I have been working in my spare time over the past few months to produce a trail running video with my perfect partner Kristie.  Trail running is her passion, and since imaging is mine, it made sense to do a project together.  I wanted to get out and experiment with some DSLR video since I picked up an awesome Nikon D7000.  It was a great learning experience, and we are quite proud of the result, my first start to finish DSLR HD video production.

About 30 hours of shooting, and a similar amount of editing went into producing the video.  and LOTS of running.  Well, probably not that much for Kriste because that's what she does, but lots for me, and sprinting backwards on a single track in the forest with a steady cam is NOT easy!

We experimented a lot, steady cam shots, under water shots, slider dolly shots, painters pole shots, and UAV aerial footage with a quadrocopter, and a GoPro Hero HD  (fun Toys!)  I have a whole new respect for film makers, and especially editors, and I am looking forward to growing my motion experience into a product that I can include in my product offerings.

One of the great things about living in a time of such amazing technological change (especially in the photo/film industry) is being able to try new things, step outside of your comfort zone and experiment and create.  Go out and try to make something, anything.  no matter the outcome, it will be inspirational and a learning opportunity!

Can dinner give you a creative kick in the pants?

In the winter, after business has slowed, and when the weather is crappy many of us tend to get in a creative funk (as noted eloquently a couple of years ago by Photographer Zack Arias).  Inspiration seems hard to find in the dull rainy days of  January.  My summer work is long gone, my winter ski photography season is not up to speed, and I have a lot of time to sit around the office, and worry about how I'm not getting anything productive done .

Last year was better, the Winter Olympics were here, and there was lots of cool and interesting work for an architectural photographer.  This year, not so much.  I have been spending my time working on a website re-vamp, organizing photo archives, getting offended over taxes and budgets, but not shooting, or doing anything else creative really.

But this isn't really a post about photography.  Today I'm just talking about inspiration.

I was driving home from approving some test prints from "the LAB" in Vancouver, thinking about how miserable the weather was and listening to the CBC.  About half way home a documentary piece came on the radio.  It was about the origin of pasta in Italy, recordings of Italian Mamas talking about making pasta by hand, and making fun of North American macaroni and cheese.  They were talking about making sauces, and using a few simple ingredients to create the best meals.  I'm a huge pasta fan, and soon my mouth was watering.

It reminded me of when I was in Italy a few years ago, and I had quite possibly the best restaurant meal of my life, home made Gnocchi Pomodoro.  It was simple, elegant, and delicious.  I was in a tiny restaurant, which in all fairness was actually just over the border in the Italian part of Switzerland, in a place called San Nazzaro.  This part of Switzerland pretty much is Italy, but with better chocolate for desert.  I was in a tiny, quaint little restaurant they call a "Grotto".  The place literally had 4 tables for two, that's it.  It was like eating in someones living room, and the service was like they had know you forever too.

Back to reality, I was driving a curvy mountain road in the sleet, slush and snow.  But I was inspired now, I wanted that meal again. I wanted that delicious hand made experience. I wanted some Gnocchi Pomodoro!  I have never made gnocchi pomodoro, but that wasn't going to stop me now. I pulled into the grocery store on the way home and picked up some roma tomatoes, some herbs ans spices, an onion, and some fresh but packaged gnocchi (best I could do on short notice).  By this time I was excited, I skimmed some recipes on the interweb, and got to work.

I grilled the tomatoes, chopped the spices, boiled the pasta, and assembled a very respectable and yummy replica of my great italian meal.  I queued up an episode of Mad Men (which inspires me in many ways) and felt the need to enjoy my gnocchi with a cocktail.  It was awesome.

Here's the lesson I learned:  Inspiration is everywhere.  If you are focusing to hard on trying to come up with inspiration for photography (or web design, or video, or story ideas, or anything)  you can easily miss everything else that is going on.  I didn't wake up and plan to get excited about making dinner, but it happened when I least expected it.  Today someone else's inspiration (to produce a radio piece about pasta) inspired me to try something new, and now I will apply my new experience to what I do in the future.  If you drink in the experience and passion of others, and combine it with your own you can find inspiration anywhere, even in your dinner.

Once I started cooking, my internal photographer took over, and so I have images to share.

Here is my un-authentic, but quite good recipe for...

Rustic Gnocchi Pomodoro (feeds 2)

INGREDIENTS:

• 6 - palm sized roma tomatoes
• 1 - small onion
• some - mushrooms (I used white button shrooms, but get creative)
• Basil, Oregano, Parsley - put in what you like, I like lots
• Salt and pepper
• Olive Oil
• Gnocchi (I used a package of soft fresh gnocchi I got form the grocery store, or if you are really inspired, make your own!)

GET COOKING!

1. Slice the 6 tomatoes in half and place them on a cooking sheet.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper, drizzle with Olive oil, and bake in the over at 375° for about 40 minutes.  If you find tomato seeds too bitter, take the seeds out before roasting.
2. Finely chop the onions and sweat them in a pan until they are clear
3. Finely chop the mushrooms and add them when the onions are ready (I like to add a bit of wine to de-glaze the pan, and cover to soften the onions and shrooms)
4. When your tomatoes are ready, put a pot of water on for the gnocchi, add a small handful of sea salt to the water.
5. Take the tomatoes out to the oven and carefully peel off the skins, they should com off quite easily. (careful, they're hot!)
6. Add the tomatoes and some chopped herbs, and a dash of salt and pepper to the onions and mushrooms, smash the tomatoes with a wooden spoon and simmer.
7. When you water is boiling, add the gnocchi, when it floats, it is ready
8. Strain the gnocchi and add to the pot of sauce, and stir.
9. Serve hot with some grated parm, or pecorino cheese, and some snippings of basil.
10. Enjoy with your favourite person, or beverage... or both!

