I went to The Hidden Vine on Post St. last night with a couple of friends.  It’s a comfy little wine bar that’s hidden away in a hotel. (Honestly, I wouldn’t have known it was there if I hadn’t found it on Yelp.)  The whole setting is just nice and cozy and they have a large selection of wines and several flight options.  Highly recommended!

Anyway, the point of this post is about Schmap.  Today is my Friday off and I was in bed checking e-mails this morning when I saw that a photo that I took of the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park was actually chosen to be in the 9th Edition of the San Francisco Schmap Guide!  I knew I was a finalist, which was exciting in itself!  This is almost too much.

If you click here, it will take you to the guide.  Hover your pointer over the California Academy of Sciences and you’ll see my picture.  If you click on the picture, it’ll take you to my Flickr page.  Here’s the photo if you don’t want to do all that (but I’m hoping you do so you can actually see it in the guide).

Schmap Me!

I think that calls for a pedicure and then some sushi tonight!

My photo of St. James’s Park has been shortlisted for for inclusion in the Schmap London Guide 2009, to be published in December 2009. Fingers crossed!

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted through Flickr that one of my graveyard photos might be published on the Schmap Boston Guide.

I had no idea what Schmap was before I received this notification, but apparently it is a digital travel guide, which includes photos, info, and reviews for various destinations. I wish I had known about this site before I had visited Boston.

My photo can be found here, if you scroll through the photos on the right. And I’m credited too!

I rather like this iPhone version, haha.

Day 5. Tattoo peeling/healing. Hurts less.

Really feeling this song. Please ignore crappy video.

Found out that some guide to tourist attractions for Vancouver featured my photo of Deep Cove. Random and sort of cool, but I’ve never heard of Schmap and I’m not getting monetary compensation so this is purely for the ego. Practicality would have been much appreciated though.

But if your heart is cold, my sheets are warm / I will shelter you through the storm. "All Over Me" - Lindsey Harper

Remember when I told you about this?

Well, I won:-)

.

ok so some gal sent me a message that they chose one of my photos for a local online map guide thingy.  i have never heard of it and i DIDN’T submit the photo, they just found me on flickr.  weird.  personally, i don’t think the picture is that great but they seem to like it enough to add it to their site.  here is the pic and a link to their page.  it has my name on it!  kind of cool….

schmap – denver zoo

Schmap Cambridge Ninth Edition: Photo Inclusion

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo has been selected for inclusion in the newly released ninth edition of our Schmap Cambridge Guide:

Jesus College
www.schmap.com/cambridge/sights_outandabout/p=122583/i=122583_28.jpg

If you use an iPhone or iPod touch, then this same link will take you directly to your photo in the iPhone version of our guide. On a desktop computer, you can still see exactly how your photo is displayed and credited in the iPhone version of our guide at:

Jesus College
www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=cambridge&sid=sights_outandabout&p=122583&i=122583_28

Thanks so much for letting us include your photo – please enjoy the guide!

Best regards,

Emma Williams,
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides
www.schmap.me/ewilliams

This is the image on my  Flickr stream

Nose to the ground

A lot to talk about here… Before I get into the camp in Malaysia, the weather, and my fledgling career in photography, a few things.

1) The Canucks:

-WTF is with all these injuries, and how are we not at the bottom of the standings. Oh, right, the Maple Leafs… Okay, I should clarify–how are we climbing up the standings with half an AHL roster?

-Great to see Raycroft standing on his head, both for the team and for him personally. It’s always nice to see somebody who’s been given up on make the most of what might have been his last kick at the can. Unless he falls apart (knock on wood) it’ll be sorry to see him go elsewhere next year for more money.

-Also nice to see former BCHLer and Clipper foe Tanner Glass doing well. Goals, hits, and fights–nice. Most people probably don’t know this, but Glass jumped me back in the day (yeah, lucky for his face’s sake…)  After seeing him scrap Brad May a week or so back, I’ve come to the indirect conclusion that I was jumped by Brad May.

- Canucks 3, Avs 0.  Suck it Chow.  (I feel like I’m going to regret that comment next weekend…)

2) Cooking:

-Just like last year while I was in South Africa, I’ve gotten back into cooking–a little bit.  The other week, Colin’s dad was in town and Colin, Kurt Kuehne, and myself cooked up some spaghetti, chicken, and bruschetta for Papa Rick.  Turned out delicious.

