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they come in numbers

i want to say so much – the experience fired synapses that set off emotional gasps of wonder.

the size… the size of some of them… hundreds of pounds.

but perhaps, in this case, the pictures will speak louder than words.

nature.  beauty.  the world, doing what it does.  mysterious ways.

leatherback turtles, maui.

all images © erica chan 2012

baby crazy

yes… i am.  baby crazy.

i expect nature will take it’s course and hopefully include me in the prestigious group of women i call “mothers” – one day.

until then, i get my fill of baby love through these little tykes i’m photographing…

xx

all images © erica chan

life in a digital instant. continued.

vancouver sea gull, vancouver, january 2012

vancouver crow, january 2012

secret spot, vancouver island, december 2011

bike ride, paia, november 2011

segways - only in california, september 2011

add ons, santa rosa, september 2011

room with a view, santa rosa, september 2011

famous breakfast comprised of coffee and orange juice. san francisco, september 2011

feet on the street. san francisco. september 2011

in uniform. san francisco. january 2012

roach. vancouver island, july 2011.

three, tofino, september 2011

blackberries, vancouver, september 2011

remnants of christmas. san francisco. january, 2012.

life in a digital instant. the beginning.

oh the iphone.  or any camera phone, for that matter.  it’s been years of snap here, snap there.  i’ve been collecting moments from my phone forever, but they never get shown in any way.  they sit, next to numbers and a selection of songs, waiting for their time to shine.  patiently waiting.

i’ve decided to start a new category on my blog, called ‘life in an instant.’  ”instancy” in photography can mean so many things.  i shoot these polaroids and they are instant.  i shoot these phone photos and they are instant.  i shoot my digital slr and they are instant.  i shoot.  and it is instant…  the gratification, that is.  sometimes it doesn’t matter what it looks like.  a photograph is a moment realized, a moment appreciated, and a moment caught for reflection another time.  a signature that the moment was witnessed by you.  a validation that you qualify to call that experience your own.

digital instants are short lived, i find.  they are caught, replayed, loved, shared… then like newspapers, forgotten tomorrow.  glorious moments line our historical timelines to catch the messy new ones.  they still exist, and every once in a while catch the eye of someone looking hard enough… for a brief moment they are appreciated again.  they form the archives that are our digital social lives… which, let’s face it… these days to some people mean more than our real lives.

analog instants… i find these live a little longer.  but they still need to be shared.  they need to be passed around, exhibited, admired.  it’s just harder to find the right setting… gather the crowds… put the out there in society.  they last longer, because once they are presented, they are marinated on more… they seem to provide more thought provoking material and spur more conversations.  they seem more substantial than a fleeting digital thought.  perhaps i’ve been spending too much time with my polaroids, and this is just how i feel about them.  like a proud mother who’s kids are the best – no matter what they do.  i’ll always love and support them…

any who.  i figured, since i share many polaroids, there would be a great comparison to share the digital instancies as well – they both capture life – in an instant.

to start off the collection… people.

enjoy.

mikaela reuben, at sunset in british columbia, december 2011

peter, santa rosa, california, september 2011

christian, san francisco, september 2011

brent brander, ucluelet, british columbia, august 2011

asleep in the museum, nyc, august 2011

my bridesmaids, september 2011

talia, maui, hawaii, movember 2011

maude, san francisco, january 2012

the dutch, vancouver island, august 2011

kaedon, kauai, december 2011

hand me downs, ella, san francsico, january 2012

laura low ah kee, maui, january 2012

robyn & kristy, paia, january 2012

lila, vancouver, september 2011

balancing act, vancouver, august, 2011

robyn penn, paia, november 2011

self portrait, july, 2011

life is but a sport.

i am both and american and a canadian.

born in california and raised in canada from 7 years old onward, i feel as though i was exposed to many things from both north american cultures that have shaped the way that i am today.  man, i could go on about what has influenced my growth forever, but i want to write about one thing in particular.  sports.

in particular, hockey and football.

growing up in canada, hockey has been my sport of choice for entertainment.  because i don’t subscribe to tv, when i moved to santa barbara, i remember the first time i tried to find a bar or restaurant that would play the vancouver canucks hockey games.  timing of hockey coincides with basketball, and americans love their basketball… not as much as football, but far more than hockey.  i remember the pure joy i felt when i came across “o’malley’s” – my favourite place in santa barbara – because there, right in front of my eyes, i walked up to a group of hockey fans, yelling at the screens just like i do when i watch.  there was even a canucks fan, jersey and all, to share with me in the roller coaster ride that is ‘being a canucks fan’.  after moving to maui, i had a stint of actually playing roller hockey with a bunch of hockey fans, but my career came to an end when i suffered a concussion and made the executive decision that i was getting too old to play such rough sports… if anything, i would continue to surf.  but that never stopped me, and the group of canucks fans that we found out there, from gathering in numbers and forcing “charlie’s” bar in paia to lend us at least one tv for our viewing and yelling pleasure.

i find hockey so much fun to watch.  perhaps it’s that i understand the rules, it’s fast and action packed and the seemingly impossibility of shooting that tiny puck into the slivers of open space that exist behind the talent and size of the goalie in front of that minature net – well, the precision is almost like watching a miracle.  who doesn’t enjoy witnessing miracles…?

i remember during the 1994 stanley cup finals, when our beloved canucks made the city proud by winning the western conference finals, i was but a young hopeful with my dreams resting on their success.  i drew and painted canucks logos and put them on the windshields of our neighbors cars to share my enthusiasm.  i rocked my jersey so proudly.  and i cried when they lost in game seven.  i cried even more when the city rioted and i saw how volatile and violent people became when hopes and dreams are crushed…. the dreams that weren’t even their own… just their hopes.  but every year, i gear up and spread my hopes for them over months of ups and downs… regardless of how they do, i still have love for them.

in the usa, the same love can be found for football.  everywhere.  football is one of the most widely adored and respected sports across the nation.  from an age younger than highschool (whatever age that might be) boys begin their long and consuming journey into the institution of football.  from a very young age they are bred to play… enticed to follow… and born to dream.

one of my great young loves was a football player before we met.  he was motivated, determined, creative and persistent.  during high school, he was adored and worshipped, growing up in a small town in oklahoma as a football player.  i remember him telling me all the things he was able to get away with in his town… so long as he played his heart out for the team they would all come out to cheer for on friday nights.  graduating to college ball, the field grew more treacherous, the expectations more demanding, and the consequences more severe.  so many more eyes on you, and so much more undue hope weighing on your shoulders.  injuries gave him an out to escape with no shame… most players don’t get the luxury of that.  without meaning any condescension,  i feel most athletes in major team sports are still just people… boys… caught in an accepted hierarchy of power.  they have grown up with dreams and aspirations, and have worked hard with discipline, pride and social exposure.  they have a celebrity status that puts them above the line of certain accepted dignities and, oddly, breeds a love from people that goes beyond simple respect for talent and hard work… creating an almost “god-like” persona/complex.  it’s really not their fault.  if, when out in public, people want to touch you… to take a photo with you… to be with you… it would take a strong, highly contemplative individual that would question and discover the roots of those actions, and consequently attach them to a social phenomenon that has nothing to do with them in actuality.  afterall… they are just human.   these men have endured physical, emotional and mental struggles to get where they are today.  they have mentors.  they have teachers.  they laugh and cry.  they experience winning and losing.  it’s amazing and addictive to watch.

whether it’s hockey or football or basketball or lacrosse… it’s just about having a team that you love to align your hopes and dreams with.  or maybe not even a team.  maybe it’s just about relinquishing the pressures of our own lives – and, for a moment, allow a group of hopefuls to control our emotions… we’d rather suspend our own reality… and gamble our hopes on a group of individuals that can win something that will somehow make everything in our lives, albeit momentarily, absolute bliss.  whatever it is, we can’t help but wander over to the drawn crowd of people to see what the buzz is all about.  and the energy hooks into you and you’re all of a sudden cheering.

being born in san francisco, i have the luxury of being a band wagon fan of the glorious san francisco 49ers.  knowing they are on their way to playing for the nfc championships, and possibly the super bowl… well it’s the same brewing excitement inside my gut as if the canucks were, once again, in the stanley cup finals…  since they are my team of choice for this football season, i find it fitting that the next big game is against “the giants.”  by lyrical nature, they would be the underdogs.  it’s the easiest thing in the world to cheer for the underdogs.  nothing to expect except the unexpected.  nowhere to go but up.  perhaps expecting the unexpected is not such a bad thing after all… it keeps us sharp in our minds and excited in our guts, which is the flint and spark for a great fire to burn in our hearts.  i guess this is the beauty of putting your hopes and dreams in sports.  and whether your team wins or loses the game, no one in the world can deny the fact that they are winners just by playing their hearts out and giving it their all.

“i always turn to the sports section first.  the sports page records people’s accomplishments; the front page has nothing but man’s failures.” ~ earl warren

whether or not it is hockey or football… let your hopes and dreams fall victim to a group of hard working boys or girls or men or women… let their passion and spirit invigorate your heart and soul for a couple of hours.  after all, as quoted by howard cosell, “sports is human life in microcosm.”  in most ways, i’d tend to agree.

days in 2011. days in 2012.

i’ve collected a handful of moments from new york to british columbia in the remaining week of 2011.  it’s been a very interesting year and there have been so many new and deliciously fascinating sprouts in my life that have begun to grow from seeds that have been planted long ago.  i find myself pulling away from the internet and digital realm ever so slightly.  routines that once were have been replaced with new and more tedious ones.  the tedium has morphed into something like an enjoyable homework assignment for a class i never thought i’d understand or enjoy.  with the polaroid project that i am working on, i have really begun to understand myself a little more.  i really do just love taking photographs.  i find the process so enjoyable, the moments so beautiful, the memories so poignant and the stories unforgettable.  with the weddings i’ve met so many tantalizing couples, each with their own flair of personality and magical order of creation.  moments reeking of love and companionship.  with the music i find myself exploring new sounds, scratching the itch of curiosity of creating something of my own, a new outlet…

i hope you all had a wonderful 2011.  the year whizzed by like a diving kingfisher, giving us what felt like seconds to react to the world as it sped past us.  and now, here we are… the first day of 2012.  remember this day next year and reflect on what happened – chances are it will pass by quicker than you expect.

i figured i’d also share with you a couple of the shots from today, 2012, january 1st – with a tradition that happens in vancouver.  the polar bear swim.  only the beautiful, crazy, energetic people of vancouver get as excited as they do with this sort of a tradition.  run as fast as you can, with screams of joy and screams of slight fear, into the brisk, icy waters of english bay.  do it with a smile on your face, pride in your heart and with a bunch of great friends.  and costumes… if you will.  scare away the ghosts of 2011’s hangover with a courageous beginning to the new year.  ahhhh.  i love vancouver folk.

happy new year and wishing you all lots of love, laughter and good fortunes for your life!

erica.

last days, 2011.

2012.

january 1, 2012. polar bear swim. vancouver, bc • all images © erica chan

summer girls. polaroid.

new york city summer girl

lasqueti island summer girl

one day maui adventure.

a few moments from an adventure in maui.   april and francis were so great – from kihei to wailea to makena to haiku to paia to lahaina to ka’anapali… we covered the maui basics in record time with their beautiful celebration of love.

congrats you two!

chloe & gary

love, mexico and tequila.

on the day of their wedding it was supposed to rain.  chloe and i checked out an alternate venue inside the resort which was dull and lifeless to say the least.  she walked with authority to her coordinator and said “no – i want the wedding outside, on the beach, like i have planned for my dream wedding.”

that was all it took!  the storm clouds shrank and shifted away from her beautiful beach wedding site and the day was perfect.  gary and chloe have been together since high school, and their wedding in mexico was a perfect combination of their love – stunningly beautiful, fortunate, sweet… and debauchery.

thanks guys for including me in your effervescent celebrations!  you are beautiful!

xx erica.

jack & megan

as grey as vancouver can be at times in september, the colorful jack and megan were brighter than fireworks on their wedding at the pinnacle at the pier hotel in north vancouver… and i’m not just talking about jack’s fiery red hair.

jack and megan are red hot in so many ways.  their wedding was blissfully beautiful, from the old rolls royce limo that megan got for jack, to the gorgeous live painting of the wedding that jack got for megan.  they had a jar to collect the donations that people had to make in order to get them to kiss – for the medical ward that megan is a nurse at.  pretty much the best cupcakes i’ve ever tasted… i may have gained 5 pounds that night from the second helpings i was encouraged to take.  they had a wicked photo booth that got everyone out of their seats, as well as a dj that rocked the house till last call.  they had a smoking hot bridal party that partied hotter than they looked.  what a fun night with such a fun couple.  thank you both for letting celebrate your love with you.

rock on!

the calm after the storm. thoughts about marriage.

i feel as though i’m at a loss for words these days.

i started this post the day after my wedding.  i got as far as “i feel as though….”  i left those words on the page for a while and waited for my head to form thoughts.  nothing came together to form anything.  so i saved those words and the post titled “the calm after the storm” and decided to come back to it when i felt like i could bring it all together.

now, over a month after we’ve been married, i’m returning to the blank page, full of potential and colorful expressions, thoughtful sparks of excited word spasms, or even opinionated two cents about what a wedding is all about.  it’s eerie how calm i still am.  the comfort of post wedding is like some sort of muscle relaxing drug that keeps you from feeling any spasms or pain or tightness… but you know it’s there.  being married doesn’t totally change that.  or perhaps this is just the comfort that being married provides you with.  an inability to feel the uncertainty of being unhitched.  logically…. because you are.  hitched that is.

i like to think of this calmness as “the comfort of forever after.”  the few spats we’ve had in the past month have been small and inconsequential – pay more attention to me, why are you waking me up, turn off the light, it’s your turn to take the garbage out… why do you have to leave…?  that sort of stuff.  all in all the frequency we are vibrating on are intertwining together to maintain a steady high wavelength… a beautiful pitch of harmonized monotone.  i love our monotone.  i find comfort in it.  i reach up to grab it and pull it over me – wrap it around me tightly like a warm blanket… with this tightly wrapped blanket keeping me warm, i could potentially move anywhere.  vancouver… victoria…?  i think it’s a quite realistic possibility to assume i will have to close the distance gap between me and my hubby… maui and bc… brought closer by jumbo jets, but no matter how you spin it they’re still too far apart.  the distance will definitely affect our frequency.  there is bound to be some static.  static.  ugh.  static… the destroyer of my clear communication.  and static, shocking me softly under the comfort of my warm blanket.

“You don’t need to be on the same wavelength to succeed in marriage. You just need to be able to ride each other’s waves.” – Toni Sciarra Poynter, From This Day Forward: Meditations on the First Years of Marriage

i suppose it is inevitable that things will change when you get married.  change is such a stark constant in life.  sometimes the change is slow and predictable… something you can prepare for.  sometimes it quick and surprising… turns your world upside down.  there isn’t much you can do but roll with the punches, hoping they won’t hit you in a funny bone or knock the wind out of you.  eventually you build up a bit of resistance, begin to predict certain moves… we adapt to the fights we get ourselves into and can eventually internalize some sort of a plan of defense.  once the wind knocking, funny bone sparking hits can be avoided… once the offense and defense begin to meld into a coordinated explosion of moves, it almost becomes like a sort of dance.  a dance that melds the expected and unexpected together.  a fight that is beautiful instead of ball busting.  kind of like capoeira.  kind of like this.

maybe that’s it.  maybe i’m finding this state of serenity so eerie because i’ve gone through my whole life preparing for some sort of a hit.  something unexpected.  some sort of reason that things won’t work out.  some sort of altercation that changes everything.  it’s happened so much in the past – in past relationships mostly – that i’ve always prepared myself for it.  i haven’t let the moves flow and continue moving.  i’ve grabbed onto all i know and white fisted my grip to be sure i didn’t lose too much when i was hit.  and by standing still as a stagnant target my world would collapse when i was hit.  now… now my mobility and relaxed movements come from the knowledge that i have a partner to dance with… a partner that will help to support me when i fall or when i get hit.  it’s amazing what a partner will do for a life.  you share the load, you share the responsibilities, and everything becomes lighter and more easy to manage.  you have give up some of the gripping control that you’ve trained yourself to have over the years – which for me was difficult – but once it is gone, you never quite miss it, because everything else gets better.  i’ve gone from pretending to be an adult back to become giddy and naggy like a kid.  not that i’d ever really given up those qualities by growing up.  i guess i was just pretending… repressing them… masking them with what i know and calculated confidence.  i guess i just never wanted to annoy anyone with the way i really am.  i’ve just now found someone i want to annoy for the rest of my life.  it comes out in full force.  it’s a beautiful thing.

where have you been…

nothing for the past couple of weeks… i’ve had people asking where i’ve been…  i’ll tell you.  i’ve been getting married  :)

wow, the past month is but a whirlwind of organization, crafting and creation… and it all came together perfectly for our wedding on september 10, 2011.

saving myself the time and energy to try and explain how, why and who, i’ll add this link – from a guest and friend who attended our wedding.  she was able to sum up exactly how i wanted everything to go, as a person walking into the world of my perfect wedding.

an account of a wedding

thank you martina, and thank you to all the people who helped us along the way.  we really had the night of our lives.

xx erica & peter

finding you.

with the faint sounds of mariachi and tequila shots in the background, i sit here tonight, in my room in some all inclusive resort in mexico, getting ready for a wedding this week whilst trying hard to sort out the mess of motions in my head.  my wedding is in less than three weeks and there are a million things to be done.  funny that, even though i’m in the industry, i still go through all the motions that all brides go through.  there are so many expectations, so many people, so many details, so much money being spent…. it’s no wonder there’s even a term “bridezilla” – i’m thinking i’d coin myself tornado erica for the next little while… spinning in circles, carrying away the cares of so many people and trying to slowly place them back down to a place where they will be happy – hoping the calm after the storm will be settling enough to distract from the disaster that happened previously.

ugh.  so much to do, so little time.

the silver lining… i get to marry the most amazing person i know.  he calms me down when my mind gets a little crazy… which, let’s be honest, is all the time.  he lets me be me, and loves me for it.  it’s funny, many of the “little fights” we have are because i say something and he is just silent, staring out the window to the world.  i always ask if he’s heard me and he says he has.  i then decide to fill in the blanks of his answer or response to my last comment – and as a girl it is never actually what he is thinking.  in essence, i’m fighting with myself.  ha.  it’s not my finest moment admitting that, but it’s the honest truth.

these weeks leading up to our wedding are going to be long, tiring, sleepless and stressful – but i have those sweet big green eyes to look into whenever i feel any of this and it’s all better.  it’s all worth it.  not to be cheesy, but i’m beginning to get really excited to have that for the rest of my life.  :)

to all those men out there, being that for someone else, trust me, your girl thanks you.

here’s to me, finding you.

girls just wanna shot gun.

i spent a couple days in the heat of chicago, enjoying (and sometimes not) intense humidity and lightning storms.  after my short chicago love affair i made my way to photograph allison and joshua – two very energetic, and amazing people – at their fantastic wedding in rockford, il.

i always say it’s funny to see the bride and the groom’s – the differences between men and women always seem to dictate how they spend their day.  the bride and her girls are meticulously making themselves beautiful, crying at the rush of thoughts and emotions that are being brought up by watching their dear friend/daughter/sister step into her dress and into her new life.  meanwhile, the boys are having a pool party – drinking beer and cannonballing into the pool.  ha.  without fail, there are some distinct differences in the preparation phases of this big day.

often i choose shots based on men and women – and the things that make them different.  we had set up the shot for the boys to shotgun a beer… and they did with enthusiasm and laughs.  i turn around and see the line of girls watching… waiting.  they say to me… how come they get to shotgun beer?  don’t we?  all i can do is feel the sides of my mouth pull widely and chuckle a little chuckle.  absolutely.  these girls were rockstars – even allison, not for a second too afraid to get a little beer drip on her dress in order to lead the party.  rockford rockstars these girls were.  shotguns were just the beginning.

i had such an amazing time with this great group of people.  i don’t doubt i’ll probably make it back to chicago some day – and when i do, i’m giving allison a call… that girl is one cool chick.  lucky josh.

xx.

rockford rockstars | © erica chan

one mans trash is another mans treasure

that is my more eloquent and romantic way of describing my weekly garage sale addiction.  perhaps there may be other renditions of the ritualistic activity that has become one of my favourite things to do.  peter, my fiance, calls it hoarding in the name of “our wedding” – and although he pretends to be mighty unimpressed with my collecting, he manages to come with me every weekend and pick up a nifty “man tool” every so often for an outrageous price.  everyone wins.

every week i spread the collected treasures out on the patio and visually sift through our new belongings.  vintage bottles and old trunks, mason jars and antique nik naks.  i make little vignettes of how they are going to be used in our wedding celebration.  often i’ll spread out the tarp on the same patio and use the vintage inspiration to make some string ball decorations – just to really give myself a full feel of how great the whole thing is going to look.  i probably have enough stuff for a 200 person wedding!  too bad there’s way more people on our guestlist.  yikes.

i’ve given some thought to a photo polaroid project about garage salers and bargain shoppers.  in the times that i’ve gone, i’ve met some of the most interesting people – both buyers and sellers.  the stories that people have are so eclectic.  the history behind so many of the unique finds are richer than the items themselves.  isobel wolfe said that “when you buy a piece of vintage clothing, you’re not just buying the fabric and thread – you’re buying a piece of someone’s past.”  the places these things have been, the things they’ve seen – there’s value in the history of these stories.  something that has lasted a lifetime in someone else’s attic is now trash – and most of these things are my new found treasure.  it’s really quite true, the saying “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”.  I’ve definitely found some gold mines out there in the dingy, dark spaces of peoples garages.  i bought a steamer trunk from a lovely lady in kelowna the other week, while i was there to shoot a wedding.  i met her at her house and she proceeded to tell me the story of how this trunk came with her from germany, to switzerland, to england, to new york, to toronto, to saskatchewan, to alberta, and finally to bc.  she was a war bride and this was her travel case.  she was a mechanic in the air force and worked on f1 bombers for 40 years.  her and her husband were both 91 years old and getting rid of the stuff they had no more room for.  i was lucky enough to own a piece of her history.  i had her write it out for me and took a polaroid of them in front of their air force photos and paraphernalia.  she was quite lovely, and really wanted to sell me her entire living room set… thinking i would really appreciate good, solid, old but well made furniture.  unfortunately i had to decline.  :)

you never know what’s out there. i think garage sales are unique slices of time where people share their lives – their belongings and once treasures – with the world.  for a short couple of hours, you have the opportunity to buy pieces of people’s past.  they sit in their lawn chairs watching their kids sell lemonade and baked goods in hopes of harnessing their inner entrepreneurial skills and making a quick buck or two – and watch as people peruse their past and put value on something that was once so valuable to them.  it’s really a trip.

i woke up this saturday morning and looked outside.  the sun was shining and the sky was blue (which for a summer in bc is usually the norm, but this summer not so much).  these days have to be treasured this summer.  many of my friends were going to the beach or on a boat.  i thought to myself “what a great day for a garage sale.”

hey… you are how you are, and you like what you like.  and… perhaps… what you don’t like, someone else will.

rain, rain, don’t go away… bring the rain, cause with it comes the wind.

kim and jeremy had a wonderful celebration at sparkling hill resort in vernon this past weekend.  but on the big day they skies were daunting – huge black clouds covered the face of the sun and no blue, or orange hues were in sight.  luckily, kim slept on a lock of jeremy’s hair – which is supposed to bring you good luck on your wedding day.  Sure enough, a half hour before the ceremony the skies parted and the glory of okanagan summers shone through.  timing couldn’t have been better.  i’m not kidding.  directly after the ceremony we went out to do some family photos and all of a sudden all we could see were these looming black clouds and lightning in the distance.  it was almost as if the momentary bliss of sunshine had not even existed.  with the storm, came the wind, and with the wind came the rain… despite the black weather that was coming in, we got a giddy shot of kim laughing at the weather’s multiple personalities of the day.  bring the rain, cause with it came this awesome gust of wind.  here’s the teaser – you’ll see what i mean.  congrats kim and jer – you guys were so great!  and i may just sleep on a lock of peter’s hair before we get married… you know… just in case ;)

xx

© erica chan 2011

beaver point hall

we had the simple pleasure of a full 24 hours on saltspring island.  a mere half hour out of any civilization we are accustomed to, we landed in fullford harbour and made our way to our cute little yellow cottage b&b.  we dropped off our bags, put on our exploration caps and made our way along the dirt roads and tall trees to find our enjoyment for the evening.  ate some good food, walked around to appreciate the small island life, then made our way to “the show.”

one may think i’m biased because these guys are my friends, but jon & roy and current swell is pretty much the best combo band night i could ever ask for.  not to forget to give beaver point hall credit where credit is due… this show was like a high school dance, concert hall, epic party classic all rolled into one.  all in all a great evening of fun.  the two bands even encored together for a masterful jam session that rocked the hall and had everyone’s fists pumping and feet stomping uncontrollably.  check out tour dates for both these bands… if they’re coming to your city, they’re not to be missed.  seriously.  until then here are a couple of shots from the night.

xx

double band encore.  best dessert ever.

all images © erica chan

feed me.

© erica chan, 2011

stumbled upon a sweet little birds nest while on an adventure today on saltspring island, bc.  unbelievable moment there, watching the babe yearn for its mother, screaming with its actions “feed me”.

just wanted to share.

xx

janice & scott

janice and scott had a beautiful celebration at bridges at granville island in may.  janice is actually an old friend of mine.  she is exactly as i remember her.  beautiful, organized, bold and bossy (in the ways i adore!).  scott is sure a lucky man.  the couple live in philadelphia, and had a sweet celebration in vancouver – an old home town – as well as in their current home town, a couple weeks later.  lucky jan, she got to wear her gorgeous dress twice!  i hope perhaps i can convince her to make three times with a trash the dress shoot in the future…?  hey?  ya?   :)

congrats janice & scott, wishing you two all the love in the world (not that you don’t already have it!)  xx

all images © erica chan

happy canada day.

downtown victoria was bumpin this canada day.  one of my favourite bands, current swell, was playing, there were fireworks, sailboats, sunshine and all round smiles.  unfortunately we weren’t there.  but fortunately we had a couple minutes to take a deep breath and celebrate our canada day in our own way, far away from the crowds, inhaling the best of bc.  hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!  happy fourth to the united states bunnies.

xx.

water whirl | erica chan photography

canada day paddle | erica chan photoraphy