Photo by Tony Wang | Molly, Lisa, Justine, Sarah, Amber & Leo.

I had the pleasure of meeting some amazing and talented ladies at last week’s New Media Expo. It was weird how we just all happened to wander on TWiT Live at the same time. I think we were lured there by the heaps of tasty brain toniq, TWiT tees & Leo’s mega-watt smile.

Photo by PHP Princess

Amber MacArthur, Sarah Austin, Molly Lynn & I had a great discussion on women in media, edited vs. unedited content & live streaming, trolls, and something I call the “blogging bikini factor”. Shameless? Yes. Quadruples your daily uniques? Definitely. But I wouldn’t know anything about that. At. All.

Photo by PHP Princess

If you missed the media babe exponanza on TWiT live, you should download #63 net@night podcast with Amber MacArthur. There are also other fantastic interviews with the uber Felicia Day and Scobleizer.

In the game of life, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. It’s all about what kind of stakes are involved. You could lose, like, $5 or your, like, your kidney, both are a tough pill to swallow. …I wonder what kind of steak & kidney pie I could get for $5? Probably not a very good one… It’s kind of weird when the title of a dish of food mentions the animal organ it comes from… Ahh… I digress.

Tomorrow, I will be heading off to Las Vegas with Team Viddler for the New Media Expo. I’m really excited about hanging out with Viddler, the cool people that created my favourite video platform, and meeting loads of uber media people.

I need to catch some serious zzzs tonight as I will need my stamina during the shenanigans iJustine, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Sarah of Pop17 will inevitably get up to.

Follow me on twitter, viddler, flickr and the official NME site.

Is anyone else going to the New Media Expo? Hope to see you there!

PS If you know some awesome/cool/fun amazing things I should do whilst in Vegas, gimme a shout below.

I’ve been photographing Jessie Farrell and her band for almost 2 years now. Taking pictures of Jessie was how I first got into photography. I started taking pictures at gigs, her first music video (in which I made a brief cameo as a pink hatted fiddler), her big CD release, and all the moments in between & that time we went to Jamaica (that was weird that we went there).

I was so tentative and unsure of my ability at first because I didn’t know anything about photography or dSLRs in general, let alone the technical skills required to take that money shot. When I look at my old shots, I’m so embarrassed at the settings I used. But that’s how I learnt, by experimenting with settings, taking thousands of shots, and basically falling in love with the process of taking photographs. That’s what I love. Just hanging back behind the scenes and capturing subtle candid moments of people, animals, even nature. I rarely, if ever, leave my apartment without my camera. It’s basically a part of me. Gosh, this is beginning to sound sappy. Uh. Brief pause… and resume…

I almost never get to see Jessie Farrell et al. perform live, because they are on the road so much in far off Canadian places, so I was really excited to catch their performance at Festival 150 in Victoria, BC. This might be the reason I took 1000 or so photos. Eek, I know. My Air is gasping for… well.. air.

Kylee Epp.

I also blame the Canon 70-200mm IS f/2.8 lens I rented again. It has such a delicious sweet spot that makes me swoon when I hit it. Wait. That sounded bad. I’m not sexualizing photography… Ever. Stop. I’m blushing. Actually, I’m just super sunburnt because I literally have the skin tone of a sickly vampire who spends all day & night on a computer like IMing and pirating shizz.

Anyway, I supposed to be taking a little break from my blog and the computer this week, as I’ve totally done in my neck. My computer over-use injury is back with a vengence.

Ok. Ok. I’m getting off the computer now… Don’t be mad.

Jessie was recently nominated for 7 Canadian Country Music Awards, including Best Female Artist, Album, Song, Songwriter of the Year & Best Selling Album. She is also nominated for Fan’s Choice award so if you are a fan, Vote for Jessie here. Additionally, 3 of her band members were nominated for the best performers in their categories: Ryland Haggis for Bass Player of the Year; Jesse Tucker for guitar player of the year; and Jesse Godin for drummer of the year.

Ryland Haggis.

Jessie Godin.

L-R: Jesse Tucker, Kylee Epp, Jessie Farrell, Jesse Godin, Ryland Haggis.

I’m currently in negotiations with them to start my throw-back 80s, futurist/emo/punk/rock/folk/singer/songwriter band. It’s a real mix of genres, but I’m covering them all to please that fickle, yet predictable the Gen “i”.

1-2-3-4, I’m seeing Feist tomorrow! Who’s coming?

And my question to photographers and blossoming photogs:

How did you get into photography? What or who was your muse?

… usual hi-jinks ensue. Those Brits sure know how to make some sweet rides. Nemesis was definitely the big daddy, with Oblivion close behind. I’m glad I ate my huge portion of Fish and Chips after riding the big guns. Though my stomach was no so stoked about the combination of mushy peas and the hardcore Nutty Squirrel ride.

Oh & check out my Alton Towers Flickr photo set.