Then, a couple days ago, I felt inspired and decided to cook up some chicken again, this time with Neil from next door.  I wound up modifying my mother’s delicious Fajita-ish chicken meat over rice (sans tortilla, and not exactly true fajita-style).

I cooked some black beans into the brown rice, included a some extra capsicum, or bell peppers for Occidentalites, and it was AWESOME–I think it was the dozen or so green chili padi peppers we put in.  While it probably wasn’t that hot, let’s face it–I was eating, so I was bound to sweat, as shown in the picture below.

Yes, that’s sweat dripping from my nose and beard, and yes, it’s a bad-ass beard.

So after the success of this dish, I put together some veggie chilli for a pot luck at Rachel and Stephanie’s tonight.  I upped the spicy ante a whole lot–in the words of Claire from across the hall, “wtf, are you trying to kill me?”

3) I got my first “we’re extending an exclusive offer to sign up for our credit card” call today.  I laughed to myself when I told the voice on the other end I didn’t need another credit card, because he responded with a whining, “oh c’mon…” kind of response.

Kota Tinggi, Malaysia

So, Malaysia… it was AWESOME (a lot of things are these days).  From 22-26 of October, I “chaperoned” the Sec 3 boys on their leadership trip to Kota Tinggi, in the Johor Province of Malaysia (the southernmost one).  We stayed at the “Kota Rainforest resort,” with the boys camping out in tents, and us staff members roughing it in the log cabin-like chalet. Le sigh.  The resort was gorgeous–lush, thick rainforest surrounding what I would describe as a pseudo-valley, and unlike Singapore, there were bumps on the landscape I would be tempted to label mountains.    There are two big highlights of the trip, the kayaking trip down the Johor river with an overnight camp-out, the waterfall hike interrupted by thunderstorms, and the bus trip back (okay, three highlights).

The second day of the trip, we all took a short bus ride to a boat launch nearby where we took off down (up? over? I’m not quite sure) the Johor River. I’ve grown a huge appreciation for the freshwaters of British Columbia, because just about every lake, pond, stream, and river in Southeast Asia has been opaque, muddy, and clouded with sediment. Whether this was truly “dirty” water, I don’t know, but I suppose you trade the crystal clear waters of BC for the warmth in SE Asia. And even though the water was extremely warm, there was nothing like it when basking in the hot sun–I took to frequently soaking my hat and putting it on my head to keep cool.

We had a full day’s worth of kayaking in (about 5 hours) at an easy-to-moderate pace with breaks for team-building activities and lunch. Along the way, we came across a large concrete building that was playing bird calls through speakers (this was meant to attract a variety of birds — not sure what kinds — where their nests would be harvested; kind of slimey, but I’m sure I don’t know the whole story), a few Buddhist and Islamic temples, and a WWII Japanese “war relic,” as the instructors described it. This was really cool–hidden among the trees on the banks of the river, there was a roundish-shaped building with window-openings filled up that we guessed used to be a gunner’s outpost, looking to fire on any boats coming up or down the river. We eventually came to our camp site (just a flat, open area next the river bank which seemed like it was destined for development), pitched our tents, and cooked dry ichiban-like noodles, chicken weiners, and apples while shooing away wild dogs that were surrounding the camp and trying to get at our food. Maybe “wild dogs” gives the wrong impression; these seemed more like nomadic wimps that were just hungry, and probably came across many-a-cheap meals at that spot before. We dozed under the stars which unfortunately, weren’t as vibrant as I hoped they would be because of cloud cover, before heading back the next morning.

