… waiting at a blank canvas of keys.

Summer is the time when one sheds one’s tensions with one’s clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all’s right with the world.

– Ada Louise Huxtable

Here is a fresh wallpaper for you. This was taken on approach to KGL (Kigali International Airport) while filming aerials for Rwanda: Hope Rises in 2008. Click on the photo to download a full-size JPEG.

Opportunity International, a client of mine over at Storyspark, is celebrating 40 years of serving small-scale entrepreneurs in developing countries. I worked with them to develop the story behind the anniversary, as well as produce this short piece explaining the campaign. Props to Gord for the design and Ryan for the excellent animation.

Learn more about the campaign at ican.opportunitycan.ca.

If you’re in the non-profit sector and are interested in story, you might want to head over to recharity.ca and check out some of the content there. A few of us who spend our days working with charities have teamed together to write about the best of what works in the charitable sector. Our team includes a philanthropist, a web designer, a fundraiser, and myself (a storyteller) so it makes for some interesting dialog.

Here’s one of my latest posts, part of a series on finding your story as an organization. You can check out all of my posts here.

Waiting to Belong from Storyspark on Vimeo.

Over the past several months I’ve been working with a dedicated group of people who want to see the end of the waiting generation in Canada. More than 30,000 kids in Canada are waiting for adoption – and they aim to change that.

My journey with them began by helping uncover their core story through a process I call “story finding”. We found that, though the number of waiting kids is a daunting challenge, it’s also a great opportunity. This is the first of a series of videos talking about adoption and what it means to those who experience it.

Find out more at waitingtobelong.com.

After a shoot earlier in the year for the newly opened downtown Robert Lee YMCA, I was brought back to re-work the brand imagery for a further three of the YMCA’s family centres in Greater Vancouver. The deadline was tight (aren’t they all?). Over 5000 images shot over the last two days in time for a dozen selects, processed and ready for release tonight. Here are a few of my favourites.

What I love about shooting for the YMCA is there is such a great community vibe. Each of the centres has its own flavour & feel, and at each place the volunteers and members are more than willing to jump in and help out. Everyone featured in these photos (and for the previous RLY shoot) is someone who is part of the YMCA community in some way. There are no professional models. While this poses some problems in terms of getting advertising-ready images out of the shoot, it also lends an authentic feel to the images. I love how these turned out, and I’m looking forward to more upcoming work with the YMCA in the new year.

2010 Contagious Conference Opener from Storyspark on Vimeo.

The opening film for the 2010 Contagious Conference, held at the Vancouver Convention Centre and hosted by BCAIM. Produced by my new company, Storyspark. Directed by yours truly and the ingenious Dan Stewart. Awesomeness brought to you by all the Contagious Conference volunteers.

Marketers are not Advertisers – Seth Godin, 2010 Contagious Conference from Storyspark on Vimeo.

A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of filming Seth Godin in New York as part of a series of videos for the upcoming Contagious Conference. We had a great time during the interview, with Seth sharing lots of insight and new ideas about marketing, gift culture, and what it means to be a Linchpin. If you’d like to see the full interview… well, you’ll have to come to the conference for that :)

This is round two or three of a series of projects that have quietly launched my new venture, Storyspark. If you haven’t already, head over to the website to check out what it’s all about.

A fresh wallpaper for a crisp month. Click the image to download the full-size file.