Ian MacKenzie

2010 – My Year In Visuals

Another here come and gone. Rather than my traditional roundup of experiences and resolutions (see 2008, and 2009) I’ve decided to paint a visual picture of the year. I think I first saw this done by Mike Hedge.

So without further ado:

January – I don’t actually remember much of what happened. I barely have any photos either, except for the One Week Job promo shoot we did with Nordica Photography.

In a twist of post-modern-ism-ism, I reverse recorded them as they photographed us.

February – Sean, Danna, Karen and I attended our first ever circus school. I had a bit of a hard time with the silks, but you can see Karen quickly adapted. (View Flicker set)

February was also the massive gong-show known as the Olympics. I was fairly conflicted on the event. The price tag alone was staggering, and the true benefit to the city questionable. (View Flicker set)

It wasn’t until the gold medal hockey game between Canada and the US, (which was also my 29th birthday) when the tension gave away to excitement and global high-fives. (View Flicker set)

Sean and I also managed a quick work jaunt down to San Francisco, and John Muir park just outside the city. (View Flicker set)

March – Pretty quiet month, though Karen and I did manage to attend the season opening weekend for the Salt Spring Yoga Center.

April – What do you do when it’s one of your best friend’s stag parties? You dress him in a Nacho Libre costume and take him to Tofino.

April was also the month I was introduced to the work of Charles Eisenstein, at a moment when I began questioning the credibility of the mainstream “green” movement.

May – The official release of the One Week Job book and film was a family and friends affair, in our hometown of Port Moody.

After the screening, I felt compelled to share a few words on what the film meant to me:

Later in the month I was privileged to attend Media That Matters, a yearly gathering of creative media makers who want to change the world for the better.

Photo: Tav Rayne

Finally, the month ended with a trip down to Mexico for Ben’s wedding. (View Flickr set)

While the event was a memorable experience with friends and family, I couldn’t help but sink into a bit of a depression while reading Eisenstein’s ‘The Ascent of Humanity.’ The emotion culminated in A Lament for Childhood. As I look back, I realize how important this was for my ability to look into society’s shadow (and my own) and still push forward.

June – Another wedding, another Latin American country. I spent the first week before the wedding traveling Cuba alone. (View Flickr set)

Almost immediately after the wedding, I set out for two weeks in Costa Rica and Panama, directing a pilot for the web series “Breaking Free” following American expats living abroad. Robin (left) and myself took freedom to new levels.

July – For my wife’s 33 birthday, I took her to the Pan Pacific in downtown Vancouver. It was a night of luxury, wine, and sunsets at English Bay. My follow up post on the Pan’s blog 6 Ways To Be a Tourist (Even If You’re A Vancouver Local)

August – One Week Job Program participant Amanda Lowe arrived in Vancouver and helped put together a “pop-up” event on One Week Job.

Also, after a few months of Skype tag, I came onboard with filmmaker Velcrow Ripper, helping out on his new film “Evolve Love: Love In A Time of Climate Crisis”.

Our first field shoot was the tar sands in Alberta. We followed an indigenous peace walk around the refineries. (View Flickr set). The sheer scope of the project, and the environmental destruction was staggering.

In late August, prior to Burning Man, I stayed at a friend’s cabin in Echo Lake, (near Lake Tahoe). Christine (former editor of Brave New Traveler) is captured here on our hike into the stunning Desolation Sound.

Sept – Next stop, Burning Man, the 50,000+ art and community festival in the desert of Nevada. (View Flickr set) I attempted to distill my second visit with Burning Man: The Prophecy of Shambhala.

In late Sept, One Week Job had its first festival premiere at HatchFest in Bozeman, Montana. (View Flickr set)

October – After a relatively quiet month, I ended with the raucous Work Less Party Party for Halloween. You can see my costume choice was … “enlightened.”

November – As part of an experiment I’d wanted to try for a while, my wife and I decided to decline booze for 30 days, calling it “No Booze November.” We also kicked off a month long yoga intensive studying the yoga sutras of Patañjali with Clara Roberts.

Late month, Sean and I took a detour down to LA for some One Week Job meetings, where we also met up with red paperclip trader Kyle MacDonald. We shot some great footage for a new pilot based on Kyle’s project “Who Are These Guys?“

Lastly, we shot another pilot for the series “Wingmen” with Devon and Jordan. Their company Social Fluency teaches “the art of attraction.”

December – I flew back to Mexico to cover the Climate Summit (COP16) for Velcrow’s film Evolve Love. My beat was “La Via Campesina” – the peasant’s camp, who marched to show their support for food sovereignty and real solutions to climate change. (View Flickr set)

350.org staged a climate action during the conference, holding a mock press conference while the waves continue to rise. I shot and editing this quick piece that afternoon:

Finally, the holidays. Another year, another cute photo of our dog Tobi.

Looking forward now to 2011…