I spent last week on Vancouver Island, and spent some good quality time with my almost-three-year-old nephew and godson.

I love the simplicity that life carries for children. Their constant questions and curiosities, innocence and trust, freedom and imagination. These are truly things to admire in the little people all around us. We, as adults, should all aspire to rediscover these things within ourselves. I believe that if we could recapture even a fraction of our childhood, we might see the world through completely different eyes…

With that in mind, I hope you enjoy the following images and I invite your feedback and comments. Enjoy!

Our first day in Bangkok was somewhat adventurous. After breakfast we grabbed our cameras and set off to first, sort out our travel plans to Koh Tao, and then to explore the city.

Sorting out our travel plans wasn’t as simple as we expected. A friend had arranged our train and ferry tickets to the island of Koh Tao and had sent the tickets from Koh Tao to a Bangkok travel office. However, due to the storms in the gulf of Thailand at the time, the tickets never actually made it to Bangkok. So, day one in Bangkok, we were told to come back the next day to see if the ferries were running again for our tickets to make it to the mainland… So, off we went to explore Bangkok!

Within minutes of leaving the travel office we were approached by one tuktuk driver after another offering to take us to various tourist attractions. We were standing on a corner looking at the city map, when a woman walked up offering to help give us direction to the Grand Palace. She told us the easiest way to get there was by tuktuk and so we climbed in. The ride was exceptionally cheap that day, as it was a Buddhist holiday and the government was sponsoring the tuktuks for the day, so we ended up paying 20 baht (about 64 Canadian cents) for a two and a half hour tour of Bangkok with several stops along the way. Not bad!

First stop, the Standing Buddha. This was the the first big Buddha I had ever seen and I was blown away by its sheer size! This was also my first experience watching Buddhists leaving offerings and pausing for prayer. They would pay a donation to the temple and in exchange they were given three incense sticks, a candle, and gold leaf. The incense and candle were lit and left in designated areas, while the gold leaf was pressed onto a Buddha statue for luck. Next they would kneel in front of the Buddha in prayer.

We made a couple of other stops before the driver took us to Top Ten Tailors, the first sponsor of the adventure. I had read about this so was not surprised. Basically the tuktuk drivers are paid in gasoline coupons for bringing tourists to their sponsors (usually tailors and jem shops). So, we played along… Although the clothes were truly beautiful, and much more affordable than back home (a 3-piece men’s suit was $75 CAD), we weren’t about to lug something like that all over Thailand with us for seven weeks… So after listening to the half hour spiel, we politely declined and were on our way again.

We stopped at one more temple before we told our driver that we were not interested in any more sponsor stops, our tuktuk tour abruptly ended right back where we started, and the friendly woman who had been so helpful earlier pretended not to even know us. Haha! Quite hilarious, really…

From there, we carried on on foot. We explored the famous Khaosan Road, where you can buy anything and everything you can imagine!

We eventually made our way to the Grand Palace. However, by this time it was later in the afternoon, and there was not enough time before the palace closed to do it justice for exploring. So we decided to go back the following day. But we’ll save that for another post…

For more photos of my Bangkok adventure, please visit the set on Flickr!

Are you interested in learning more about underwater photography? I’ve found the PERFECT solution! Check out the Nikon School of Underwater Photography!

Nikon Digital SLR Underwater Photography Programs are offered every week of the year in Bonaire, in the Netherlands Antilles in the Caribbean Sea!

The program includes:

• Seven nights hotel accommodations/double occupancy
• Breakfast daily
• Six days of diving: Six boat dives
• Unlimited Air Fills and Unlimited 24 hr. Shore Diving
• Tanks and Weight Belts included
• Hotel and Government tax and service charges included
• Round trip airport transfers in Bonaire included
• Six days free rental of Nikon SLR digital camera and housing, lenses, strobes and accessories.
• Six-day underwater photography lesson modules with assist from Pro.
• Regular dive packages are available for non-photography students.

Summer Rates* starting at $1,649/person (Double Occupancy)
April 1 to December 18

Winter Rates* starting at $1,799/person (Double Occupancy)
December 19 to March 31

*Rates vary according to the type of hotel accommodations.

For questions, or to register, please call +1.203.599.1203
or email: frankfennell@optimum.net

For more information on accommodations:
Captain Don’s Habitat, Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles
Habitatbonaire.com

This is definitely another one to add to my bucket list!

