Tag Archives: art

Vancouver

For years I had read and heard that Vancouver was an incredible, unique city in the heart of Canada’s beautiful province, British Columbia. Many have described it as an area that provides an exciting city to explore and quick access to mesmerizing hikes year round, breathtaking sea adventures spring through early fall, and stellar skiing in winter through early spring. I love all of these things and have thus always wanted to make my way to Vancouver. Finally in late October of 2017, I did and it was a spectacular experience.

(scroll down if you are looking for quick Vancouver recommendations)

Indeed Vancouver is a wonder of a metropolis. It has great architecture, from vintage charming in areas such as hoppin’ and happenin’ Gastown replete with exposed brick walls and cobblestone streets to modern sleek throughout downtown to cozy arts and craft style neighborhoods. Vancouver offers everything you want out of a populous and metropolitan city; fantastic restaurants and bars, great current and specialty shopping, and fun night life. And though it is crowded as most city hubs are, it still somehow manages to feel like an inviting town more than a city which can be attributed to its connection with nature which runs throughout the city with an abundance of trees and other organic features as well as its resident population of kindly, warm people that call Vancouver home.

Again, what makes Vancouver so special is its extremely close proximity to nature. In Vancouver, not only do you have Stanley Park, but you are a stone’s throw away from the mountains, the woods, and the ocean at all times, allowing you to pursue your choice of outdoor activities with great ease. As a lover of the great outdoors myself, this factor made me fall in love with Vancouver that much more. Within just 3 1/2 days in Vancouver, I was able to do great city exploration and all that comes with it, a fairytale of a hike, and an adventure of a whale watching experience out on the water. So much, so close!

Needless to say, I absolutely loved my stay in Vancouver and would highly recommend that anyone who loves all of the things I have just described above to go visit themselves. I was only there for half a week, but I feel comfortable stating that I think I could live in Vancouver if the opportunity arose.

With that, I am sure you are eager to learn more, right? Well, keep reading below for a list of recommendations from my Vancouver adventure to consider when planning your own. I have divided them into Vancouver Areas, Activities, and Restaurants.

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Friend-time Activities That Aren’t Just Drinks and Dinner

I love getting together to catch up with my friends over drinks and/or dinner, it’s one of my favorite ways to see my friends and spend my free time. At the same time, however, there are only so many dinner slots in our schedules to dedicate to friend meetups. Also, drinks and dinners add up fast from a cost perspective (amiright or what?) So in an effort to inspire more friend get-togethers because it is a part of a healthy and happy lifestyle, here are some other friend-time activities that aren’t just drinks and dinner that you can enjoy with those special humans you decided you liked enough to keep around for a while!

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An Open Letter to Food Bloggers with Perfect Food Photography

Hi there fellow food blogger!

My name is Johnny La Pasta, perhaps you’ve heard of my blog? Perhaps not, building up a popular blog is no easy feat. (Say, when do the advertisers start giving me money to put banners on my site? Still waiting).

Me too Brit, me too.

Anyway, I love your food blog. Your recipe for that slow cooker salmon is giving me life. I can’t wait to try!

Also, I just have to tell you, your food photos are soooo beautiful! Or perhaps a better compliment would be “pinable”, that’s a much better word of affirmation in the digital age anyhow.

I mean, that pizza looks like Michelangelo made it….

Perhaps another way of saying your photos look great is to tell that they look photoshopped. Wait what? They are? No wonder!

Like, those potatoes have to be airbrushed…

You see, I have to admit to you, I am jealous AF that your food looks like it was styled carefully by Martha Stewart herself while mine looks like it was styled by, well, me.

Martha approveth of you, disdaineth of me.

You’re during an A+++ job with your food photography, and your blog gets higher views because of it. Bravo!

Do you pay the hand models? Or are your hands also as perfect as your food?

However, wouldn’t you agree that perfectly photographed food is not always how REAL FOOD turns out looking?

Here is my real food. I mean, sure my dented fridge is in the background, but the pizza looks okay….

Is it not true that food can come out looking messy and sloppy and not photographed in the right light or setting, but still be completely delicious and nutritious? I know it to be true, because that is the nature of real food.

My pasta is a little messy, but you can’t not know it’s delish, right?

Sometimes, you just don’t have time to make it look pretty and magical, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good.

Nice camera! Can you pay off my student loans, please?

You see, you have that $3000 camera, and an advanced version of photoshop on your macbook pro, and you have all the gadgets for creating the illusion of perfect, soft, natural light, and you have a gloriously large and upscale kitchen to stage everything in, and you have different types of plates and tablescapes to stage against, and you sometimes even have an assistant pouring sauce into the picture to get that rad action shot. All of it maketh these gorgeous foodie photos.

But that’s kind of unattainable for the rest of us peasant level food bloggers. Some of us have tiny, non-granite counter kitchens with very limited space and one set of plates. So, sorry if you see my overused toaster in the background of my dinner shot; I gots nowhere else to put it! And sorry if my photo turns out too bright or dim; I only have hideodeous flourscent lighting in my kitchen and dim orange lighting in my dining room and natural light in my abode is evasive, especially at prime cooking times.

Dream….

Reality….

Also, if my photos look like they were shot quickly and then rushed on from so that the photographed food could be eaten, that’s because they were. I know that this food blogging gig is your full time job, so you can dedicate hours to shooting the perfect food photo to pin and insta, you might even make food just for a photoshoot and not even an actual meal; but I am over here trying to food blog my real life actual dinner at my literal dinner time because I work 55 hours a week between 2 jobs. Taking time to create the perfect shot is a non-option for me most regrettably.

Like, this is my actual dinner, I have to take this photo and eat now or die.

I wish I could document the process of putting every ingredient in my slow cooker in the morning light and then capture the final plating at sunset with stunning, “LIKE” inducing snaps, but I am already running late for work by the time I am dumping all the ingredients in my slow cooker at one time so….not happening.

How did you even get up there? Are these your real friends? Can I have one of the succulents?

I love that you can accomplish this seemingly impossible feat and make art of your food through photos, but please judge me not for when mine comes out a bit more gritty and less photoshopped looking, because my food is still good. You’re foodie photos might be the equivalent of a highly edited Vogue cover, while mine are the quick, realistic pics of the paparazzi, but I can’t help that right now.

The thing is, real food isn’t always pretty. And a recipe post that has less than airbrushed looking photos doesn’t mean that following said recipe won’t produce real food. Real food can be pretty and it can be okay looking, but it all tastes the same.

Maybe this isn’t to your photography standards, but it still tastes good AF.

So if anyone is sad their food doesn’t plate just like the world’s most successful blogger, do not let your heart be troubled! If you followed the directions, your food still tastes good, you are just seeing the realist incarnation of it. And if you read a blog like mine where the photos are just okay, please know it is still good, but here again, it is just real food that was just plated and is about to be demolished by me so that I can continue pushing through my hellish 55 hour work week.

So keep doing what you are doing, keep making food look good, but don’t look down on us that don’t have the right tools, settings, and resources to do so. And the rest of you, be proud of anything you manage to plate at the end of a busy day no matter if it’s traditionally pinable or not!

Cheers and Namaste!