PS. I used almost every iLife iMovie packaged tune in the making of this vid. I hope I used alll your favs. Hoorah for Roller Derby!

PPS. Still dusting and tweaking a few things on ze blog at the moment. Pasquale helped me switched hosts to Media Temple (mt), did a clean install of WP, and de-widgetize my sidebar. Holla at me if you notice any 404s, missing links, etc.. And I apologize if your comment was deleted. I lost a few in the transfer. Let’s hug it out

Just arrived back home to beautiful sunny Vancouver. I rarely blog about the weather, but maaaaaan it was cold, rainy, cloudy and nothing like summer in England. You get sun for 5 mins, just start to relax, then boom! ominous cloud and rain! I’m writing an angry note to the Queen!

So I still not in possession of an iPhone. I seriously can’t believe that I could not find a 16GB in England. They were all sold out everywhere and there were massive wait lists just to get on a list to get an iPhone. You gotta respekt apple for the incredible hype power they have.

I’ll probably wake up tomorrow, walk out of my house, and find they are selling iPhones at the corner store. Oh cruel fate!

PS. I promise a non iPhone related post asap. Just gotta get through the multitude of photos and videos and biscuits i bought.

PPS. I got totally pulled over AND interrogated for 1 hour at customs in Vancouver because they didn’t believe that:

1. I was a photographer;
2. I’d stayed so few days in the UK without some ulterior motive like, say, drug running;
3. I traveled so much in the UK (London - Cambridge - Bury St. Edmunds - Leeds - Derbyshire (Alton Towers!!!) and back;
4. The MacBook Air was so small;
5. Someone could spend $50 on biscuits (I reckon they’ve never been in Marks & Spencer);
6. I had not laced said biscuits with Narcotics.

Note to self: Next time lie about the biscuits.

I felt like my blog was getting a leedle to intense and serious, so I thought I’d bust out a sweet silly vid of Justine and I frolicking from or MacBreak taping at Pixel Corps to the SF Apple Store just around the corner.

As you can tell from the video, Justine and I totally don’t get along. She even yelled at me for eating her left-over Starbucks’ chicken pesto salad and wouldn’t lend me any floss when I got green junk stuck in my teeth for most of the day.

Check out some flickr’d snaps of my time at Pixel Corps’ HQ.

Also, head on over to Mr. Adobe Frederick Van’s blog for a sweet interview with me about my photography and some photos he shot of during an impromptu TWiP photo shoot. Scott Bourne also took a neat B&W shot of me.

PS. If you are a TWiP follower or photographer send out a shout and a flickr link so I can check out your awesome photographs.

PPS. Any ideas for my next meet-up with Justine? Accent off? Dingo chase? Flip Stack?

I finally got round to flickring my photos of Chichen Itza, the “large pre-Columbian archaeological site built by the Maya civilization located in the northern center of the Yucatán Peninsula, in the Yucatán state, present-day Mexico” says Wikipedia. Now, I’ll look it up in my $150 university art history book to make sure that’s right (the very same one that I took for light reading on my first trip to England to seem “cultured”.)

Oh wow. I’m actually reading a book. It feels weird and unnatural. I can’t scroll. Ack! I have to turn these big heavy pages. Ug. So apparently Chichen Itza means “at the mouth of the well of the Itza”, and has nothing to do with the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but rhymes nicely with pizza. Hmm… there are only 3 paragraphs about Chichen Itza in this 1167 page book! What a jerk! I guess we will just have to rely on the web as our guide to this weird and wacky Mayan world.

The massive and awe-inspiring Mesoamerican pyramid in the middle of the site is called el Castillo or the Temple of Kukulkan.

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Photo by my mum Jane Bettany.

My last trip to the Mayan Riviera marked my sixth trip to Mexico. Every time I am in Mexico, I am always warmed by the beauty, kindness, and generosity of the people. Here are a few pictures of people I met, or passed by that I captured in Akumal and Tulum.

I saw a small school and library from the road and walked into the courtyard. I saw this tiny boy playing with blocks in front of a bright blue wall with an aquarium mural. I was just able to grab this shot before he ran off.

She was soooo shy and I had to pester her for quite a while for her to allow me to take a photo of her. But she was still so shy and giggling, so I quickly snapped this candid while she looked away.

nomnomnom these kids were shucking these coconuts so quickly with their teeth!

Super fantastic Hollywood tribute show at the Grand Sirenis Resort where I was staying. It was almost as fun as the sweet Pixar themed blacklight show they put on the next night.

There is a lot of development going on in the Mayan Riviera down near Tulum. i really hope they don’t develop too much. It would be such a shame to destroy the natural beauty of this area. These construction workers were not really thrilled at me taking pictures of them. A leedle bit of attitude.

En español:
Mi último viaje a la Riviera Maya marcado mi sexto viaje a Mexico. Cada vez que estoy en Mexico, siempre me ha calentado por la belleza, bondad y generosidad del pueblo. Aquí están algunas fotos de gente que conocí, o pasado de que me capturaron.