At major intersections and SkyTrain stations, on you way home from work or while shopping this holiday season you will notice street vendors selling the Hope In Shadows calendar. These friendly folks are part of a charitable organization that aims at creating positive social change in communities impacted by poverty and marginalization. Most vendors are low-income or homeless individuals who, through the support of the program, have participated in a financial literacy workshop and received some sales training to help them make the most of their entrepreneurial venture. Vendors purchase the calendar for $10 and sell it for $20, so each purchase directly benefits the person you buy it from.

The calendar itself is the result of an annual photography contest  - coordinated by the Pivot Legal Society – which gives Downtown Eastside residents the opportunity to portray their community through their own eyes. 200+ disposable cameras are handed out to DTES residents and collected again over a single weekend. The best images are then selected by popular vote and used to create the calendar.

Because of its focus on community, the images featured can be best described as authentic. These are pictures that may not have been taken if the the photographers didn’t know their subjects. Trust, familiarity and a sense of support come across in each image.

It’s not an easy job standing in the cold for hours. A couple vendors I talked with mentioned how cold they were. I’m sure it is even more difficult in the rain. If you do plan on making a purchase, making it on a rainy day would certainly brighten up a vendor’s day.

This is the ninth year for Hope In Shadows and they have already broken their previous year’s sales record. You can see a selection of the winning photographs on exhibit at the Havana Gallery from December 11th to January 3rd.

Tis the season for Xmas parties and my own was first out of the gate this year. As a gift to colleagues, friends and clients I held a little social event that gave back. In addition to providing everyone with fun portraits for holiday greeting cards and FaceBook fodder, we also collected a tonne of food for the Vancouver Food Bank Society. Thanks to all for your donations and support!

It is fun to see how this party idea has evolved from something I did just for fun with friends at a house party last year. The reactions and feedback were so great that I had to try something on a larger scale. This time I went all out with a studio party, DJ, snacks and boozy egg nog. Creating a party environment got everyone into the mood and the images speak for themselves.

This is just a small selection of the portraits taken. I don’t want to bore you with an endless stream of images or depress you if you didn’t make it to the party. But take heart in that I will probably make this an annual affair.

For years I have been trying to close the gap between two opposing truths. Digital culture has made everything better, and digital culture has ruined everything.

On the one hand I have been exposed to more art, thought, music and information than I can process. My life is continually enriched by my computer and the internet. It’s a bottomless toolbox, complete with tutorials on each and every tool. Anyone can use it and one sits on your desk/lap right now. It’s the most powerful tool ever placed in our hands and we are still figuring out how to use it, like cavemen with a new spear. We have not even begun to realize it’s potential in shaping our futures.

We also have an unlimited distribution model in the internet. No longer are we dependant on suits in corner offices to determine what is fit to print or suitable for public consumption. Screw those guys. Those guys have had it good long enough! We don’t have to wait for their approval anymore. If your book really needs to be read, you can put it out there with a few clicks. The same with your DJ mix, short film, photo or painting.

But on the other hand, financial success has almost always been predicated on some kind of asymmetry; whether it be information, access to technology or distribution channels. How then is the creative class to flourish when we are all rock stars, writers, photographers, directors and online personalities?

“The Industry Is Dead.”

Last month I was lucky enough to have heard of a semi-secret screening of PressPausePlay, and it has been eating my brain ever since. It really strikes a great balance with soul-crushing quotes from the eloquently pessimistic Andrew Keen and inspiring optimism from Seth Godin. Being pulled in two directions at once for over an hour left me feeling stunned by the end of the film.

Is it true that real talent will be drowned in a sea of mediocrity? Or will it rise up and shine brighter than the rest? Is any internet phenomenon “nothing more than a bunch of bloggers jerking off all over each other?” Yes and no to all of the above.

I generally try not to use the word ‘interesting’ because it always seems like a euphemism for something else, but I’ll make an exception here because Interesting Vancouver needs a catch-all title to hold together so many kinds of stories, perspectives and musings in one evening. In a format that kept a quick pace, the audience shared laughter, wonder and even a tear as we were told stories of trials and triumphs as well as lessons and artful expressions.

“The plan is to have all sorts of speakers speak about all sorts of stuff. Not brands, advertising, blogging and twitter but interesting, unexpected, original things. I’m hoping to find fascinating people and to just ask them to speak about something they care about. I want to replicate the experience of clicking from one really good blog to another, ranging across sciences, arts, musics, jokes and whatever” – Russel Davies, founder of Interesting

The rebranded Museum Of Vancouver turned out to be a fantastic venue for this event, which meshed nicely with their visioning project to focus on Vancouver as a physical reality as well as an idea, engaging the community and addressing contemporary issues. Full access to the museum was included with the price of admission and actually encouraged with a scavenger hunt during intermission. Having the museum to ourselves really created an intimate experience. I highly recommend checking out the Neon Vancouver/Ugly Vancouver exhibit and just stand silently by yourself in the middle of all their glowing signs and let their buzzing fill your head.

