Granville Street, Vancouver

Having spent all of Friday following a couple of government cabinet ministers around, I decided to take some personal time to hang out on Granville Street and take in some of the revelry. A good time was had by all.

Olympics, The International Broadcast Centre

Me in front of the Olympic Torch
I've been spending the Olympics in a novel way. Since I'm not working for any of the large news agencies, I'm not accredited for any of the Olympic events. However, the Canadian Press has a commercial photography division, and they've been keeping me very busy, believe it not, documenting Canadian Government Cabinet Ministers as they tour the various Olympic facilities.

Thursday, I had a fascinating tour through the International Broadcast Centre in Vancouver with Industry Minister Tony Clemente.


The CTV main studio


CTV control room. There are 10 broadcast network feeds for CTV alone.


Minister Tony Clemente (centre, with glasses), in the broadcast nerve centre, where the producers monitor the broadcast feed.


Inside the server farm

Olympics around Whistler

A German fan in the Whistler Village


Local photographer, and Munich native, Andy Dittrich, is interviewed for Bavarian TV.


Whistler writer Stephen Vogler watching the men's downhill race from Citta's patio, in the Whistler Village.



The Sardis Secondary Drumline. I wish they had one of these when I was in high school.

Olympic Protests

Protesters marching down Georgia Street, in front of the Bay store. Downtown Vancouver.
Since I didn't have any other gig for the Olympics, I decided to head down to Vancouver and check out the protests planned for the opening ceremonies. Generally, it was pretty peaceful, with some pushing and shoving, but no serious agro to speak of.


Masked protesters


That's actually a pretty good point


A native elder confronts a police officer in front of BC Place stadium


A masked protester


Wary looking police officers


The Black Brigade

More Torch Pics

I got a call from the Canadian Press assignment service last night asking if I could spend the day covering a famous British athlete who was in town to do the torch run. Matthew Pinsent is a four time gold medal rower, and a really nice guy.


An idea of how crazy things got. The guys in the track suits are RCMP security, who took some real pleasure in pushing us around. There were TV crews from CTV (the host broadcaster), the BBC (Matthew's a sports journalist now), and a private crew from the Canadian Tourist Commission (my client).


Matthew handing over the flame to former Whistler Mayor Drew Merideth.