There have been almost 200 weekly photo roundups published on Miss604.com, over 46,000 photos shared with the Miss604 Flickr Pool, and over 11,000 photos shared with the #Photos604 tag Instagram. Residents and visitors alike love to capture our city and celebrate its poignant street scenes, beautiful landscapes, and memorable landmarks.
I enlisted talented local photographer Clayton Perry to help me share some tips for capturing some of the most popular types of photos we see of our fair city. This is the first post in a three-part “How to Photograph Vancouver” series sponsored by London Drugs.
Winter Skyline
Where was this photo taken?
From Hadden Park near the Museum of Vancouver.
What is the best time of day to shoot an image like this?
I took this shot on a cold winter morning after some snow had fallen on the mountains overnight. It doesn’t take long for the snow to melt off the trees so you need to get out there early before the snow melts and the sun is still shining.
Is any extra equipment needed? (Tri-pod, flashes, etc.?)
I did not use any extra equipment on this shot but this is a 4-image panorama that I stitched together with Photoshop.
Do you have a top tip for getting an image like this?
My top tip for getting this shot is two-fold:
1) Get up early.
2) Dress warm. These sunny, cold, crisp winter days are great for skyline shooting.
About The Photographer
Vancouver-based photographer Clayton Perry was born on Vancouver Island and moved to the lower mainland in the late 1960s. He spent most of his childhood summers either in Sproat Lake near Port Alberni, Lake Okanagan while vacationing in Penticton, Victoria BC or his hometown of Richmond, British Columbia. He developed his skills around BC slowly developing a massive database consisting of over 45,000 images on Flickr alone. His passion lies in taking landscape and city images. Follow Clayton on Facebook and Twitter for more of his photography.
The 19th annual Eastside Culture Crawl will showcase 457 artists over 4 days in 83 buildings and hopefully you will be one of the 25,000 visitors who check out the work of local painters, sculptors, potters, photographers, glassblowers, and furniture designers.
Eastside Culture Crawl
There is no admission fee. The Crawl opens a door to the studios, homes, garages, and creative hideaways in the area bounded by Columbia Street to Victoria Drive, and north of 1st Avenue to the waterfront. Added to this year’s exciting line-up is a series of new, intimate workshops and demonstrations in glass blowing, wood carving, and Jacquard Loom weaving.
Thursday, November 19, 2015 from 5:00pm to 10:00pm
Friday, November 20, 2015 from 5:00pm to 10:00pm
Saturday, November 21, 2015 from 11:00am to 6:00pm
Sunday, November 22, 2015 from 11:00am to 6:00pm
Win an Eastside Culture Crawl Gift Basket
Thanks to Eastside Culture Crawl Gold Sponsor, DeSerres, I have a gift basket (valued at $300) filled with art supplies to give away. This prize is ideal for the amateur or professional art enthusiast and features a selection of art supplies such as paints, brushes, canvases, and more!
Here’s how you can enter to win:
Leave a comment naming an Eastside Culture Crawl artist (1 entry)
Post the following on Twitter (1 entry)
RT to enter to win a $300 @CultureCrawl @deserres art gift basket from @Miss604 http://ow.ly/UuOwa
I will draw one winner at random from all entries at 12:00pm on Sunday, November 15, 2015. Follow the Eastside Culture Crawl on Twitter and Facebook for more information.
Vancouver’s Beauty Night Society is a non-profit organization in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside that is committed to bettering the self-esteem, image, and lives of women living in poverty. In their 15 years in service, they have given over 50,000 life-makeovers and that work continues this season.
Fill a Stocking for Beauty Night
In addition to Beauty Night’s regular programs, which run 4 nights a week, they hand out holiday stockings — and they’re hoping to fill and distribute 1500 this year. These stockings are to be sewn, decorated, filled, and delivered to impoverished women and youth in Metro Vancouver.
Volunteers can pick up fabric to sew and decorate the stockings, one of which is local fashion designer Nancy Perreault, then the Carrie Wheeler Entertainment Group’s team fills the stockings. Deliveries are made by volunteers dressed as elves who hand out the stockings at shelters, transition homes, housing locations, drop in centres, health care facilities.
Stationary
Body Care Products
Nail Care Products
Dental Care Items
Skin Care Products
Hair Care Products
Makeup Samples
Where to Donate These Items
Donations can be dropped off before November 25, 2015 at:
Vital Health 1855 West 4th Avenue, Vancouver, BC
Breizh Salon Services (3rd and Main), Vancouver, BC
Eastside Fitness 5854 Fraser Street, Vancouver, BC
Forever Yours Lingerie, 20460 Fraser Hwy, Langley, BC
You can start a product drive at work, throw a stocking-filling event, ask for donations from suppliers (like an extra toothbrush from your dentist, or products from your local salon). Follow Beauty Night on Twitter and Facebook for much more information and to see how you can help this season.
