Wedding! August 2023

Gallery (30 images): Wedding!

Yes indeed, I am now married to my incredible, lovely partner, Emily Min! We met in January of 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Had we met even a few weeks later, things may have turned out differently as the world shut down and everyone started social distancing, but timing was just in our favour and we stayed together during COVID. Emily is the most kind, caring and conscientious person I have ever met, and I consider myself extremely lucky to have met her when I did. She works as an art conservator and I was (and still am) astounded that she can repair and restore a damaged piece of artwork just as seamlessly (or more so) than what I can do for an image in Photoshop. Her skills are amazing.

In December of 2022, I proposed to Emily and to my delight she accepted, and in early August of 2023 we got married. The above linked image gallery is a small subset of our wedding photos, which were taken by my good friend Ted Marshall. My father George Mander, who is 92, hybridizes roses and he provided some his own roses for each table at the reception, and a bunch for our sweetheart table as well. A few of the roses can can be seen in photos 27 and 28 in the gallery.

We had about 55 guests at our wedding, which took place at the Celebration Pavilion in Queen Elizabeth Park, and the reception after was at the park restaurant, Seasons in the Park. A shout out to the incredible service and delicious food at Seasons which helped make our wedding day perfect. Another shout out to the bakery that made the amazing wedding cakes for us, Cadeaux Bakery. We asked if they could decorate the cakes with roses and mimic the colouration of one of my dad's own varieties, and we feel they did a tremendous job as can be seen in photo 27! Note that to respect the privacy of our guests and their families, I am not posting any of the many images which included them, other than a handful with my father and Emily's parents, and one with Emily's brother.

At the start of the reception, Emily and I donned traditional Korean wedding attire to perform the Korean Paebaek Ceremony (a link here which has a good overview), and there a number of shots in the gallery of that. One aspect of the ceremony is for the groom to give the bride a piggyback ride, signifying his strength in being able to support her in the future. That was a lot of fun, as was the entire Paebaek Ceremony, and everyone enjoyed the colourful outfits and spectacle!

Snowbirds and Fireworks

Gallery (50 images): Snowbirds and Fireworks

On Wednesday August 1st, I was at Hadden Park in the evening for the Canadian Forces Snowbirds aerobatic team's display over Vancouver. During some formations, the jets are well under two meters apart at the wingtips, which is very impressive to see indeed. Later that evening, at 10pm, there was one of the annual Celebration of Light fireworks displays, featuring Team Sweden, and I was up on the Burrard Bridge to photograph that. The linked gallery has images from both events...

Canada 150: Fireworks in New Westminster

Gallery (25 images): Canada 150 Fireworks in New Westminster

Canada celebrated 150 years as an integrated nation this year, with July 1, 1867, being the day that the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were united into a single dominion of the British Empire. Note that Canada did not become fully independent until the Constitution Act of 1982 was passed!

Avoiding the huge crowds in and around downtown Vancouver, I met up with a few friends in New Westminster, to observe the Canada 150 celebration there. There were fireworks scheduled just in front of the River Market at Westminster Quay, and when we arrived early to find a spot to setup our cameras, the fireworks barge was still docked and being set up at the edge of the Fraser River - see photo #1 in the gallery. I called out and asked where the barge would be, and was told "... in the middle of the Fraser, about 100 meters west..." so we setup in a spot where we thought the fireworks would be visible to the right of the Inn at the Quay - photo #2. Well, much to my dismay, they towed the barge more like 600 meters to the west, thus totally messing with our intended composition. By the time the barge was stationary in the river, being kept on station with a tugboat on either end, there was not enough time to try and find another spot where we could incorporate the fireworks into an interesting foreground. Too bad!

In the gallery, the images that are wide, 16:9 aspect ratio, were some of the nicer still frames taken during the time-lapse with my X-Pro2, where I shot with the XF 10-24mm zoom and cropped to the wider format. The other, less rectangular shots (mostly verticals) were taken with the Fujifilm GFX 50S and 63mm lens. I will be posting a review on that medium format digital camera at some point in the future as well.

