In December 2008 Bob and I met, not even realizing we’d met until the next day. A photo of me enjoying a special moment in my blogography went up from the social media event we were both at and I had people alerting me to it from various directions from the moment I got online. Turned out the person who had caught this moment was Bob and luckily we had met that night, although briefly, we were still introduced. This led to following each other on twitter, reading each others’ blogs, to eventually becoming facebook friends; the regular social media drill.

What originally kept me interested in reading Bob’s blog and following him on Twitter was that I could live vicariously through a lot of his Flickr photos. We both enjoy a lot of the same out door activities but I’m not currently in a position to enjoy them like he is. Bob’s landscape photography always captured me and took me back to good memories from my past, hiking, camping, skiing, made me yearn for those days. Each photo always reminds me how much I miss those sides of myself but reaffirm that they are still there, just tucked away for later.

I learned of Bob’s plans to build his own site, sell his landscape prints and add portrait / headshot photographer onto his resume of services offered. Given that I liked his photos so much I asked if he needed any models for his portfolio, he said yes, I own some nice Betsey Johnson dresses so away we went.

We’d both always wanted to do the whole Vancouver Gastown alley graffiti shoot. We did just that and the set can be viewed here, I wanted to take this post, for the most part to highlight Bob’s work in general and mention about how it meant a lot having him take my photos after having followed his work and growth as a photographer for over two years via the wonders of Flickr.

Bob knew he wanted me in the blue dress but still looking pretty natural which was fine with me, I don’t have a live in hair and make-up artist anymore, so I winged it. The evening itself was super fun, it didn’t take me long to relax, Bob does have a very naturally calming personality, he is very respectful. He wants his shot how he envisions it but he does make sure you are fully comfortable with whatever ideas may pop into his head beyond what is already pictured on the film reel of his brain while planning the shoot.

It was really great getting to help someone start building something towards their passion, it was a pleasure to work with Bob and I would of course recommend him for any of your headshot or portrait session needs! Do check out his site and enjoy the photos I’ve posted here they are a just a few of my personal favourites.

If you like what you see here be sure and join Bob’s new Facebook group for his photography site.

These photos are all property of Bob Lai Photography and have been used with the permission of the photographer.

Early last May I became somewhat obsessed with the babies born around Lost Lagoon and also Beaver Lake here in the lovely Stanley Park. With the mallard and the goose babies there is really no way to keep track of them, you just gotta hold out hope that some make it. This year we’ve seen two new babies we didn’t see last year, a pretty young heron and we’ve also seen one wood duck baby.

I had seen from my buddy Mikul’s Flickr stream that a cygnet had been born to one of the mama swans down there sitting on their eggs. It was already in need of rescue, poor little buddy fell out of the nest on the first day of life and got stuck.

Adam and I took what is becoming our preferred route to the Lagoon because there is a family of raccoons that hang out on it and the raccoons here although I would NEVER try to pet one, are very friendly. I don’t know how many of them hang out in the park but it’s A LOT, last year I caught some video of them wrestling at the Pitch and Putt golf course located within steps of the Lagoon.

There were three raccoons yesterday, one wee baby was up in a tree, I hadn’t seen that before, the raccoon hung out for a bit before venturing down across the water to join us on the path.

The mallard babies move around so fast they are hard to get decent photos of.

The mom wasn’t bothered by me.

After we’ve checked out the raccoons and the mallards we sit on a bench and bird watch, have coffee from our thermos, eat snacks, smoke a joint and chat. It is one of my favourite places to go, it is very peaceful and relaxing. Being amongst so much wildlife, it’s hard to believe that you are in fact sitting in the middle of one of the worlds’ most beautiful metropolitan cities.

Adam took these fantastic shots of a crow. His Pro Flickr account has lapsed so his photos are credited on my Flickr page for the time being.

From there we head around the biggest part of the Lagoon. This is where I start to get excited but try to also not get my hopes up. Last year, I was only able to see the Mute Swan eggs and the cygnets on the water before all three perished. One of them was HIT BY A BIKE, I must take this moment to remind anyone reading from Vancouver to PLEASE GET OFF YOUR BIKES around the Lagoon. These cygnets have enough predators to worry about they don’t need to worry about morons who can’t read signs that clearly say NO CYCLING around the Lagoon. OH, and keep your dogs on their leashes too, nowhere in that area is it okay to have your furry friend off the leash. How would you feel if the swans tried to eat your dog?

This year the nest closest to the trail is much better protected but that in no way guarantees the cygnets will hatch, let alone live. I got some shots of one of the fathers watching the eggs while the mom was off somewhere.

Saw a snobby turtle on the way and I really liked how these geese were sitting.

And now without further ado, the first cygnet born on the Lagoon this year. Not only was the wee little buddy right out on the path with the mother, we also ran into our buddy Mikul who is one of the best nature photographers in the city if you ask me, not to mention the rest of his stunning portfolio.

This year we gave the cygnet a name! Narco!! While we were watching them and chatting we noticed that Narco would groom and get up look around a bit and then BAM beak straight into the gravel and out cold only to pop back up less than a minute later and press repeat over and over; it was beyond adorable. Mikul knows the mother and so I was able to pet Narco and not even that would wake the fluff ball.

When none made it last year, I was quite frankly devastated, I went out to try and see them almost every day. Having named this little buddy, if he doesn’t make it, I will again be devastated. All I can hope is that the word got out last year and is still spreading about how fragile they are and we’re all able to work together to help keep them alive.

