By Haley Cameron Photo Courtesy of Pia Massie   Pia Massie was working on independent film No Words Will Ever Do in Geneva when she decided that Vancouver would be her next home. “I had moved almost every year for thirty years,” Massie says. For the fearless artist/activist, who calls herself a fish in need of water, Vancouver seemed an obvious choice. “I flew here for five days twenty-eight years ago and immediately knew I wanted to stay.”   Proximity to the Pacific wasn’t all that made Vancouver appealing. Massie wanted to live in an English-speaking city with a thriving film community. In the end it was the community as much as the ocean that solidified the deal. “It makes it easier to do your work as an artist knowing that there are others working on the same thing; there’s a place for dialogue about effort,” she shares. Thanks largely to a supportive local film industry, Massie was able to focus on the documentary stories she felt passionate about. Apart from a six year hiatus that took her back to her hometown of New York City, Massie’s love of the west coast has supplanted her nomadic ways, making Vancouver her true home.   Massie has always been one for recognizing great opportunities as they arise. Perhaps most notable in her captivating story are the two years she spent training under National Living Treasure calligrapher, Shiryu Morita. Massie was working at an art gallery in Kyoto, Japan when the honorable Sensei happened to see her work and requested to teach her. That she had no formal training in shodo, a form of Japanese calligraphy, and had no intention in seriously pursuing the art form, didn’t stop him. “My boss explained that to refuse Morita Sensei...

By Mormei Zanke Photo courtesy Kristi Douglas Whether you’re looking for a little community spirit, a place to make a new friend, or even some straight up R&R, look no further – the Kerrisdale Community Centre’s got your back!   The KCC offers more than 400 programs in one season and is always coming out with new fresh ideas to keep people involved. They offer youth, adult and senior programs ranging from anything to Ballroom Dancing to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.   Everything at the KCC runs so smoothly that it’s easy to forget who’s behind the organization that makes the facility function.     Kristi Douglas is the Centre Programmer at KCC and she as well as a dedicated staff team and the non-profit Board of Directors are the people responsible for making the magic happen at KCC.   “I grew up in Kerrisdale, came here as a child. I always had a great draw to the Community Centre, I would always do things here,” says Kristi.   Kristi even took a dance class at the centre when she was six. She continued to take classes in her childhood and even throughout university was the Kerrisdale Community Centre tennis instructor as well as a daycamp leader. Her involvement strings from a great passion for the community and a desire to give back.   “I have a deep passion, having come through these doors and taking these programs, I have an appreciation for the past and care for the participants and people that take the programs. I make sure we offer the best we can for them.”   Kristi didn’t always know her future lay in recreation. In fact, she had no clue that was even a possible career option.   “I thought maybe teaching,...

By Dave Wheaton Photos Noriko Nasu-Tidball Peter Lambert arrived at Keiko’s house dressed in his outdoor gear, sporting long blonde hair and big yellow backpack. After making introductions and settling into the living room Peter reached into his yellow backpack and pulled out a strange green vegetable, covered in dull spikes, looking like the kind of thing that might electrocute you if you got too close.  “I have no idea what it is, so if you guys know anything that’d be good”, he says. Peter had gotten the fruit one day while picking apples around the Point Grey area. The lady who had given it to him spoke no English. It might seem like an odd thing to hold on to, this unidentifiable vegetable, but for Peter this strange food is a chance to learn. Why bother with Wikipedia when you have the chance to actually hold a foreign object, and find out for yourself how it works? It’s this attitude of “learning by doing” that makes Peter such an inspiring person. “It’s a fun thing” he says, “You get to meet some good people and make some connections. You see them on the street and get to say hi”. Peter shows how incredibly powerful it is that two people who can’t communicate through language can gather around a piece of fruit and share an instant connection.                   Other odd mysteries from Peter’s yellow backpack included the bark of a cedar tree, two varieties of amaranth seeds, a piece of shaped and smoothed wood, and some children’s toys. For everything in the bag Peter had a similar story of learning and connection.                   Peter pulled out a couple of the children’s toys, a small puzzle and a plastic alien attached to a parachute. “We...