Source: http://www.nikonusa.com

The photos from the Jewels for a Cause event last night.

Tonight, for the second year in a row, I will be donating my time and photography services to the Jewels for a Cause charity event in West Vancouver. The event was started 10 years ago by Jennifer Rainnie and Teri-Ann Donaldson, as a very grass roots way to gather friends, drink some wine, buy some jewelry and donate the proceeds to charity. The event has grown each year and has now become a very large gathering with over 20 jewelers/artists showcasing their work.

This year, Jewels For A Cause has chosen to support the Starlight Children’s Foundation.  The Starlight Foundation helps seriously ill children and their families cope with their pain, fear and isolation through entertainment, education and family activities.

Tonight’s event will be bigger and better than ever. They have more than doubled the jewelers, they will be offering free wine and bubbly sampling from Barefoot Wines, there will be 4 restaurants offering tasting plates (the menu is amazing!) tickets will be $1 and plates vary from 1 to 5 tickets. There will also be a shuttle service for parking and a fantastic silent auction. 

For more information on Jewels for a Cause and to view the gorgeous collections that will be available at the event, please visit the website at www.jewels4acause.ca.

If you’re looking for something fun to do tonight, I invite you to join me at this event to support an amazing cause!

Event Details

Thursday May 26^th, 2011 (Tonight!)
7pm – 10 pm
Entrance Fee: $10

Hollyburn Country Club  www.hollyburn.org
950 Cross Creek Road, West Vancouver, BC

[mappress mapid=”9″]

There is travel on the horizon, so close, I can almost touch it! T minus 6 days and I will be leaving Vancouver for 46 days!

I’ll be flying from Vancouver to Bangkok, Thailand. I’ll spend a month exploring Thailand and then will make my way to Bali, Indonesia for some more exploring and hopefully some diving! I don’t have much on my itinerary at this point and am somewhat planning on a “no-plan” plan and talking to people once I arrive there as to what the must-sees are in their personal experiences. The few things that are on my list however, are to do my advanced scuba diving course on Koh Tao, to experience the Songkran Festival for Thai New Year in Chiang Mai, to visit an elephant rescue sanctuary, to spend a few days on a liveaboard diving boat off Phuket, and of course to visit many temples. And of course, this goes without saying, I plan to photograph the entire experience!

After about a month in Thailand, I’ll head to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to catch a flight to Bali, Indonesia.  This is where I’ll spend my last 10 days of the trip diving, and seeing sights that I did not get to the last time around. As an added bonus, I’ll be spending a few days in Lovina in Northern Bali, at my aunt’s home, visiting with friends that I met on last year’s trip to the island.

So far, in preparation for the trip, I’ve booked my flight, purchased travel medical insurance, applied for and received my Thai tourist visa, and have ensured that my travel vaccinations are up to date. The main vaccinations my doctor said to concern myself with were: typhoid, tetanus, cholera, travelers diarrhea, and hepatitis A and B. Most of these were already up to date due to my travel to Bali last year, but the cholera/traveler’s diarrhea required a booster dose, so I did that, and the doctor also gave me some all purpose antibiotics (cipro) as a “just in case” solution to some potential problems that I may or may not encounter.

Having to deal with a house move before my departure has not helped my stress levels, so make things a bit simpler, and to save some cash on a month’s rent, I’ve chosen to put my life in storage until I return from the trip… It feels a bit strange to put it all back into a storage locker only six months after pulling it out of one, but somehow it feels like the right choice for the moment…

So there you have it… I’m booked and preparing for an adventure of a lifetime! I realize that many people never have the opportunity to make such a trip, so I plan to live it to the fullest and experience all there is to experience. The travel bug has bit me, and I have a feeling that this is only the beginning of my globe trotting adventures!

After flying into Cancun and spending 5 days relaxing on the Mayan Riviera, it was off to Belize!

This involved a bus from Playa del Carmen to Chetumal in the south of Mexico, about a 3 hour bus ride. From there, another bus took us across the border to Belize. After a stop at the border to clear customs and the $20USD entrance tax, the bus took us to Corozal, where we would take a passenger ferry to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. Unfortunately, we had just missed the last boat of the day (there are two per day), so we found ourselves a hotel near the dock, and soon we were headed out and to find ourselves some tasty Belizean 1-Barrel rum cocktails and fresh lobster! Mmm!

