abichahine – hayfa makes music – jailhouse EP release party

Relevance: I enjoy photography and learned alot from this experience. Can’t wait to do it again.