By Dave Wheaton   You may have noticed an increase of community gardens in Vancouver over the past couple of years, and with the positive impacts they seem to have on the community, it’s no surprise. Gardens can turn a vacant space into a sanctuary, provide a great place to get together with friends, and make connections between neighbours. And let’s not forget the obvious – local gardens grow some of the tastiest produce available. There’s nothing better than digging in to a plate of fresh food, and you can’t get any fresher than community gardens. So it shouldn’t shock you that over the last five years, Can You Dig It project co-ordinator Cinthia Page has personally been involved in three dozen projects all over the local mainland that create community gardens in urban places, transforming vacant spaces into thriving community sites.   The Kitsilano community garden, located next to the community center, is built into a small tightly wound space that borders the community center. At first, it might seem like an unusual place for a garden. It’s much smaller than you’d expect and isn’t shaped like the gardens we’re used to seeing. But this is exactly the type of place that Cinthia hopes to find when starting a new project. “We are using pieces of land we wouldn’t have thought of using before”, she explains “But if we’re going to make this work we have to be more creative with how we use space”. The Kitsilano community garden is well worth a visit. If you go, you’ll see garden plots that have been elevated and shaped to get the most possible surface out of the small piece of land. It’s this exact sort of creativity that allows these urban plots to flourish...

    By Haley Cameron Photos: Noriko Nasu-Tidball   When Etsu Inoue first came to Vancouver from Fukuoka, Japan back in 1989 it was to explore. The twenty-four year old had caught the travel bug while working for a Japanese airline, prompting her to apply for a Canadian working holiday Visa. Fast forward twenty-five years and Inoue is still exploring — but these days it’s with water colours and calligraphy.   “There is so much more nature here than in Japan,” Inoue shares, explaining how she came to stay in British Columbia and what inspires her creative work. “And there is quite a strong community of artists,” continues Inoue, a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists who is graciously appreciative of her local support systems.   When Inoue first landed in Vancouver she remained in the tourism industry, working with a local tourism company until 9/11 and SARS fears began to hurt the travel sector. “That’s when I started pursuing my art and calligraphy more seriously,” she shares.   Inoue first began studying calligraphy at the age of eight, when it was introduced to Japanese children as a part of their regular academic curriculum. Since leaving Japan, Inoue has continued to train under the guidance of her master, whom she calls Kisui, using his artist name. “I’m still learning,” laughs the humble student, explaining that she sends her work back to Japan for feedback once per month.   Her water colour work is an entirely different story. “It is all self-taught,” she says. She began pursuing painting professionally fifteen years ago. “Before that it was always a hobby; I love painting very much,” says the artist. Inoue has customized her watercolor painting by incorporating materials traditionally used for calligraphy. “I use the washi...

By Aryan Etesami Photo courtesy Craig Lee For this month’s issue, I am very excited to introduce to my dear readers an intelligent and hard-working young man: Craig Lee. Craig who is currently in his late 20’s, was born in Richmond, BC and raised in the Surrey area for most of his childhood. After graduating from high school, Craig entered the Criminology program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University with the intention of becoming a police officer in the RCMP, but soon realized that his true passion in life lied elsewhere. Craig left the Criminology program and decided to make the transfer to Simon Fraser University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology in 2012. Having always been complimented on his superb listening skills, Craig just knew he wanted to a therapist ever since the age of 12! After earning his undergraduate degree, Craig went on to gain his first real Counselling experience through volunteering at a crisis line in Surrey, while also helping a child with autism over the period of year. Convinced he wanted to pursue a career in Counselling, he began sending out applications to those Graduate schools that resonated with him the most, and finally came to choose Adler’s School of Professional Psychology to further his formal education in the field. Craig admired Alfred Adler’s (whom Craig’s chosen graduate school was named after) ideals of community contribution and social interest, and set it out for himself to follow in his footsteps. He initially entered the Masters of Counselling Psychology program and shortly after, Craig was co-facilitating a support group consisting of 10 women in the North Vancouver area, as part of his community service practicum and working alongside a professional Art Therapist, Dr. Duanita Eleniak. Within a year into...

  By Dr. Richard Niles Photo courtesy Dr. Richard Niles   I have been a professional arranger in popular music since 1975. Most people, even some musicians, have little idea what that means. Many think that studio musicians make up their parts in a joyous act of spontaneous inspiration. So what do arrangers do, anyway? Consider the explosive, instantly recognizable brass melody in the opening bars of “Dancing In The Street” by Martha and the Vandellas. Who wrote it? If you assumed it was written by the songwriters, Marvin Gaye, William Stevenson and Ivy Hunter, you would be wrong. Paul Riser, one of Motown’s staff arrangers, composed that melody and decided on the instrumentation of trumpets, trombones and saxophones to play it. Riser, usually un-credited, composed instrumental lines such as this to enhance many hits and act as a “hook” to the listener, encouraging them to buy the records.        My book presents the work of some of the most influential arrangers in pop, artists who have been uncredited, undervalued and misunderstood. Yet, despite being “invisible” to the public,  during a critical period of popular music history arrangers have played a significant part in the evolution of musical genre and content. In the U.S. arrangers have the opportunity to be recognized by the Grammy  Awards in two categories—Best Instrumental Arrangement and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists. At least winners and nominees can use this to promote themselves and bring in more offers of work. In Britain and the rest of the world there is no such award. The financial rewards of an arranging career are limited. Arrangers are paid a fee for each job. It’s not huge. Keep working, get jobs in every week and you can pay the mortgage. Arrangers receive no royalties unless they...

