I’m up here to visit my favorite (and only!) cousins on my moms side, but between visiting time they are graciously driving me all over town to see everything, and so far I’ve seen: the ice road (SO cool); a man dogsledding; a man kite skiing (FYI i saw all of that while driving on the ice road); a FOX and the highest point in the city (pretty but not overly impressive if you’re from Vancouver). They also took me on a snow mobile ride across a frozen lake where we tobogganed and made a fire (I contributed one piece of cardboard to that fire). I am having the best time! Last thing on my list is to see the northern lights but so far no dice…

I have learned a couple of very important things while up here in the north and I feel I should share them just in case any of you decide to visit one day:

1. You can’t just quickly run outside in your normal clothes- you might die.

2. Bring a real camera not an iPhone because if you leave your mittens off for more than a few seconds your hands will hurt like never before and will probably lose them.

3. Most of the time it looks like dusk or night. Enjoy day while you can.

4. Don’t try and be fashionable when you go outside- don’t leave your parka open a little so your scarf looks cooler or insist on not wearing a touque so you don’t mess up your hair. Trust me just DON’T.

5. Coke in a can outside turns to slush and then ice AND your tongue gets stuck to the can.

And finally:
6. Marshmallows taste different when roasted and eaten in the cold. They taste better!

Here are a few instagrams from the trip…

-Erin

We’ve finished up shoots until new years so we just wanted to wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! If you don’t already know, Erin and I are complete Christmas nuts! We love every part of it. We love the crowds, the hot chocolate, the food, the lights, the movies, the time with family… but most of all, we love celebrating the true meaning of Christmas.

We hope you have a very Merry Christmas! We’ll be back with some new posts and new films after the holidays.

Early wednesday morning we headed out with my sister and brother in law. Driving from Surrey to Red Deer is about an 11 hour drive so needless to say we had to find ways to entertain ourselves while on the road. For me, one of those ways was by taking a few snapshots and shooting some video. You can view a little brief video along with a ‘techy stuff’ blurb at the bottom of the post. We made a few stops along the way and one of them was to Lake Louis. We really wanted to see this gorgeous lake, but also my bro-in-law Steve and I really wanted to watch the Stanley Cup Final and we knew we had some family staying at the Fairmont Hotel. So we crashed there room and watched the game. After the disappointing game we got back on the road.
I’ve known Drew my whole life. Besides being cousins, we’ve been extremely close friends and even roommates. I’m the youngest and he is the third youngest out of our huge batch of cousins so naturally we were pretty close growing up. We have always been in to the same music and are even in a band together. It’s rare that Erin and I get to attend weddings, let alone one of us be in the bridal party. We had so much fun enjoying the festivities and living it up in Red Deer. It was so awesome to see him and Danielle tie the knot and I can’t wait to hang out with them as a married couple.

||TECHY STUFF||

Here is the little video I shot on the road trip. Please pardon the shaky cam… didn’t have the monopod with me. I put this together mainly to test out the new Final Cut Pro X. Great system but not quite there yet. Hopefully Apple will listen to their pro users and implement changes in future software updates. One thing that is an absolute game changer for me is skimming to preview clips. Huge time saver. I also wanted to test out our new iMac. We’ve been wanting to upgrade for a while from our 2006 Mac Pro but we wanted to wait for Apple to release there updated iMac. The second I saw that it was available I put my order in. The specs are…
27 inch iMac
3.4 GHz Intel Core i7
16 GM RAM
250 GB SSD & 2 TB HDD
This is an amazingly powerful machine. The SSD is a huge performance boost, along with the i7 chip. Our processing and editing times are drastically improved. This tool will be a huge help in this years weddings.

We went to the big island and stayed there for 12 days. Most days consisted of a lot of relaxing, walking in to town, driving to Hapuna beach, reading and maybe a movie. Of course we couldn’t travel all the way to hawaii and not bring a camera along… so check out the brief video below of a typical day in the life of our time in Hawaii.

Be sure to check back soon for a full blog post on our wedding :)

PS Check out Jamie’s post to see photos of the DVD sleeve!

