Canadian adventures 2010...

September was Canada time for me and my lovely Vivienne, and for the first time I decided to take a serious camera with me and document as much as possible, while still having fun and relaxing.
It's taken this long to edit them and sort through it all, but finally the pictures are ready!

I never get over how beautiful it is over there. Everyone raves about British Colombia and Vancouver - for good reason after all the natural beauty there is astounding, but Ontario has it's own rural charm. It's so different from BC - the wide open spaces that just seem to carry on forever, the skies are huge and beautiful, the rolling valley's and dense forests, farm land, fields and fields of corn with red roofed farm buildings...

And Toronto itself is so much fun, it has such a good vibe and full of friendly people (although I have to say beer is expensive!), great places to eat out (my favourite being this place), and of course the CN tower - the world's tallest free standing structure - still amazes me everytime I see it. I love Canada and I love Toronto, and I love Tim Hortons. Oh how I miss it when I come back to the UK!
So, I have taken a selection of the shots I took from my trip and put them up here.  You'll see more on my flikr page, I have tried to spread it out so there is something new to see on each part of my social networking.

Enjoy, and, as this may be my last post before the 25th - Merry Christmas to you all, hope it is great for you!

Annabel x


Detroit Airport!  Diversion after bad weather meant to get to Toronto we went London - JFK - cab to La Guardia - Detroit - Toronto - 23 hour trip in total!  This is a tunnel between the two terminals at Detroit, not only does it change colour, but the whole tunnel is filled with 'forest sounds'.  Kinda crazy for a city that is collapsing around it's own ears...

 That's me.  And it's not a self portrait, but I like it!

 Meet Scruffy and Rags...

Vivienne!

Nathan...

My favourite shot of Viv...

Well, and this one of course!

LAKE Ontario... lake?!

The ROM, an absolutely incredible building!

This is an abandoned ship near Niagara Falls...

My 2010 Review!

As 2010 draws to a close I thought it would be great to take a look back on the year that has been for Annabel Staff Photography!

There's been a lot of live work this year - more gigs than ever in fact - I totalled up forty five this year!  You can see some of my favourite gigs in the video - the images I hope stand out the most.  Along with all the live work for Getty / Redferns I was able to fit in some other stuff as well.  I tried to engage in more personal work than I have in recent years - and that is something else I hope to grow even more next year, some of my favourite personal work from this year has been included in the video.

Also another new aspect that I hope to get into in a big way next year - showcasing new talent in the music industry.  My good friend and exceptionally original artist, Smatka, provided me with the soundtrack for my review - not only that, but it's also her latest work, so I am really excited to be showcasing it here.

I would like to produce a review every month starting next year, and I will be looking to get music from unsigned artists and bands to use as each month's soundtrack.  I know this is something that will take a while to get going - but I'd like to start spreading the word as soon as possible.
So if you know anyone who you think should be considered please point them in my direction - it's a great way to promote yourself and to get the best of the un-heard music out there into the open.  It would be a great thing to be able to support emerging artists, being one myself I know how hard it is.

More on that soon - in the meantime I hope you enjoy the review, and please leave some feedback if you feel so inclined!

And the snow just keeps on coming...

Not five minutes after I had stepped out of my front door on Saturday did I get hit by a flurry of thick, fluffy snow.  By the time I had walked to my destination I was akin to the Abominable Snow(wo)man.

Freezing, soggy and sneezing all the way - I still couldn't resist turning my fingers to ice by getting out my little G9 camera (there's no way I was taking out the big guns - i.e. my D700 - in that slippery weather) and taking some shots, and here they are...

There's just something so magical about the snow.  It turns the most miserable looking streets into a continuous ending to Edward Scissorhands, like Tim Burton himself and come along with an army of set designers and transformed the dull winter streets into his own storyboard.

Very exciting news!

So today I found out that one of my images (and a personal favourite) of Alison Goldfrapp from this years LED Festival has been used in the very prestigious Getty Images Year in Focus 2010 book.

This book is sent out to all of Getty images' global clients (that's a lot of people!) and is a collective review of what they consider to be the best / most important images of the year.  What makes my inclusion even more special is that the 'Entertainment' pages of the book are only a very small proportion of the overall book since Getty focus more on breaking news stories and documentary work, and on top of that I am the only Redferns photographer to be included, which is immense!

Redferns are the picture library I shoot for, who work under the umbrella of Getty Images.  Redferns only shoot music, which makes them unique in the field of image libraries, and it's something all Redferns shooters are very proud of.  It's possibly the most comprehensive music image library in the world.

I am so so thrilled about this, it's a massive boost after putting in tons of effort this year.  I also found out that the Getty Images 2011 calendar - which is also sent out to Getty Images' clients, features the same image of mine and is the ONLY music image to be published in the calendar.

I am so excited I can't stop smiling...anyway, this is starting to sound like an Oscars acceptance speech so I'll sign off for now... woo!

Direct link to the book here

Some more shots from the Heath...

What on earth that huge brown puddle thing is I have no idea...but it looks like a cheeky dog make have taken a dip into it before I got there, much to it's owners despair no doubt!

And I wonder how long it took to make that GIANT snowball (at the bottom)....

...so I think she was confused as to the difference between the road and the pavement what with all the snow

moody

Big brown thing.  yuck.

 For a hot toddy perhaps?

 This dog came thundering past me on my way to the Heath, sounded like a horse galloping... then disappeared into the distance.  I found her owner a few minutes later, he said to me "I think she was cold, she just bolted home"  Brilliant!

That's one big snowball, don't fancy getting hit by that.