Following is a simple time-lapse I mentioned. Click on the image below to open the video (1080p - 13MB download) in a new window or tab. You can see the tugboats and barge moving back and forth, working to stay centred at more or less the same spot on the river...

Beau Photo / Fuji Guys Photo Walk - Coal Harbour

Gallery (50 photos): Beau Photo / Fuji Guys Photo Walk - Coal Harbour

Last Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous day, perfect for another Fuji Photo walk! We had nearly 30 people attending our outing at Coal Harbour in Vancouver. What made the day memorable was warm sun, clear blue skies and lots of enthusiastic photographers, many already with Fujifilm gear, but a few with other systems who were hoping to try out Fuji X-system gear.

Beau Photo sponsored the event by, firstly, sending me (haha!), but also by providing two $150 rental coupons that people can use towards further testing of Fujifilm bodies and/or lenses. Everyone who attended received a Beau/Fuji ballpoint pen, a Fujifilm X-system T-Shirt and Fujifilm also provided a few more prizes, including a travel mug and a few X-T1 bodies... oh ahem, pardon me, they were USB sticks disguised as miniature X-T1 bodies. Still, very cool for all those who attended this free event!

Above is a link to a gallery of images I shot during the day with my X-Pro2, with large 4000 pixel wide files available to download, in order to better check out the excellent quality of Fujifilm's lenses. All photos were processed fully in the latest version of Adobe Lightroom CC (2015.5 release with Camera Raw 9.5). I have found that the latest Adobe software is really working quite well with the higher megapixel sensor in the X-Pro2 and I suspect that only rarely, and mainly if making really large prints, would you see a substantial benefit from using a different raw converter like Photo Ninja or Iridient Developer. I will explore this a little more in the full X-Pro2 review I'm working on, one that, for a variety of reasons, is taking longer than anticipated...

Gallery: Grouse Mountain

Gallery (65 images): Grouse Mountain

The first day with my cousin and his wife was spent up on Grouse Mountain. The weather was overcast and grey when we first got there, and even the grizzlies seemed dejected. It was still overcast for the lumberjack show but for the "Birds in Motion" raptor show, the skies started to clear. The raptors were definitely the highlight of the day...

Gallery: Burnaby Mtn, Belcarra Park and Pitt Lake...

Gallery (25 images): Burnaby Mtn, Belcarra Park & Pitt Lake

Another few days of sightseeing with my cousin and his wife. First off, some views down onto Vancouver and up Indian Arm from Burnaby Mtn, then at Belcarra Park for sunset. After seeing some of my photos near Pitt Lake, the next day my cousin decided that he'd also like to go there and thankfully, the weather cooperated with some fairly dramatic skies too.

Gallery: Victoria, BC

Gallery (60 images): Victoria, BC

I've taken some time off from working on my previous trip images since my cousin Marco and his wife had come for a visit from Germany. Our main excursion, while they were visiting Vancouver, was to take the ferry over to Victoria and spend the day sightseeing. The gallery above contains some of my images from that outing...

Beau Photo Supplies - Fuji Photo Walk

Gallery (45 images): Beau Photo Supplies - Fuji Photo Walk

I helped host the first Beau Photo Supplies sponsored Fujifilm Photo Walk on Granville Island with one of the "Fuji Guys", Gord Webster and a local Fujifilm sales rep, Ramin Shahidian. Also from Beau Photo, Jason Kazuta (rentals) and Ken Shymka (pro sales) also helped out, answering questions and experimenting with Fujifilm gear. The gallery linked to above has shots that I took during the pleasant two hour outing, where lots of enthusiastic Fujiiflm "X-shooters" came to hang out, ask questions and borrow Fujifilm lenses and cameras to try out for the evening. A few people shooting with Canon and Nikon systems were there too, wondering if the Fujifilm system might be right for them perhaps…

Gord Webster set up a camera and triggered it remotely via WiFi for his "X-shooter" portrait of the participants above. A big "thank you" to Gord, Ramin and Fujifilm Canada for helping to organize this  event and for providing the huge number of loaner bodies and lenses that people eagerly shot with!

For the first hour or so of the walk, the skies were largely a hazy overcast, but when the sun broke through later, close to sunset, the light was quite nice…