The next morning, we caught the 7am ferry across to San Pedro. On the boat we met Jack, an American who owns a house on the island with several suites that he rents out to travelers and vacationers. Chez Caribe! A great place to call home during your stay in San Pedro! There are 3 studio suites and a 3 bedroom suite that makes up the entire top floor of the house. Having no accommodation plan, we checked it out and found our temporary home and a lifelong friend in Jack.

We spent our days in San Pedro, biking around, exploring, eating lobster and drinking rum at the Canucks Bar, swimming and relaxing. But most importantly, and most exciting, we did some DIVING! We took a day trip out to the Blue Hole! It was a 3-dive trip with dives at the Blue Hole, the Aquiarium and Halfmoon Wall, with a lunch break on Halfmoon Caye where we saw loads of red footed boobies. Absolutely amazing! Beautiful clear water, amazing sea life, and an overall amazing experience!

From Ambergris, we headed to Caye Caulker. We had heard so much about it, so were looking forward to checking it out. Jack volunteered to take us to the island on his boat, the L’il Bus. On the way we did some fishing, saw a beautiful rainbow and outran a storm!

Upon arrival at Caye Caulker, we had one of the locals help us find a place to stay and we ended up at a great place with little cabins right on the beach (the name escapes me). Loved it! The following day we took a photowalk of the island, ate lobster, met some great people, shopped at the local vendors, and drank a whole lot of rum! We planned to stay on the island a few days, but there is a saying, “I spent a week on Caye Caulker one day!” And its pretty accurate! It is a beautiful place, and I’m happy to have visited the island, but after a day and a half, we felt as though we had been there for about a week! So we enjoyed one last night of lobster and coconut rum cocktails and caught the passenger ferry back to San Pedro in the morning.

When we got off the boat, we walked right into a tropical rain storm! It was crazy! We were soaked instantly! So we found refuge in the Canucks Bar until the rain stopped and then made our way back to Chez Caribe.

Two more days in San Pedro, and it was time to head back up towards Mexico. Rather than catching the ferry back to the mainland, we decided to check out Belize from the air and took a flight back to Corozal. We were up against another rain storm that day and I actually walked across the tarmac to the plane in my bare feet because there was six inches of water on the ground! A memorable moment indeed! When the rain subsided a bit, we took off and once we cleared the rain clouds, we had an absolutely gorgeous view!

We made it back to Playa del Carmen that day, where we spent our last two nights before heading back to Cancun to catch our flight home. We spent the the time shopping, soaking up our last bit of sun, and enjoying our last few margaritas before heading back to winter in Vancouver!

For more photos from Belize, please visit the set on Flickr.

Another year gone by, and an epic year it was…

The year started off preparing for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Seeing 2010 on the calendar suddenly made it all a reality and the mad rush to get organized and a site up and filled with content began about a month before the Games actually opened. I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to work with an amazing group of talented folks who teamed up to create the VancouverAccess2010 website. With BCIMC accreditation, we focussed on the fan’s view of the Games and the team of us set out to attend as many events as we possibly could. We photographed and reported on them via this great resource site that we collectively created. Posts were also featured on Canada.com’s VanFans2010 blog.

The Paralympics was an even more amazing experience for me. With IPC photographer accreditaion, I was able to get up close and personal to shoot the amazing athletes and their inspiring performances in sports ranging from from sledge hockey, to sit skiing, to vision impaired downhill skiing, to curling, to incredibly emotional medal ceremonies! Unbelievable!

During the Games, I was invited to join a media day trip to Whitehorse, Yukon. Yep, that’s right, a DAY trip to Whitehorse! It was crazy! Caught a 7am flight, toured Whitehorse, met a 2006 silver medalist Olympian, visited  a nature reserve, tasted coffee from a local eco-friendly coffee roasting shop, soaked in some hot springs, drank a Sour Toe Cocktail, and enjoyed a banquet dinner celebrating the annual dog sledding racers. The Yukon is such a beautiful part of our country! I would love to head up there for some summer camping to see what’s under all that snow! I imagine it to be absolutely breathtaking! Another amazing adventurous experience!

