It is with a very heavy heart that I write this post. Despite the best efforts of doctors, friends and family, Dan Winnick passed away last night.

Rest easy, Dan. You will be missed.

On Tuesday, September 21st the band Carpenter will be releasing their newest full-length album titled “Sea To Sky”. I shot the photos for this album, but it was also the first time I got to come up with a band’s album artwork. It was definitely a long collaborative process between myself, Dan Sioui and Mark Stuckert – the graphic designer who did the layout, typography and applied the colour treatment to everything – but I’m very pleased with how it all turned out. As mentioned, the album will be out September 21st and will be available on CD, vinyl and for digital download. I imagine they’ll be posting some new songs in the very near future, so be sure to check their myspace page HERE when that happens.

A few months ago some friends and I got together and decided to make a cooking show called Punk Wok. Everyone likes music – and everyone likes to eat – so the idea was to mix an interview-style music program with a cooking show. We did our first episode with the Cancer Bats and you can check it out HERE.

So, as mentioned in my previous post, last night was the Team Winnick concert fundraiser for Dan and his family. The evening was a huge success and an incredible $6,790 was raised. I have, literally, hundreds of photos from the night so if you’re wondering “hey, why aren’t there any photos of me?” I’ve posted a separate online gallery HERE. In the meantime though, here’s a small selection of photos from the night.

About a month ago Dan Winnick was in a horrible bicycle accident. While riding with friends at night, Dan collided with a car and suffered a very serious head injury that has left him in a coma. Since then, Dan has proven to possess the greatest and most supportive friends on planet Earth. Tonight, at the Media Club in Vancouver, there will be a concert fundraiser to help Dan and his family. I will be there taking photos and if you live in the Vancouver area I highly suggest you come. You can check out further details HERE.

I shot this photo last month for the September issue of Vancouver Magazine, and honestly, it was one of the coolest assignments I’ve ever worked on. Ryan Knighton – the guy in the photo – is an author, screenwriter, and professor of creative writing at Capilano University… he also happens to be blind. Ryan has written two books chronicling his experiences going blind and becoming a father, and the adaptation of his first book, Cockeyed, is currently being developed into a movie by Jodi Foster. So, needless to say, he’s a pretty intelligent and inspiring guy to be around. Also, he has a really cute dog. You can check out his website HERE.

Here’s another photo I did of Cory Woodward. Cory mentioned that he wanted a strong and iconic image, so I modeled this photo after Aaron Shikler’s presidential portrait of JFK. You can check out that portrait HERE.

Another one of my photos made it into the Georgia Straight this week and, depending on how well you know me, you can play a pretty fun game of “spot Mark’s friends” in the photo.

It’s like 3:45am so I’m going to keep this short. I did some photos for Cory Woodward this week. Cory is a pretty awesome singer/songwriter from Vancouver and you can check out his music HERE. I recommend listening to the song “Slipping Away”. On an interesting side note: the building we were shooting in used to be a nightclub, and apparently, the owner of the club murdered his business partner and stashed the body under the floorboards. I’m not one to condone murder, but as far as locations with creepy stories go, I thought that was pretty cool.

Last night I did some photos for my friend Robbie Zgaljic’s new band, Red Vienna. Robbie used to play in a grimy punk band called The Black Halos, but, as you can probably tell from the photos, his new band sounds nothing like that. Personally, I think they sound like a more vocally dynamic version of Interpol… but, depending on how you feel about Interpol, that could be a very good or very bad thing. Anyways, I recommend heading over to their myspace HERE and checking it out for yourself.

I got asked to write an article for the News Photographers Association of Canada’s website. They’re doing a new feature called “Behind the Photo” where photographers talk about a couple of their photographs and how they shot them. Anyways, you can check out my article HERE.

A couple of the guys from Misery Signals and a couple of the guys from Comeback Kid got together to form the band Lowtalker. If you’re into punk rock and 10″ EP’s, it’s pretty fantastic.

If you live in the Vancouver area, pick up a copy of this week’s Georgia Straight and turn to page 27. I shot a story for the “Style Watch” section and it ended up being a pretty great assignment. The woman I was sent to photograph – Rhonda Davis – runs a women’s consignment clothing store here in Vancouver and, as it turned out, is also a big supporter of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. For those of you who don’t know what Sea Shepherd is, it’s a non-profit, hands-on, and totally bad-ass marine conservation society that patrols the ocean and stops illegal hunting and poaching of marine life. If you want to know more, you can visit the Sea Shepherd website HERE. So that explains the photo below.

As for the photo above, it’s a portrait of my best friend, Kyle, that I took on a camping trip this weekend just north of Pemberton, BC.

So my friends in the band Living With Lions are in the process of making a new record – and they’ve been documenting it by making a series of Youtube videos. The videos are pretty hilarious, and I anticipate there will be more to come, so I highly recommend you check them out. Anyways, I did a photo shoot with the guys right before they left on a cross-country drive to Toronto and I make a brief cameo in their latest video. Also, I’m glad to see that the lion masks I gave them are getting some good use.

I did a pretty sweet shoot this morning… so here’s a photo from that.

It’s been over 2 weeks since my last post, so I felt I should say something to prove I’m not dead.

Although I don’t talk about it much on my blog, a big part of what I do is assist on larger photo shoots. Personally, I really like doing it. It’s a great way to mess around with ultra high-end photo equipment, come up with creative lighting designs, and learn a thing or two from people who’ve been taking photos for longer than I’ve been alive… all while getting paid. One of the shoots I worked on this week was of a cellist and his cello, which was made in Italy in 1730. Please excuse the awful camera-phone photo, but a 280 year old cello? That’s totally awesome!

Also, I’ve got some pretty solid projects lined up over the next month or so including photo shoots with Living With Lions, Carpenter and directing a music video. Be sure to check back soon… but not too soon. Give me like a couple days or something to get my act together.