Surrey

Elections 2011

Just two more sleeps before the municipal elections in BC.

Please, it doesn’t matter how you vote, just that you DO vote. And if you don’t vote, don’t complain.

I’m not much on politics, but for what it’s worth, here in Surrey I’m tending towards a mostly Surrey First vote. They’ve been doing a pretty good job over the last 6 years, and I really can’t get on board with the issues that the opposition keeps bringing up: a ward system, and not moving the city hall.

We’ve been waiting for a downtown core to develop since I moved back to Surrey in 1992. It’s finally happening, and that’s largely due to the focus the current government has placed on building in the core. Moving the city hall downtown sends a message that the area is important and that it is on Councils radar. There is no reason that we couldn’t have some small satellite offices in all the town centres and take more of the city’s business online.

I can’t get on board with wards. All I see is a bunch of little fiefdoms at war for dollars and attention. There is no way that a group of people, each responsible to one little area in the city, will be able to work together for a better city overall. It just won’t happen.

Anyway, enough of my rant. Saturday’s the day, so please get out and vote.

This Used to be a Forest

This area under the Skytrain, just before King George Stn. in Surrey, use to be a small, urban forest, a couple of blocks square. When they logged it out a few of years ago, I was really pissed. We had skunks, racoons and seagulls migrating around the neighbourhood for a year or two after that. We also lost a bit of nature, right in downtown Surrey.

But, there was the other side of the equation too. Druggies and homeless folks camped there all year round, leaving needles, garbage and used condoms everywhere. It was a dangerous walk through the paths, as you didn’t know who or what you would run into. The park wasn’t somewhere you’d voluntarily go after dark, that’s for sure.

Now we have an urban park called Holland Park. Fusion Fest takes place here every year. We had the Olympic Celebration there, it’s been home to Movies in the Park and a variety of other events in the City Centre.

You can (mostly) walk the concrete trails and enjoy the trees, ponds and other water works around the site, and there is a small playground for kids tucked into the south west corner of the park.

As the new developments in the background here fill up, I’m sure there will be more than a few folks happy to have Holland Park across the street. We’re already seeing more and more people walking around and the park seems to be used all year round.

I’ve said for years that Surrey’s City Centre needs more feet on the street. Now with this park, SFU, new condos and other developments in the Centre, we’re seeing just that, and more and more people are feeling safer when walking around.

It’s starting to feel like a city in downtown Surrey.

Creative Use of Photos for Good

You see graffiti all over, covering mail boxes, building walls, electrical sub-stations, etc. Sometimes it’s art on its own; more often, well, it’s not.

One of the anti-graffiti strategies cities can use is to replace bare painted surfaces with desirable art. It seems that graffiti artists don’t like to deface other art.

The art we’re seeing more and more of around Surrey looks like some kind of wrapped photos.

I found this hydro sub-station in Surrey’s Holland Park. At first glance it really looks like a green house full of tropical plants. The structure in the background looks much like one of those living walls you see around. That’s common, but I thought this ‘greenhouse’ motif was quite original.

Not exactly sure how this is done, but I’m going to find out. It seems like there should be more opportunity for doing this sort of thing with photos, i.e. not just to prevent graffiti.

What do you think? Would you like to see your photos use as wraps for structures like these? Any ideas on how it’s done?

A Shell of a Car

Or is that a car of shells?

If you’re out and about in Surrey, usually near the beaches, you might just see this small, crafty car. The shot above is a close up showing the wonderful detail of the hood.

Pretty much every inch of the car is covered with shells, or glass beads of some kind. Very creative.

Here’s the entire car, parked in the lot at Crescent Beach this last summer. Local art at its finest.

A Quest for Magnolia

My niece, down in Oz, is using my photo of a flower from Surrey’s City Hall as a basis for a painting. It’s almost done, and her art instructor wants her to name it. She sent me an email asking what it was, but I had no clue. I said I’d see if one of the City Hall gardeners could help.

What helpful people down at City Hall. The security guard looked up from his mulit-security camera monitoring station and smiled when I arrived at his desk. He put out a call on his radio to see if anyone had seen a gardener out about. When they radioed that they had, he asked them where, let me know and I was off.

Estimated time: 3 min.

A quick walk across the property and I was talking to the gardener. She took one look at the photo on my iPhone, smiled and said, “That’s easy. It’s a magnolia, Magnolia stellata to be precise.”

Estimated time: 3 min.