After getting back to camp, we got cleaned up before heading out for what I was told was going to be a 15km hike (it couldn’t have been more than 6, max) into the rainforest to go see a 7-story waterfall. We walked down the highway, waded through calm streams, then climbed up along the edges of the forest which was bordered by mining activity. There were two waterfalls we planned on seeing, one that was a little itty-bitty guy, and then the big 7-story giant. Unfortunately, we only got to the first before a sudden thunderstorm came down on us. It POURED!! I wish I had a waterproof camera so I could have documented the trip back, but we were soaked to the bone in minutes. The quite, calm streams that we crossed on the way in were raging on our way out. There is one particular image that stands out in my head where I looked down on the stream that was following the edge of the path. From the forest, the water flow was dark brown and almost clear; meeting it at a juncture was run-off from the mine in a opaque, bright orange shade. The two streams met initially and produced a distinctive barrier, remaining separated like oil and water before they progressively blended together further down. Again, I wish I had a waterproof camera at this point, but there was no way I was bringing out my DSLR in this downpour. After getting back to camp, some of us–myself included–found leaches affixed to our ankles when we got back to camp. I had never actually seen a leach before in person, so this was a fun experience for me, kind of like making a new friend. Being covered in dirt and mud, we all wanted to shower, but there was a problem for the boys; the power in almost all of Kota Tinggi had been knocked out while we were gone, so they wouldn’t be able to shower in their facilities (or the instructors felt it was enough of a liability for them to all shower in the dark in case they slipped…) So, in order to make sure they were clean, they got a taste of the resort rooms and the resort staff opened up rooms for the boys to shower in.

Speaking of the showers, these were not exactly what you would normally expect from a shower. When you think shower, you think of something like “distinct fixture that is a sub-part of a bathroom,” right? Wrong; our bathroom had a sink and a toilet crammed into a tiny space, with a shower handle hanging on the wall. In order to shower, you just shut the door to avoid spraying the entire room and washed off right on the tiles. I think we killed a roll of toilet paper by accident, and I’m sure there’s a more effective way of using such facilities, so if anybody has tips for future reference, please share.

The trip back was mildly amusing, simply for the fact that 5 minutes after the bus left, almost every single kid was passed out.  In particular, there’s one boy, Thadeus, who is HUGE–he’s the captain of the rugby team, and I believe he’s on the national team’s radar.  Well, big huge Thadeus and the boy sitting beside him (I forget who at the moment) both knocked out with their heads tilted towards each other–touching moment.  I got some great pictures of it all.

By the way, we were fed like kings–I had so many fried prawns and fried fish and rice and fish balls and chicken wings… which brings me back to the point that Malaysia was AWESOME!

Thunderstorms

The wet season appears to be upon us, as it’s becoming common to have mid-day thunder storms that pour down with a vengeance.  They normally come right around noon or 1pm, so luckily I’m normally inside my office at school.

While thunderstorms normally wouldn’t call for any kind of special attention, you have to understand, these are not your normal thunderstorms.  They are an entirely different breed.  In Vancouver, a thunderstorm normally consists of hard rain, skies lighting up periodically, and low, crashing rolls of thunder that follow.  Singapore storms are more like you’re getting bombed while you’re in a shower.  First, the rain POURS down; picture Vancouver’s hardest rains, then up it a couple notches.  Second, you see the lightning strikes everywhere (as evidenced by the three snaps I got the other week).  (I realise Vancouver did have a crazy thunderstorm this past summer, complete with the most surreal red lighting in the evening and strike after strike after dark, but that was a bit of an anomaly, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, I digress).  Third, the lightning comes down right on top of you, and when it does, it literally sounds like a bomb.  I’ve been sitting in my office at work, heard a loud crash, and honestly thought a building had just exploded nearby.  It’s an absolutely incredible experience.

Photography

My pace has slowed lately, but big news on my skillz–I received an email saying that one of my pictures had been shortlisted for the 9th edition of the Schmap Honolulu guide.  For those unfamiliar (I sure wasn’t…) Schmap is a free online travel guide to places all over (unfortunately, they haven’t made a big entrance into Asian markets).  Anyway, they pick photos off Flickr and use them in conjunction with their guides to various cities.  Do they pay photographers?  No, but they do give credit.  Instead, they sell advertisements for businesses which they include in their guides, so they do make money, but being a bit of a world-traveler myself (can I give myself such a label yet?), their product is still free to the end-consumer, so I’m all in favour, and they’re welcome to use any of my stuff.  If I wind up getting selected, then I get the sweet distinction to call myself a semi-professional photographer, right?  Nice…

Before going, here’s a cool video from Time that documents summer training by a variety of US winter olympians.  96 days to go…

Training for Vancouver 2010

I am very excited to announce that one of my photos has been short-listed as a finalist for the Schmap Minneapolis Guide 2009.   It is a photo of Harriet Island that I took at the beginning of July during the Taste of Minnesota event.