Dan Phillips has built a dozen housed out of reclaimed and recycled material in Huntsville, Texas. His talk at TED covers how architectural conformity is driven by invented social expectations, and how if we can connect with our real selves, we can break conventions and create unique architecture that has a much lower impact.

While building codes may limit what can actually be done is some places, his concept of stepping outside the box of "the expectations of others" to create is what caught my attention.

On the Labour Day weekend we shot a 56 hour time lapse at the Live at Squamish Music Festival for a TV commercial for Microsoft's search engine Bing.  It is part of the Bing is Beautiful, and Bing and Decide campaigns.  Look for it during  your favourite regularly scheduled TV program.

We were responsible for shooting the time lapse sequence that runs in the background of the Bing concert commercial, plus a few of the concert shots in the "Photosynth" section of the ad.   More about how the shoot came together after the jump... Read the rest of this entry »

I came across  this video preview of some of the new content aware features of the new Photoshop CS5, which will be on it's way to us  starting about the beginning of May 2010.  If you use Photoshop for retouching you are in for a treat, check out the awesome, and insanely impressive content aware fill tools for removing objects, and filling blank spaces.  I was blown away, this is going to save me so much time!

embedded by Embedded Video

I have been subscribing to the Arch Daily Blog for quite a while now, but they went way up in my good books today when they featured the Richmond Olympic Oval, the 2010 speed skating venue, including the photos I took for Cannon Design Architecture.  Kudos to Arch Daily for featuring the amazing Richmond Oval today, on the opening day of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.Check out the Arch Daily blog post including photos by me, and other great photographers, and subscribe to their rss feed to get a little bit of architectural inspiration every day.  If you're lucky enough to be in town for the Olympics,  go and check out this incredible building, or come and visit us in Vancouver after the 2010 craziness has subsided.

It's been a surprisingly busy January for me.  I'm not complaining, busy is good, especially at this time of the year, when it's usually snoozeville around here architectural photography - wise.  With  2010 Olympic Games a few days away, believe it or not, I'm hoping for a bit of a rest.  You see, I live in Squamish, which is about exactly half way between Vancouver, and Whistler, so I pretty much have an Olympic frenzy on all sides.  That means that traffic will be chaos, and I will likely be better off staying at home to prevent a road-rage induced stroke.

I will probably spend a few days on the Olympic buses, visiting some of the Whistler Live! and Vancouver Live! venues, checking our the international pavilions and free concerts.  I can't let the party completely pass me by, but I will likely spend most of the Olympics editing the architectural photography I have been shooting over the last month.  Then, when the 2010 chaos, and fun is over, breathe a sigh of relief, and get beck to work.

Some of my recent shoots have been Olympic related, I took photos for the Ontario Pavilion, and shot some hospitality spaces for Coca-Cola.  I have also been busy with a few other cool architecture projects including Tyax Wilderness Resort, and the Bank of Montreal.  I will post some details of all of my recent shoots soon (after the images have been delivered to the clients!)  but here are a few tidbits so you can see what I have been up to recently.

Ontario House 2010 Olympic Pavilion - Hariri Pontarini Architects

Heli-Ski Chalet at Tyax Wilderness Resort

Olympic Hospitality space - Designed by Imagicorps

Bank of Montreal Vancouver - Iredale Group Architects

More Photos and some Behind the Scenes coming soon!  GO CANADA GO!!!

Now, I know I'm a bit to old to believe in Santa Claus. But,  if he does exist I certainly have to question his methods. The whole Reindeer thing seems so old school to me, archaic even. If I was running the show up at the old Pole, the afternoon of December 24th would look a little more like this!

While you hum ' The Ride Of The Valkyries' , know that I am wishing you the Happiest of Holidays, and all of the best wishes for the New Year!  Cheers!

I just came across this great little video.  Apparently some folks a Volkswagon are working on a project called The Fun Theory, trying to get people to behave differently by making their environment interactive. Project one was the "Piano Stairs" in Stockholm.  Check it out.

Aside from the fact that VW seems to have mastered the purpose built viral video, this project touches on so many other points.  Not the least of which is that our environments affect our lives.  Now, I'm not saying that we should need a piano on every set of stair to keep us from getting lazy, but an example like this supports the growing trend for Architects, and Designers to really consider how people will interact with the spaces they are creating.

I take the stairs most times. Usually (and especially in airports) it's faster because there is so much less traffic, and I don't mind the exercise. But, if these stairs were on my regular commute, I would be practicing a new tune every day so I could show off on my way to the train!  Really, this is public art, but it's presented integrated into the architecture. Another great example of art meets architecture that engages the public is Cloud Gate, more commonly known as the 'Chicago Bean'.

Obviously the piano stairs were designed as marketing for VW, but while looking for an idea that would be interesting enough to go viral, they hit on a vital concept: We are connected to the places, things, and people around us. If those relationships can improve our lives and experiences, even better. So, take a look around you.

I'm not usually prone to linking to corporate advertising, but VW's 'The Fun Theory' has earned this one. Here's the link so you can follow along.  thefuntheory.com

This TED video in an interesting perspective on "Behind the Scenes" photography. Taryn Simon spends most of her time trying to get permission, and access to photograph the places that you and I will never see.  In this presentation, she shows and explains the photographs from some of her post 9-11 shoots.

Taryn strikes a emotional and provocative chord whit her images.  What do we really know about the world around us?