More baby and wildlife photos from this year can be found in my Summer 2010 set on Flickr.

I have given up on finding the Beaver for the time being, we didn’t look very hard the second time so I will likely go on more beaver hunts but now I am on a baby swan and baby mallard kick only saw one raccoon today.  One swan down at Lost Lagoon has a cygnet with her and it is adorable but there is another one sitting on a half open egg and apparently a couple that haven’t cracked yet, felt like everyone got to see her stand up and see the eggs but me but she just sat there heavily guarded by a male who spent the whole time I stood there watching her talk to her eggs sleeping. It is awesome that  there are more cygnets to come fingers are triple crossed that a couple more make it, this is very exciting to me, and  it should also give me various opportunities to keep practicing with the camera.

There are more photos on my Flickr stream, of course.

I think that when anyone starts to blog there are people that we each admire from afar, hoping that some day we’ll run into them or maybe even get to meet them.  In early 2005 when I started my blog I kept hearing the name Kris Krüg also know as kk, to this day I still can’t pin point exactly what it was about him but I became a giddy geeky little fan.

Kris is a very well known Vancouver photographer; he takes shit loads of photos of awesome stuff and awesome people, some of his photos will be appearing in the new season of Project Runway Canada, and speaking of runways, just name a runway, Kris has probably been at the end of it gettin’ his shot.  Just today a shot of his of Pete Doherty was used by Pitch Fork Media in an article on Pete’s new album. And let us not forget he also helps spearhead Canada’s largest social media conference, Northern Voice and also now finds himself as one of the top male social media pundits in the country – did I mention he is actually American? Pretty impressive stuff if you ask me.   But what I love the absolute MOST and find truly exciting is how involved Kris is with the Olympics, the up coming ones here in 2010, Beijing, China AND he was in Torino, Italy.

It actually took me a while to realize that this Flickr home page photo was his but over the years whenever I’d pull up Flickr and the photo would come up I’d keep thinking to myself, someday, someday I’m going to meet this guy.

Kris and I do run in a couple of the same circles and through Facebook I noticed that we were being invited to some of the same parties, most notably a party last February where we were both down as GOING and I thought THIS IS IT I’M finally going to meet him and I dressed extra special and he didn’t show. A couple of weeks after that Northern Voice was set to start with the yearly opening party but I social anxietied out and couldn’t go but I sent Adam in my place with STRICT instructions that if he met ANYONE to please please pretty please meet Kris for me.  As luck would have it Adam found himself outside side smoking right next to Mr. Krüg and my husband got to meet him.  I made Adam fill me in on every detail, drilled him like a Hilti.

Late last year my name came up in conversation somewhere and I found myself invited to be his Flickr pal, well of course I will be your Flickr pal Kris! I sent him an email over Flickr basically stating I’d been following his work for years and was pissed off that we kept missing each other at parties, he mailed something cheeky back and we started an online friendship, next came Twitter, then came Facebook and THEN came the 604 awards where I finally had the pleasure of meeting him and for me this was enough, we’d already reached the point of here’s my number let me know if you are in the area kinda thing so I was content, I’d met someone I’d admired for years, I was good.

I heard a rumor that he wanted to take my photo, I was in Ontario at the time and I literally started jumping all over the room. I’m sure Rhonda will remember. But I didn’t know that it was 100% true until arriving home from therapy the night following the 604 awards to an email that said ‘whatcha doing I want to take your photo’.

FUCK FUCK FUCK. I couldn’t go over, therapy nights are my nights, I’m over stimulated, figuring shit out, I couldn’t go have my photo taken BUT at least I knew it was true that he did want to take my photo so I did another happy dance and just hoped like hell it would come up again. [i try not to get too excited about things until they actually happen]

Thanks to what Twitter has called the Shorty Awards it did come up again. [if you are on Twitter you know how this works if you aren't please bear with me a sec] Kris has made the finals in the photography category and when you vote it looks something like this: @shortyawards I vote for @kk in the Shorty Awards Finals for #photography because…,  for my because I put ‘because he says he wants to take my photo’ I soon received an email and it took us one more canceled date mostly because there were a few rare Vancouver snow days but last night we managed to hang and he took my photos.

I was nervous; seriously nervous here is someone I’m just getting to know as a friend, but was having my photo taken by and I have never in my life had these sorts of professional photos taken EVER.  Except for the parts where I attempted to act like a model I felt totally comfortable, minus what I think are normal nerves when you are someone who is still working on making eye contact when speaking to people let alone looking straight into a massive camera lens.

I am really happy that I was able to be myself, Kris and I had some great conversation, even totally nerdy stuff like he, myself and Adam all say sweedish instead of sweet, you know just stuff that made it easier to relax and I feel that these photos really show me and how I act when there isn’t a camera in front of me.  At first I was thinking I wanted to go all sexy, but that isn’t me, I’m casual, laid back, I don’t sip on gin but I do like juice. I think my very favourite thing about these photos is that I have nearly no make up on and none of these photos have been edited. When Adam came to pick me up i think Kris liked his hat so now Adam has some sweedish shots of his own as well and I personally think he looks pretty damn fine.

So with ALL that said before I go I need to ask you a favour, if you are on Twitter whether you are following me or not but you probably should be following me but whatever if you are reading this and you are on Twitter, Kris needs you and I’m asking you to please vote for him in the Shorty Awards I mentioned above, all you have to do is click this line of highlighted text and VOTE for @kk.

That about sums up a thank you for taking rad photos of Adam and myself me thinks.