Some sweet news from Kelly: An online travel guide called Schmap.com has published a photo he took at Pike Place Market this summer in their latest online Seattle guide. They have been making some editing decisions over the last few weeks and his photo made the final cut!

If you move your mouse over the Pike Place Market section of this page Kelly’s photo will be in the top right:

Kelly’s photo

The original photo is posted here

When asked how he felt about about being a newly published photographer, Kelly said, “It’s pretty cool. The best part was I didn’t have to do anything.”

Back in September we received an email from Schmap Guides, to say that one of our Flickr photos had been short listed for the 9th Edition of the Edinburgh Schmap guide. And this week we found out that our photos/video has been included - yay ! So if you are planning a visit to Edinburgh, check out the guides and our photo of course !

I just checked my email and was shocked just tickled to find out that a photograph I took at the Portland Art Museum was selected and published in the Schamp Portland Guide.

View it here. Yay!

Recently one of my photos was chosen to be used in an online San Diego guide book called the Schmap San Diego, Ninth Edition. I was pleased they chose one of my images to publish. It is a photo i took from the stands at the San Diego Chargers preseason training camp.

The weather was amazing this weekend. I hope everyone had a chance to get out and enjoy it! The surf was also A+ in some parts of California. I wish I had time to shoot some photos this weekend, but I was too busy surfing all day www.kylecannonphotography.com

schmap.com es una gúia de viajes on line bastante revolucionaria, ya que entre otras cosas, permite compartir itinerarios entre usuarios finales; para que os hagáis una idea, desde su fundación en 2006 se han descargado más de 90 millones de guías SCHMAP. Además ofrece versiones para nokia e Iphone. Citando la prestigiosa publicación TIME “quizás sea hora de sustituir tus viejos mapas tradicionales por un útil nuevo schmap”

¿Y por qué cuento esto? Como diría su alteza real, me llena de orgullo y satisfacción que esta prestigiosa guía decidiera publicar una foto mía para que los millones de turistas que tengan pensado venir a Madrid, puedan ver como es el oso y el madroño sito en la Puerta del Sol…lo que no saben los chicos de schmap es que recientemente el oso ha cambiado de sitio (sólo unos metros más allá), a pesar de ello les doy un notable alto.

I was pleased to find out that one of my images on Flick’r of the Frank Gehry Vitra Design Museum was shortlisted for inclusion in the eighth edition of the Schmap Berlin Guide. Schmap guides are free to readers and entered pictures are clearly attributed to the photographer and a link is provided to the original image on Flick’r.

Schmap offers digital travel guides for over two hundred destinations around the world. Versions can be explored online or on various smart phones like the iPhone. Users can also create and share their maps, trip itineraries, or reviews. Later, I was even happier to hear that my image had made it into the guide. I have included a view of what it would look like on the iPhone.

Durante l’estate, una delle fotografie scattate per analizzare e studiare Piazza di Tor Sanguigna e pubblicata su Flickr, è stata selezionata e scelta come foto rappresentativa del Rione Ponte (Roma).

La selezione è avvenuta ad opera di Schmap, guida turistica online, che può anche essere scaricata su alcuni cellulari Nokia e su Iphone.

ecco il sito Schmap, ed ecco la foto selezionata

A photo I took in Chinatown, New York was selected for use in the Schmap online travel guide.

And this little number appeared on the Londonist:

Random context.

Things have been so busy that the Fashion Weeks have slipped by without comment from me. I’m sure these have been covered elsewhere in much detail, so I think everyone can survive without the addition of my tardy contribution. I missed LFW due to being whisked away for a beautiful 10 days in Sicily, doing Taormina – Lipari – Palermo. Had an amazing time eating my body weight in mozzarella. Photos to follow…

Coldplay 11-03-09 Acer Arena Sydney, originally uploaded by pimviergever.

Helemaal vergeten! Tijdje terug kreeg ik een mailtje dat één van mijn foto’s zal worden gebruikt voor schmap.com!

