2011 in Review (Part II): Dominican Wedding & Canada Games

February last year was certainly an eventful month. On the 14th, TheBetterHalf® and I hopped on a plane and headed to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic for her sister’s wedding. It was a beautiful (though brutally hot) ceremony for which I was lucky enough to be the photographer.

Jenelle & Tyler getting married on the beach in Punta Cana.

Jenelle & Tyler tie the knot in Punta Cana.

I think we trashed at least 1/10th of the dress here!

Happily wed, Jenelle & Ty pose for me by the palm trees.

Quite literally the day I came back to Halifax from the DR, I began work as one of the official photographers for the 2011 Canada Winter Games in Halifax. Since I had missed the first week of events because of the wedding, I had asked the organizers to load up my schedule as much as possible and boy did I get what I asked for!

The only similar event I had covered was the 2008 Arctic Winter Games in Yellowknife, NWT when I worked at The Hub in Hay River, but this event was way bigger and way better in many ways.

These two young figure skaters from Nova Scotia are showing pretty good form for their young age (in my inexperienced opinion, anyway).

My first event was a “pattern skate” for pairs figure skaters. When I first got there, one of the venue media people told me it would be pretty boring since all the pairs had to skate the same pattern on the ice and perform the same tricks. As a photographer, I was happy to hear that since it meant I could pick a spot and know that every pair was going to come by there.

Andrew Brisbin from Saskatchewan pulls hard up the hill at Martock.

I spent my second day of the games at Ski Martock covering cross-country skiing. What was really cool about these games was that the para-athletic events are included with the main athlete events. The para ski made for some good shots for me.

NB's Louis Fortin, an amputee, and Manitoba's Slade Doyle, a double amputee, congratulate each other after finishing second and first respectively in the nordic para-ski event at Martock.

Curlers from Quebec sweep the stone down the ice.

Curling was a painful sport to cover. Not because I don’t like curling – I do – but because it was six hours worth of kneeling and sitting between the sheets taking photos. I was quite impressed with the action though. I’ve curled quite a bit myself and the skill level of these players (some as young as 15) was really high.

Snowboarding was easily my most successful event of the week. Most of this was because I picked the best spot. Almost all photogs at the hill were shying away from shooting into the sun, expecting to have backlighting issues. I, on the other hand, was happy to because I knew the halfpipe would act like a giant reflector in a sense giving me two light sources to balance the lighting out.

That's NWT's Sadelle Paulette soaring through the air during the snowboard halfpipe event at Ski Martock.

I caught BC's Kyle Jasper eclipsing the sun as he quite literally soared above the halfpipe.

My shot of BC’s Kyle Jasper eclipsing the sun became somewhat of an iconic image for the Games. It was featured on a lot of the post-games reports like this one.

Synchronized swimming from the Canada Games Pool in Halifax.

Nova Scotia's Matt Whitford takes a punch on the nose from Joshua James Benoit from Ontario during the boxing final.

Boxing was the event I was most looking forward to covering at the Games, and in fact the only sport I specifically asked to be assigned to. My only previous experience shooting boxing was an outdoor amateur event held in Ottawa’s Byward Market a few years back. I was lucky enough to get assigned to the finals.

The night didn’t start so well, as due to the overwhelming popularity of the event parking near the Halifax Forum was extremely non-existent so I was forced to park about five blocks away and walk to the arena hauling all my camera gear – in the pouring rain. It took a few rounds for me to dry myself off enough to start taking decent pictures, but all in all it was a great night. It was slated to be the last time boxing would be included in the Canada Games, but I think the crowd was trying to send a message to the organizers that it should stay, because it was LOUD in there. That’s probably the loudest sporting event I’ve ever been to, and I think the boxers fed off of the crowd’s energy.

Ontario's Cayley Mercer leaps into the air after scoring a goal to tie the women's hockey final against Alberta. The Albertans eventually took home the gold.

My last event was the women’s hockey final, which was also a lot of fun.

What a great couple of weeks.