The past year had it’s ups & downs it was overall a great year. I ate at a lot of different places, listened to a wide range of music, gained a lot of relationships, found out I really like climbing, learned my style of photography, traveled to the Philippines & Vancouver Island, found my niche in fashion, spent a lot of time with friends & family, and most importantly found out more about myself as a whole. I will say though that the first half of 2010 was nice to me and then of course everything can not be good forever thus the last quarter did suck but you learn from it and move on.
Music
There were
TONS of great albums that came out in 2010 from all genres:
Kanye West “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, Caribou “Swim”, DVAS “Society”, Kid Cudi “Mr. Rager”, The Black Keys “Brothers”, Vampire Weekend “Contra”, Drake “Thank Me Later”, Slakah The Beatchild “Soul Movement Vol.1”, and much more. I noticed in 2010 that I was listening to more indie, rock, disco and r&b… I was already getting sick of music that had no
SOUL in it. I wanted to only listen to music that effected me in that kind of way and these two albums did that for me:
Aloe Blacc “Good Things” &
The Roots “How I Got Over”. If you talked to me in the past few months I’ve been a strong advocate for both of these albums because of how soulful each track is in both albums. In The Roots songs “
The Day” & “
Right On” is one of the
SICKEST transitions I’ve heard in a long while…
J.Dilla Era. In Aloe Blacc’s song “
Good Things” really helped me out personally and made me look at positives in life rather than negatives. Either if your up or down, these two albums can help you through your day. These will be for sure be my staples… just classics.
Food
Though I love cooking there are always two things I
LOVE to consume… Pho & Pasta. The two restaurants that filled my need were
Tau Bay (10660 98 Street) and the newly opened
Corso32 (10345 Jasper Ave). If you been consuming soup for awhile, you know Tau Bay is the only place you need to go to have the best soup in the city. Even though its open a few months of the year, you try to eat there as much as possible when it is open. It’s in a sketchy area, soup comes from a small window from the kitchen, and its always packed…enough said. I’d say one of the best or thee best restaurant I ate at in 2010 was Corso32. Daniel Costa had told me about this awhile back in the beginning of the year and finally it opened in December. If your looking for authentic rustic Italian food that is freshly made to order, menu is changed frequently to season, and overall experience… this is for you.
Rock Climbing
One thing that sticks out the most to me for 2010 is the day I started bouldering with my cousin during summer. Chris always wanted me to climb for years and finally I came along… I was
HOOKED ever since. There is something with climbing that makes you forget everything that is going on in your life and focus on finishing the boulder problem. Its both a physical and mental sport because you have to commit to each hold in your mind and have the grip strength to hold on to it. There is honestly nothing like it. If you want to climb, do let me know and I’m down to climb anytime!
Photography
Finding your style in photography is very very hard and painstaking BUT you can only develop it throughout the years in the industry. I finally found the direction I want to go into and how to light my subjects in a way to keep my own style to each photograph. I’ve been using a lot of grids, strip lights, and the best of them all the beauty dish. The more I play with the lights I can see the slight changes each movement, placement, and mood it does. I’m really excited this year to use the studios as much as possible at NAIT to learn more about the use of lights. I also decided that I want to start shoot primary prime lenses: 35mm, 50mm, 85mm,100mm, etc. I want to use my full-frame to it’s full potential and the sharpness of these lenses are stunning. Instead of the subject moving, you physically move to the subject to fit in frame… instead of being a lurker with a 70-200mm lens in the bushes.
These were the most significant things to me in the year 2010…hopefully 2011 will be bigger and better! 