There were a hundred ways that could have been a much worse experience. But it wasn’t. It was great for me. And the guard and the gardener have a story to tell about how they helped a guy that came in today looking for the name of a flower in a photo on his iPhone; how something different happened today.

Some days, life is grand.

Creating a 20th Century Trail Network

Over the last few years, the City of Surrey has been developing networks of bikeways and walkways to encourage people to get out of their cars. Last summer, they finished off a couple of critical links in the form of bridges, one in South Surrey, and one in the Tynehead Park area of North Surrey.

Both bridges have a modern, striking design with colourful, animated lights. They cross over highways and let pedestrians and cyclists avoid the crazy-busy roads in the area. This bridge, near Tynehead Park, crosses Highway 1 and links up the residential areas to the north.

By all reports, the bridges are well received, and will do a lot to link up any future development in the areas north and south of the highway. In the meantime, they make great camera fodder 😉

2011 Fusion Festival

It seemed like the crowds were steady, despite the rain and soggy grass at Surrey’s Fusion Festival this year. Lots of different countries sharing some of their culture and food with the rest of us. Always a good time, especially given it’s free. Left the big cameras at home and just took the Canon G11 for some snaps.

Love the costume on the dancer in the foreground.

FVHRS leaves Sullivan Station July 10

The Fraser Valley Heritage Rail Society (FVHRS) has operated out of Sullivan Station in Surrey for over 10 years. In addition to trying to spark some life into the idea of resurrecting the old interurban rail system as part of the valley transit system, they’ve been restoring some of the original rail cars, last used on commercial runs from Vancouver to Chilliwack, BC.

They have two cars on site right now, the 1304 and 1301 1225. It’s interesting to walk through them and see the old interiors. Posters hailing the King, old product ads, delineated smoking areas, window shades to keep out the sun and more. Cool stuff if you get a chance to visit. They also have a sister organization in Vancouver, that has an interurban car on a short run near Granville Island. Worth a visit for a flash back to simpler times.

Those cars, and the all of the restoration equipment at Sullivan will be moving to a new site in Cloverdale this summer. They held a final open house on July 10 to mark the occasion.

When completed, they hope to have a new station, larger restoration barns, access to some track, power to drive the cars, and to use the whole shebang to contribute to local tourism. It will be an interesting ride.

Out with the Nikon 24-120 F4 lens

Yesterday I dropped into the PhotoExpert shop in Delta and asked if they’d seen the new Nikon 24-120 F4 lens yet. Dave checked in the back and suggested he had one just for me 😉 Needless to say I bought it.

Despite the forecast of rain all weekend, it turned out pretty nice. A few very storm-like clouds kept threatening, but for the most part, they stayed away. The same thing happened on Sunday, so over the weekend, I had a few hours to try out the new toy.

I flitted between Surrey City Hall for colour, and Serpentine Fen and Delta to see what was going on. I wasn’t out early on Saturday or Sunday, so most of the wildlife was out feeding somewhere, but the colour at City hall was just fine.

I bought the lens to use at events, so I wasn’t trying it out under the circumstances I’ll use it most. Still, I’m pretty happy with what it’s done so far with landscapes. We’ll see next week how it works at a couple of next week’s events at work.

The new toy: a Nikon 28-300 lens

A couple of weeks ago, I tracked down the new Nikon 28-300 3.5-5.6G lens. When I was using my D300 more, I really relied on that range with the 18-200 lens for DX cameras. Since getting my D700 and D3S, I’ve missed it terribly when photographing events. The range is just so useful when you don’t really have time for frequent lens changes.

Anyway, the day after I got the lens, the weather cleared, and I headed out to see just what it could do at Bear Creek Park and Serpentine Fen in Surrey.

I was quite impressed. Sure, I have some work to do with my handling technique, but when it comes together with the 28-300, it seems this lens can shine. The photo of the duck in a pond was taken from a bridge. I was amazed how sharp it was.

This weekend, a colleague and I headed out early to see what we could find in terms of colorful shots. No dice for the first few hours, as fog was everywhere. On the bright side, that gave me a chance to try shooting in the fog, something I haven’t done much of before. The photo here is probably my favourite of the day.

I still have some work to do on my technique with the lens and with shooting in the fog, but I did like the mood of some of the keepers from that shoot. I also learned a bit more about the north side of the Fraser. There are some interesting spots for photos up around Pitt Meadows and Ruskin. I’ll have to go back and explore some more.

More photos from the photowalks on Flickr