the darkerside to rants

Every year people meet at the Vancouver Art Gallery and start smoking up to celebrate Pot and all it means to them.

Of course I was there this year, you can find a photo gallery on Flickr.

Or you can watch a slideshow I set up below the fold (on a variety of different hosting platforms).

This, btw, is my favourite shot I took:

Now, light up and enjoy the show:

Of course you can download the file directly to your computer form blip.tv

Around 18 months ago I tried cigars for the first time and found them to my liking. Back in December I got a pipe and enjoy that too. On Thursday I tried a hookah.

Now thanks to the stupid smoking laws in Vancouver you cannot smoke them with tobacco anymore, merely with some “herbs”, and no, not the fun one either.

So what is my take on it? Interesting experience, probably healthier than pounding down a few pints and clearly more relaxed, but I am not sure that really makes it worthwhile. A “session” costs $15, each tea a buck and they aren’t licensed, so no beer with your water pipe.

Still though, it has made it interesting enough for me to consider buying one of my own and then use it with tobacco.

Anybody here got one? Opinions? Ideas?

I spent Friday afternoon / evening at the annual Hopscotch Festival in Vancouver. It is essentially a “hangout” for people who like all things liquor.

The great start came with the annual “Great Whiskey Smoke” a precursor event to the actual access to the tasting hall. You get there at around 2:30 in the afternoon then have around three hours to socialise, eat food and drink before you get access to the tasting hall itself which has more liquor and food.

The event isn’t cheap / free of course, the Whiskey Smoke ticket is ~$120 and then you have to pay for the samples that you can get there, but what it does is put a pretty amazing amount of different booze and food into a tiny space that allows you to sample quite a variety for less than it would cost to sample the same amount in a restaurant or bar.

I have a photoset here from the event.

This is a photo that “made itself” so to speak. After I posted the shot on flickr a few people commented that they had “seen it” but apparently nobody had taken it. Funny how that goes eh?

The interesting thing for me in the shot was the light as well as the way the modern architecture of the building I was in (a Chapters) contrasted with the Hotel Vancouver (to the left) and the Vancouver Art Gallery (to the center right).

This photo proofs again that you need to be at the right time at the right place with the right light to make a photo really work.

It’s all about the timing and the light….

This photo is wonderfully representing Vancouver, people having their nose in their laptops, sitting side by side. Okay, not quite fair I guess, but it does make the point.

I have to wonder if the writer of that headline even for one second wondered about the double meaning? I walked past by at first, then my brain kicked in and I went back and read the thing.

Seriously, no one double checked these flyers???

Lately several people mentioned to me (independently) that my shots reminded them of Fred Herzog. I hadn’t really known anything off / about him but to my surprise I just realized he was born in Stuttgart as well and came to Vancouver via Montreal (back then the port of entry into Canada for many as today is Toronto) and Toronto.

I don’t know if I am really “like” him in my style, though I think we have similar interests: Life. But am I really that different from all the other “Street Photographers”?