Nick Westover

I’m happy to say I have a substantial amount of work in the mid-December edition of L’actualité magazine. They’ve run a special Vancouver issue with a variety of feature stories (all shot by yours truly) on life here and, of course, the lead-up to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

The subject matter was wide-ranging which makes for an enjoyable assignment but the time of year made it stressful as well. Some days were good but October/November in Vancouver can mean going weeks straight without seeing the sun. Heavy cloud doesn’t do much for the quality of light, not to mention the shorter daylight hours – it’s dark by 4:00 on a good day, and 3 or 3:30 on a heavily overcast day. But you never know: the cover was done on one of the final days – it had been raining for a week with full-on west coast weather socked in, just sitting soggy and immovable against the north shore mountains. At about 3pm the sun broke under the cloud layer – quick scramble for a location, some smooth talking, shoot for a few minutes and the light was gone by 4.

My favourite images to shoot were probably the portraits of some expat Québécois. They are all interesting people and it allowed me to pull out the ol’ 4×5 camera, my favourite way to roll when the job allows. Of course there was no time to do the entire assignment on large format but it made me wonder what it would have looked like – substantially different, no doubt.

Of course most of it was done digitally which can feel more efficient, except when there’s a problem in some electronic or moving bit somewhere. Annoyingly, the autofocus assembly in my favourite lens died part way through the job, disabling it entirely. I’d thought it was a common lens but nobody in town rents it, nor was it in stock anywhere locally if I’d wanted to buy a new one. The manufacturer’s loaner program doesn’t stock it either so all I could do was wait for the repair which was painful though reasonably quick. It certainly made me pine for my old mechanical Contax equipment.

It all worked out in the end, however, and I’m happy with the work and the editing. In addition to the 20+ images in the print edition there are also some extras in a gallery on the magazine’s site, take a gander here.

I’ll try posting some outtakes in the coming days.

Somebody dear to me has gone to Toronto for the weekend and in making some random restaurant recommendations I was reminded of Island Foods and this photo I made following Caribana and the trek up to King street for a taste of some sweet island goodness.

Some years ago I was fortunate enough to work across the street and they were by far the best eats in the neighbourhood and quite possibly the best roti in the city. That, and the family that runs it are lovely to boot!

Even a quick trip to Montreal isn’t complete without a visit to Schwartz’s. A massive plate of cured meat: a cure for carnivorousness.

the garbage strike is almost over.