When the Games were over, I was caught in the Olympic hangover, felt by much of the city, and many of my colleagues and partners in crime throughout this great world event. This got me thinking what I should do next and I came up with the idea that I wanted to do more traveling…

So, in March, I flew to Austin Texas to shoot a wedding for a friend who was unable to make it, due to a car accident. Never having met the bride or groom, nor having ever spoken to them directly, it was an interesting experience. The couple were amazingly welcoming and we got along instantly. I am happy to now call them friends. Their jewish wedding was held in Houston, so there was a bit of a road trip mixed into the trip (and of course some tasty Texan BBQ!). Unfortunately, there was not much time for site seeing with the short timeline, but I hope to make it back to Texas to see and photograph more of it!

Less than 2 weeks after returning from Austin, I was in flight yet again! This time for a month long adventure to Bali, Indonesia! Wow! It was an amazing month full of culture, food, site seeing, crazy drivers and photography! I spent the majority of my time on the northern side of the Island in Lovina. I spent about a week in Ubud as well. My trip to Ubud included a motorcycle adventure through the rice paddies, a walk through the Monkey Forest, a cooking class, and a Kecak and Fire Dance performance. It was an amazing month indeed, and I came home with gigabytes photos of the trip which can be viewed on Flickr.

Upon returning to Vancouver, mid-May, the city was gearing up for summer. I was excited to do as much camping and music festival-ing as I could! The first camping trip of the season was the first weekend in June, at Golden Ears Park. Always awesome camping there, one of my favourite provincial parks! No cell phone service, great hikes, campfires and of course tasty camping food (and drink)!

My first music festival of the summer was the Vancouver folk fest. I was fortunate enough to get 2 free Lifetimer, all-access passes to the festival from a friend who was unable to use them (thanks Lulu!) and me and a friend enjoyed a weekend of music, sun and family atmosphere at the beach!

Next on the list was a whale watching adventure with my family out of Cowichan Bay on Vancouver Island with Ocean Ecoventures Whale Watching. Again, amazing! You will find a full summary of the adventure in this blog post.

Komasket Music Festival in Vernon, during the August long weekend, was the next road trip. Teaming up with @Scales and @Uncleweed for some social media coverage of the event was great fun! Got some great shots, met some great artists (including Fred Penner and the Wailers), and as with most summer music festivals, came home with a sun burn!

Later in August, I took a week long trip to my home town of Duncan, on Vancouver Island to spend my birthday with family and friends. Good times had by all with boating/tubing on Lake Cowichan, and floating in the Cowichan River, a day trip to Port Renfrew and Botanical Beach, and no Island visit in summer would be complete without a fresh local crab fest! The perfect birthday it was!

In the fall, things finally wound down a bit. The last trip of the year was one out to Ucluelet and Tofino, on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. I had not been out this way since I was about 12 years old, so I was very excited to go enjoy and photograph the beaches, especially with storm season just setting in! I was not disappinted! We lucked out with beautiful sunny weather the first day, including a gorgeous sunset on Long Beach. And the next day we enjoyed a storm and some great big crashing waves on the rocks in Ucluelet. And of course no trip to Tofino would be complete without a stop at Cathedral Grove and Coombs to see the goats on the roof on the way back!

In the fall things became quite busy. I moved out of the downtown core at the end of September, to East Van. Although I have always had a dog on a part time basis, in November Roxie came to stay with me full time as @Scales departed for Thailand. I love having her and love that she gets me out rain or shine (or snow!) for two hour-long walks a day! Having started a fulltime position at 80 Elements Entertainment in October, I have fallen back into a full time job routine. Also, I have been shooting weekend events for Estee Lauder. I started doing Bikrams Yoga three times a week in November, which I have become ridiculously addicted to. So the end of the year has found me to be quite busy.

I was happy to spend Christmas on the Island with family and friends and will be spending New Years Even there as well to ring in another (hopefully) adventurous year full of travel and surprises!

My new years resolutions are these: Travel more. Photograph more. Build my photography kit. Learn more about social media. Do more Bikrams! More is MORE!

Cheers to 2010 and all of you that I have met and befriended in the past 365 days! You have made an impact, and (whether good or bad) you have helped shape who I am and who I am to become. I thank you and look forward to another amazing year in 2011!

Cheers and Happy New Year!!!

This was taken during the Wide Mouth Mason show held at the Molson Canadian Hockey House between periods of the Gold Medal Olympic Hockey game of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games! Amazing band, amazing show, unbelievable game!

For more pics of the concert, visit the Set on Flickr!