I was just over at Rebecca’s blog reading about “Free Hug Day” in Vancouver. I think it’s a great idea, and I feel like I really need to do my part to help out. So, for tomorrow only, I’d like to encourage all single girls to come up and give me a hug. I’ve been told I’m quite huggable, and it’s the least I can do to help out with this great Vancouver event. Photo by Rebecca Bollwitt I mean come on, who wouldn’t want to hug the guy on the tractor? ...

A few people convinced me to finally ante up and get a house keeper, since a) my place is usually messy and b) I don’t really have much time to spend cleaning. She’s in the bathroom right now, and she stepped out for a brief second to say: “wow, you’re pretty messy eh?” with a cute smile. I think I can get used to having cute girls come to my place every few weeks and clean. Thankfully my place is going to be (and stay) spotless after all this. One girl came on Friday to clean the living room and kitchen, but ran out of time before finishing it all off (due to a prior constraint). So, ...

Ok, this is a quick entry on something I’ve been meaning to write about for some time – tipping. For some reason, it seems like more and more places I visit now are introducing “tipping” into the system. In particular, a lot of interact machines I encounter are starting to show “please enter tip amount.” In the old days, you’d usually encountered a “Tip: Yes/No” question first, but I’ve seen the former more and more lately, and it’s starting to piss me off. You see, I don’t think you should tip if you’re buying something across the counter. A good example is Fritz on ...

I told myself before the upcoming wedding that I have to shoot that I would buy what will probably be my last lens for a while, Canon’s EF 24-70 f/2.8L lens. I have a wide angle in my kit, and a medium telephoto (although mine is currently being repaired, it is absolutely great for flattering portraits), and a fixed 50mm prime lens. However, everything in my kit is fairly special purpose, which means I sort of have to know what I am shooting before hand and make sure I have the right lens on. Canon’s best all-purpose zoom lens is the 24-70 f/2.8L. It’s from their professional series line, ...

I added my night time shot of the Burrard Street Bridge to the gallery. And also another shot of the city from the Harbour Center (which is one of my favourite shots if I were to put it on my wall). ...

Well, I’ve had a few sales on the photography website already, so thanks everyone for plugging it — I really appreciate it. I’m going to canvas a few stores this weekend and see if I can get some of my stuff into the local markets. I’ve been racking my brain for a few out of the box ideas, so hopefully I’ll be able to take the marketing a bit further. I’d like to get some of my work nicely framed and visible in a few areas with high traffic. If anyone has any friends or know of any businesses that wouldn’t mind a few photos on the wall, let me know! For those of you expecting free ...

I purchased my current digital SLR in December of 2004. It is a pretty decent 8.2MP SLR from Canon’s prosumer line, which is sort of the cross over from the consumer to the professional lines. It’s a really awesome camera, and it’s been great to learn on. That being said, technology has continued to improve over the last few years, and my camera is becoming more and more out of date. The main problem (if you can call it that), is that my camera has a 1.6X crop factor. What that means is that the CMOS sensor inside is smaller that the size of a 35mm film, so part of the image falls on the ...

One of the first things I wanted to do after getting back from my vacation was to finally put together an online place for people to buy a few prints of some of my better shots. I’m not entirely sure I’ll make a dime, but lots of people have asked me if I sold some of my city shots, so now I can finally say that I do. If you want to check some of them out, you can check out photography.duanestorey.com. If you have a blog and want to help advertise, that would be awesome. I’ve put on some google adwords, so if anyone does a search for Vancouver specific photos, I should start coming up ...

As I mentioned yesterday, I have launched a photography website at photography.duanestorey.com. I’m going to give the first 20 people who link to it with a small write-up a free 8×12 of their choosing from the galleries. So, if you’re interested, do a quick blog entry and then post a comment here. Send me an email with which one you want and where you want it sent to, and I’ll take care of the rest. Thanks everyone. ** UPDATE – Thanks to everyone for linking. With the emails and comments here I’ve received, I’m pretty sure I have more than 20. So while I appreciate all incoming links ...

Today I got paid for my first photo gig, which is pretty exciting. I’m currently setting up an area dedicated to photography, and it should be done sometime this weekend. I’ve set up a professional account at smugmug.com where I can put some of my better photos from around Vancouver and make them available for purchase. This will also let me sell wedding photos etc when the time comes. I’ll post more information when it’s all done. ...

I’m pretty beat, having spent a good portion of the day traveling again. The flight from Montreal to Vancouver, with the strong head winds, was almost six hours long – thankfully it was extremely bearable up in business class, thanks to my hot towel and my tasty meals. Despite all the perks associated with business class (and there are many), I think the main one I enjoyed is that the flight attendants and people you encounter all automatically treat you with respect. If you have a problem, they’ll help you solve it. If you don’t like your seat, they’ll help you move. Worried about your ...

Well, I’m currently sitting in my boxers in a Montreal hotel about to go to sleep. I spent most of the day either thinking about traveling, or actually traveling, so when I landed in Montreal at 7pm, I was a bit tired from the whole ordeal. Leaving a foreign country where the rules of leaving aren’t really clearly defined is a bit stressful for me. The whole tourist card thing turned out to be not a big deal, and eventually I made it through customs and security. It’s amazing how less anxious I become whenever I land back in Canada — there’s a certain comfort with knowing your bank card ...

I just read an article that basically alludes to the fact that the iPhone has been hacked. While I’m all in favour of this, there seems to be some question as to whether or not it is actually legal to do so. To that end, I’m a fairly certain it could be argued that the iPhone “lock” is a form of copy protection, in which case it would fall under the DMCA, and hence be illegal to circumvent. We’ll have to see how it all plays out, but I suspect the guys are gonna be in for a few legal headaches. — Update So, the DMCA was updated last year with the following provisions: Exemptions are ...

This is, unfortunately, my last full day at the resort. Tomorrow I get to wake up, pack my bags, and start the long journey back to Vancouver. While this place is really pretty amazing, I always get a bit excited whenever I get on a plane that’s heading for home. I get into Montreal tomorrow evening, and will be staying overnight in a nice hotel near the airport. While the rooms here are fairly nice, the beds are unanimously hard and I haven’t had the best sleeps. Hopefully the bed in the Hilton is nice and soft so I can get a really great sleep tomorrow night. I was originally going to ...

Yeah, that’s right. I am. I was lying in bed a few minutes ago, trying to sleep (desperately, since I have to be up at 6am to go on another tour), my mind racing trying to figure out what in the hell happened to my professional series lens. How in the world did that one end up with water in it, and not my other cheaper one. Then it dawned on me — in the professional series lenses, there are a bunch of weather seals. Water shouldn’t get into that at all. But on the day that I was out shooting photos around the pool with it in my bag, it just happened to be insanely hot, like 35 or 36C. What ...

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To be honest, I’m not such a big fan of pre-arranged adventures at resorts. I’ve been on a few, and most of them are pretty basic and you kind of feel like it wasn’t money well spent. However, I heard a lot of good things about the safari adventure, so I decided to check it out for the low price of $60 USD. We left the resort at 9am, and proceeded to head into the lush Dominican Countryside. It was absolutely gorgeous, full of rolling hills, lush green vegetation, and a ton of friendly Dominican people. The safari jeep was loaded to the brim of soft drinks and booze, and nobody had an empty ...