Once I arrived at the beach I was surprised to see not a soul was around. I thought for sure there would be some early risers who like to get a jog in before work but nope, not-a-one. This got me pretty excited so I started to shoot. I was armed with a 5D, some primes (35 f1.4, 50 f1.2, 135 f2), a monopod and a slider. I just started walking and taking in the beauty. It was one of the most gorgeous BC mornings I had ever seen. I’ve lived here for most of my life and I was still astounded by the breathtaking sights. As the sun came out it got quite windy which made it a little tricky to stay perfectly still on the monopod but I got by. The 135 performed beautifully. The bokeh is amazing and I’m really excited to use it during a wedding shoot this weekend. Check out the montage below.

Erin and I are incredibly excited to finally kick off our married life together. We’ve found a place that we’ll be moving into soon and we’re having an amazing time getting ready for this next season. Erin’s also going to start hopping on the blog so keep your eye out for that.

One of the questions we are constantly asked is “Who is going to film your wedding?”. We realize that filming ourselves could prove difficult but don’t you worry… we’ve got it figured out and we’ll definitely be posting our highlights on the blog.

So on a random note… how are you? Good I trust. See any good movies lately? Thoughts on the Oscars? We’d love to hear your feedback on our blog. What you like about it, what you don’t and what you’d like to see. Should we do some video blogs? Should we do a sort of “Question of the Week” feature? Feel free to let us know.

If you need some inspiration in the form of music… I’d suggest checking out “Build a Rocket Boys!” by Elbow. I’ve been eagerly anticipating this new album and it doesn’t disappoint. Get into it!

PS Here is the view from our reception venue… not bad.

So to cap off 2010 I thought I’d do a fun blog post of some of my favourites things in 2010. Random movies, books, tv etc. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what your favs are!

Movies: (Being a film school snob it was really hard to narrow this down but here it goes.)

1. Scott Pilgrim VS. The World – This little gem did terrible in the box office but is an incredible film. You should see it asap.
2. The Social Network – Fincher at his best.
3. True Grit – The Coen brothers do it again. Simple and engaging.
4. Harry Potter – I’m a super geek when it comes to the books so it’s a must.
5. Black Swan – Mind bender

Albums:

1. Arcade Fire – Suburbs
2. Tokyo Police Club – Champ
3. Broken Social Scene – Forgiveness Rock Record

Books:

1. American On Purpose – Craig Ferguson
2. When I Stop Talking You’ll Know I’m Dead – Jerry Weintraub
3. Rebel Without a Crew – Robert Rodriguez

Websites:

1. www.vimeo.com – amazing community of filmmakers
2. www.berrics.com – skateboarding through and through
3. www.slashfilm.com – for all of your film geek news

TV:

1. Community – Incredibly hilarious and self aware.
2. 30 Rock – Classic
3. How I Met Your Mother – Single handedly keeping the traditional sitcom form alive. Hilarious!

ok and I need to let my techy geek side show for a moment…

Gear:

1. Canon 5D MKII – full frame glory
2. iPhone 4 – huge leap forward
3. Canon 50mm 1.2 – beautiful

Apps:

1. Pano – Shoots really cool panoramic photos
2. 8mm – Awesome super 8 mm camera filters
3. Instagram – Vintage toned camera phone

Secondly I’ve been going none stop lately! I’ve taken on a handful of off season none wedding related projects and I haven’t had much time to rest. I think I’m juggling about 6 projects but I’m really enjoying all of them. The wedding season is fast approaching and I couldn’t be more excited! Especially because I get to kick off the season with a wedding in Texas! So fun! Below is a quick iPhone snapshot of the camera’s POV while shooting an interview for one of my projects.

PS… current jam I’ve been listening to… “New Theory” by Washed Out

So as you all know the Olympics are going on right now in my fare city and it’s been incredibly exciting. I’ve gone downtown a couple of times and the energy is amazing! The crowds are bonkers! A few days ago I had the opportunity to head up to Whistler. It was so awesome to just be up there and be in the thick of it all. Below are a couple of iPhone snap shots.

Soon I’ll be posting some more videos. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of shooting for a handful of clients and I’ll be posting about it as soon as I can. Also the upcoming wedding season is filling up fast and even the 2011 season so if you’re getting married soon drop us an email!

PS The Oscars are coming up… if you haven’t seen The Hurt Locker yet… do it now!