I had never been to the MOV before but look forward to many more visits like this. Interesting Vancouver has already confirmed the MOV as next year’s venue partner! One of these year’s I’d love to get up there and speak about some of the projects I have worked on. I just hope I’m ‘interesting’ enough.

The international speaker series Creative Mornings from New York has made a splash entrance on the Vancouver scene, packing the W2 Media Cafe for the second time in a row.

Creative Mornings is a breakfast lecture series held monthly for the creative community. Although the format is a twenty minute talk followed by a Q & A, it is not about an experienced professional imparting wisdom on an audience nor is it about indulgent portfolio presentations. The mandate is to get away from the teacher/student paradigm as well as needy networking meetings. Creative Mornings is designed to spark dialogue and debate among peers where a subject is approached, talked about by an industry professional and then opened up to the floor.

This month Ian Grais (Creative Director at Rethink) talked about the discipline and process of creativity. He described inspiration as a confluence of ideas and the practice of opening yourself to the recombination of these ideas in new ways.  He even gave criteria for recognizing a good concept – clear, relevant, achievable, fresh, true and social. If your idea doesn’t meet all these criteria he says not to give up but rather to give your work a rating of KG (Keep Going).

As part of his presentation, Ian had a few videos showing a massive amount of creative fodder in just a few seconds – just enough time to subconsciously recognize some of the branding or go into seizures. From sketch books, note pads, print outs and screen shots, he made it clear to budding creative types that it is important to have a sketchbook and don’t treat it like it is sacred.  Go back and revisit old ideas, they may have been better than you thought, suited for something else or you just have a new way of seeing them.

As the floor was opened up, the audience was first asked to consult with one another for seven minutes to come up with  some really good questions since time was short – a great ice breaker. My favourite question was how to evaluate whether an idea is fresh or not and Ian’s answer was this – if you do something that has been done before and you do it better, then you own it.

Next month’s speaker will be Vancouver’s own super beautiful monster Bif Naked! These events are free but you still need a ticket to get in since demand is high and the event has a cap of 150 attendees. So far these events have booked out in under three minutes so you need to have your finger on the trigger when the EventBrite page releases them.

Last night at the SFU Woodwards campus, an auditorium full of media professionals and student hopefuls sat down to hear Kai Nagata explain himself after setting the internet of fire in July with his blog post Why I Quit My Job, which effectively buried a promising career in broadcast journalism.

The presentation was fast-paced and witty with relevant video clips – all the things you would expect from a broadcast journalist – but ultimately uncontroversial. His critique of “the news” filling air time with consumer reports, event coverage and kittens in trees wasn’t new. Pointing out that psychology and statistics are used to keep audiences simultaneously entertained and anxious was no revelation. The fact that advertising space has been sold well in advance of the broadcast so that new (not quality) content production is driven by that money, fell flat. It became quickly apparent that Kai Nagata is a social crusader, who found himself in an upwardly mobile job that paid him to forget his convictions and abridge his journalistic integrity.

So he quit. So what?

Well, Kai remained true to his passion of story telling and wrestling with issues. He decided to take his training and experience and apply it to grassroots reportage to effect change in the world and everyone wanted to know how he was going to do that. What phoenix would rise from the ashes of his career? How will he lead the charge of socially conscious citizen journalism in new media?

His answer is to make sacrifices and make them while you are young, without obligations like a family and mortgage. Although there were a lot of young, nodding heads in the room, this answer didn’t sit well with me. Kai’s advice was the same you would give someone considering a stint on a cruise ship or spending a year abroad. It wasn’t sustainable.

Not that he isn’t leading by example. Kai took a 90% pay cut from his CTV job and is currently living out of a tent in his father’s yard while doing some writing for the The Tyee. His tent flooded the night before. He uses an iPhone and a borrowed laptop. He drives a pickup truck he’s obviously not proud of. He also advised young idealists to do other things to pay the bills while producing their own brand of responsible journalism. My knee-jerk reaction was to envision an army of journalist/barristas but surprisingly he suggested raising chickens and growing kale.

Kai Nagata is clearly a smart guy with an amazing skill set and experience to back him up, but until he (and by he, I mean all of us) finds a means to support meaningful journalism that hasn’t been diluted, focus-grouped and dumbed down, it is only a matter of time before he burns out or sells out.

I’m a new fan of this fresh-faced comedy team. They’ve been cranking out some pretty edgy and darkly humorous material, getting great responses in Vancouver and on the web. Their biggest hit so far is their faux movie trailer for “Riverdale”, a twisted revision of the cast of Archie Comics. Just recently it went viral and with good reason. Have a peak.

Read more about the comedic minds of Michael Cope and Rhys Finnick in my latest blog for Granville Magazine. Also check out their next performance “LeFevre presents: Mike’s Annual Birthday” on May 26!

The Co-operative Auto Network (C.A.N.) has put on their serious marketing pants and rebranded as a young and modern not-for-profit. Their slick, new look makes car sharing sexy. Have a look at the full advertorial I shot and wrote for Granville Magazine.