De foto is gemaakt tijdens het Coldplay optreden in de Acer Arena, Sydney

Right, I’m just off to the train station to make my way to Veliko Tarnovo.

While walking there I went past a large garden gate and was taken aback by a huge bang like a sledge hammer bashing into it, followed by an almighty roar and a large paw protruding under it. I had a peek through a hole in the adjacent fence and was greeted by a very menacing looking rottweiler which wouldn’t have looked out of place in The Omen. I made a split-second decision on the sturdiness of the fence and then gave Rex a little whistle, I don’t reckon he was too impressed.

Patsy Parisi (or was it Philly?) just walked past me. So that’s 2 (Paulie Gaultieri was the other one remember) Sopranos lookey likeys I’ve seen now in Bucharest. There must be somet going down. I wonder what the skinny is?

There’s definitely more stray dogs in Bucharest and Romania in general than anywhere else I’ve been so far. If I was to help one of them and take it into my home as my own, would that make me …. drum roll please …. wait for it …. nearly there …. Dan Petrescu(e). Ohh geez man, that’s so bad it’s great.

The train journey was okay, if a bit hot and sweaty. There were 2 blokes on the train who’d been at the hostel and my seat was with them so that made time pass a bit quicker. Funnily enough I’ve been to both of their home towns.

One fella a bit younger than me who was from Dusseldorf and a film buff which gave us some common ground. The other was a retired bloke in his early 60s from Malmo who spends 4 months a year there, 4 at his other home in Spain near Alicante and another 4 travelling just about everywhere, his passport stamp collection is most impressive. I asked him what his job was previously, he said it was related to weaponry (specifically explosives). I’m saying he’s an arms dealer.

This hostel I’m staying at is pretty good value. It’s €6.50 a night in a 10 bed dorm and another €2 per night for breakfast and a light evening meal with a beer. They also picked me and the Swedish bloke up for free from the station.

The evening meal was some sort of Bulgarian broth with potatoes in it, not bad. The best bit was that a lot of people eating didn't want their beer. Sometimes you just have to stand up and be counted, I duly obliged for 3 people.

There were an older (60s) set of couples from Devon who were spending a night here on their way to Varna. I like people from round those parts, they're normally warm and friendly. If I could get a decent job there it's somewhere I'd like to live when back in Albion.

You may remember that I mentioned Schmap were interested in potentially using one of my photos on Flickr for their New York City guide. Well I have them permission and they picked mine to use, goodo. Here’s what it would look like on the iPhone.

I’ve just counted 11 fresh mozzie bites in a variety of annoying places, liccle b@stards.

I can’t be bothered tonight as it’s quite late, but first thing tomorrow morning I need to figure out how the chuff I’m getting to Istanbul. There may be complications relating to funny Bulgarian ticket office opening hours and then trains possibly being off due to the floods in Istanbul. I’ll deal with it all tomorrow though.

Lastly, big shout out for Clure R over in da New of Z who has got an accounts job paying the equivalent of 35 large Sterling. Nuff rezpect.

The picture is of a rather large football boot (I suppose you can see that can’t you) in Bucharest, not really sure what it’s all about to be honest.

A few weeks ago I received a surprise message in my Flickr Inbox from Schmap, a website that creates free maps and guides online (and has a utility to allow you to make your own). They wanted permission to use one of my photos in their newest Amsterdam guide update. Pretty cool, I thought, and they since they aren’t charging people to use their guides I felt it was for a good cause.

Today I received notification that my photo (the one above actually) was included in their new Amsterdam guide. Its pretty buried in the Bloemenmarkt section, but it is there. Here’s the Amsterdam Guide.

Unfortunately, Schmap only creates guides for major cities worldwide, so no Maastricht guide. Yet.

Een tijdje terug kreeg ik via Flickr een mailtje dat een van mijn foto’s van de Keukenhof geselecteerd was voor de September editie van Schmap Amsterdam. Dat is een gids die je o.a. op je iPhone kunt zien en die je dan dus door Amsterdam leidt. Vandaag kreeg ik een mailtje dat mijn foto ook daadwerkelijk is gepubliceerd!! Dat is toch zo leuk om te lezen he!

En dit is de foto waar het om gaat: