six o'clock and all's well

In the winter, were I to wake up at 5am life would be pure misery indeed. However, now that the sun is up, I'm only slightly annoyed that I am awake now. I've been up for an hour already, I'm not due at work for another two (although I'm sure I will arrive early today). I was tempted to leave the house this morning for a stroll, to go walking when there was no one else around, but that would have required more effort than I was willing to put in. Besides I had edits to finish on a freelance project I've been working on. In all, this early morning wake up call proved to be fortuitously productive.

The conference for which I hired expressly to provide my support is very nearly underway. I'm very excited for it. I've somehow stumbled into the best possible type of work - I've been helping to organize one of the workshops, working with eight community groups, helping coordinate their presentations. I get to be an event photographer for the whole conference, which basically means I have an all access pass to the various sessions and special events. Today for example I'm shooting a UNESCO luncheon on Urban Biodiversity at the University. It's pretty bloody awesome. On Sunday, in addition to the opening of the conference (congress, whatever you want to call it), I also get to photograph a concert that is happening in Louise McKinney Park. There are all sorts of things happening - reminds me a bit of the World Urban Forum that I partially attended in 2006 (at the time I was just there for general interest sake and didn't go to every single session that I possibly could have, but that's also because I was busy taking general photos in and around Vancouver). I'll be posting photos to the Congress flickr account once I get started and will link to the images once they're up. I can't tell you how excited I am for this opportunity. I will get to meet people from all over the world... I love when my job and photography combine. It's pretty bloody fantastic.