Since 1975, the Surrey Art Gallery has featured art from local, national, and international artists. Now in its 40th year, the gallery has been focusing on the city itself and the talented creative people, born-and-raised and from around the world, who call it home.
Surrey Art Gallery’s 40th Anniversary
Throughout the past 40 years, there are been over 750 exhibitions at the Surrey Art Gallery and 10,000 artists have been featured. I took a trip to my hometown last week to visit with Jordan Strom, Curator of Exhibitions and Collections, who led me through “Views from the Southbank III“, which has brought together over 20 artists South of the Fraser River who respond to our digital age in varying ways.
Photo credit: Edward Westerhuis
“It’s art from where we are,” Jordan told me as we stepped into the main gallery space that seemed to be teeming with life thanks to its mixed-media pieces on display. Videos, audio, photographs, and sculptures provided movement in this living space that represented living in Surrey. Infographics, GPS-mapping, video games, textiles, wood carving, ceramics, Jordan says “all depict the city as people who live here see it,” and in particular how we see it in a data structured world.
The paintings of power lines and railroad tracks, the views of the Pattullo, farms, forests, and representations of mixing cultures all remind me of my hometown. The gallery reassures me that I don’t need to head out of town to find inspiring and thought-provoking art.
Sylvia Grace Borda’s Google Street View immersive digital media art project was created in collaboration with Google Street View photographer John Lynch. Debbie Tuepah’s poured-and-peeled paint sculpture graphs all of the languages spoken in Surrey. Ben Reeves found the location for his paintings by literally throwing a dart at a map and trekking to that location to paint the view he sees from his car steering wheel.
Another exhibit in an adjacent gallery is “Re:Source – A Living Archive 1975-2015“, the 4th phase in an exhibition that began in September. Here you can discover 40 years of exhibitions with photos, commentary, and critiques. You can visit these exhibitions, and more, until December 13th at the Surrey Art Gallery, located in the Surrey Arts Centre at the entrance to Bear Creek Park (13750 88th Ave).
What: Contemporary Art Bus Tour Where: Starting from the Surrey Art Gallery When: Wednesday, November 18, 2015 from 9:00am to 3:00pm
What: Surrey Tree Lighting Festival Art Gallery Booth Where: Surrey City Hall Plaza (13450 104th Ave) When: Saturday, November 21, 2015 from 12:00pm to 8:00
The City of Surrey’s annual Tree Lighting Festival is coming up on Saturday, November 21st featuring free family fun and entertainment all day long at the Central City and City Hall plazas.
Watch and enjoy special guests and performers such as Top Line Vocal Collective, the Kwantlen Glee Club, Eli Williams & The Memphis Sound, Queen Elsa & Anna, and more including Andrew Allen who will be playing multiple stages as two different acts.
BC’s Andrew Allen has landed three Top 10 hits in Canada: 2009′s “I Wanna Be Your Christmas”, 2011’s “I Want You” and his biggest single released in 2010 “Loving You Tonight”. The latter was on the charts for more than 22 weeks and broke the US Top 30 while gaining over 4 million views on YouTube. He’ll be playing the City Hall Plaza Main Stage (at 3:00pm) as well as inside City Hall later in the day, as Hudson Station (at 5:00pm) at the Surrey Tree Lighting Festival.
“It’s a really fun duo,” Andrew told me over the phone earlier this week. He and Cole Friesen, with whom he has been touring and performing with for years, formed Hudson Station last year in order to write and play songs with a heavier folk influence than you’d hear simply from Andrew Allen.
“Cole plays the guitar, I play the guitar, we both sing, and I play kick drum with my foot, he plays tambourine with his foot and they’re just really fun folk songs that I think people will really relate to.”
It’s a busy time of year for Andrew Allen (as himself and Hudson Station) as his Christmas single from 2009 has had a lasting impact. He’s preparing for his 4th annual “All Hearts Come Home” concert in Vernon (December 12th) as well as a Christmas showcase in Vancouver (December 4th), and of course you can get a holiday preview performance at the Surrey Tree Lighting Festival on November 21st.
“I like all the stuff around Christmas,” Andrew admits, however he can do without the hustle and bustle. It’s the sleigh rides, theatre productions, markets, that gets him in the holiday spirit. “The getting together, the parties, hanging out with people, that’s my favourite.”
What: Surrey Tree Lighting Festival Where: The Plaza at New City Hall and Atrium (13450 104th Ave, Surrey) When: Saturday, November 21, 2015 from 12:00pm to 7:00pm. The tree will be lit at 6:30pm. The stags at Central City will be lit at 4:15pm.
In addition to Beauty Night’s regular programs, which run 4 nights a week, they hand out holiday stockings — and they’re hoping to 