Choreography and performance: Salome Nieto Artistic Direction: Eduardo Meneses-Olivar Exploring the scope and depth of her Mexican culture and bringing her curiosity over its marvelous reality and surrealism as the starting point for this work, Vancouver’s Salomé Nieto uses religious iconography, beliefs and traditions as inspiration for this work, an investigation into the themes of devotion, ritual and myth. Camino al Tepeyac is a metaphor for the convergence of two cultural and religious beliefs in one female deity that is the origin and end of all things. The Mexicas called her Tonantcin (Our Mother Coatlicue) and after the conquest her name became Virgin of Guadalupe and the Mother of the Mexican people in the Catholic faith. pataSola Dance wishes to acknowledge the support of the 2014 International Butoh Festival in Argentina, the project “Puedes Volar Mariposa” directed by Master Gustavo Collini-Sartor, the auspice of the Mexican Embassy in Argentina and the Canadian Embassy in Argentina during our stay in Buenos Aires, and the support of Canada Council for the Arts, the BC Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia and Shadbolt Centre for the Arts for the full production of Camino al Tepeyac. Camino Al Tepeyac runs from Wednesday November 19 2014 to Saturday November 22 2014 in the Studio Theatre Reserved 6450 Deer Lake Avenue Burnaby BC V5G 2J38 pm Approximate running time: 120 minutes Ticket through box office 604-205-3000 Tickets are now available to purchase at tickets.shadboltcentre.com Here is the sneak preview of Camino Al Tepeyac    ...

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By Haley Cameron  Photos: Noriko Nasu-Tidball   When Wendy Sparrow first began to learn Salish weaving, her sister, Debra, wasn’t particularly interested. “At that point I was into my own jewellery design,” explains the striking Musqueam woman with a commanding yet nurturing presence that inspires instant respect.   Fast forward a few decades and Debra, perhaps best known for her design of Team Canada’s 2010 Olympic jerseys, is a celebrated weaver whose reputed projects are just as practically functional as they are powerfully artistic. But above all else her work is historical.   It was ultimately a longing for history that inspired the two sisters to pursue Salish design. They were lost, Debra explains, and yet inspired to learn their purpose. “In order to know ourselves we had to know our own histories,” she says eloquently, her sentences flowing like carefully structured prose. “It was never about becoming an artist but rather becoming who we truly are.” The two abandoned their “little girl toys” of drugs and alcohol in order to listen for direction from their ancestors.   For Debra, that internal search quickly led to a curiosity for design. Sparrow, whose brother is the current Musqueam chief, is careful to explain that “art” per se does not exist in Musqueam culture. “Everything made is made to be used,” she outlines, describing how even the most ornate and decorative creations had a purpose in ceremonial practices. Her own interpretation is not that art doesn’t exist, but rather that “everything is art.”   “Growing up we were only really exposed to Northern design styles,” Debra says, explaining that the history they did know was never presented visually. “We grew up hearing it but not seeing it,” she continues, noting that while she knew the iconography...

By Dave Wheaton Photos: Noriko Nasu-Tidball At Keiko’s home, she, Noriko, and I met with John MacLachlan Gray. I think the best way to describe John is as a modern day Renaissance Man. I say this because it seems that whatever John attempts, whether it’s theatre, novels, film, or television, he knocks it out of the park, earning awards like the Governor general’s medal and the New York Film and Television Gold Award along the way. He’s best known as the writer of the 1982 international, award-winning musical Billy Bishop Goes to War. But despite his early success, John never slowed down. He continued to turn out top quality plays, novels, movies – you name it. In addition to fiction writing, John has written for both Globe and Mail and The Vancouver Sun, and written and performed for CBC’s The Journal, all while finding the time to raise two boys with his wife Beverlee. It all sounds overwhelming, but to him it’s simply writing for writing’s sake. “I write because I feel like writing, not because I’m ambitious or anything”, John told me, after asking him if he has any plans to wind down and retire. John takes a seat in the living room opposite Noriko and I and settles into a cross legged Zen-like pose. As he talks, you notice this habit he has of moving his hands in sync with the rhythm of his speech. Since the year 2000, John has been writing thriller novels. His earliest is titled A Gift to the Little Master, set in a version of modern Vancouver “where everything has gone wrong”, according to him, and in 2007 he completed two historical thrillers set in London during the Victorian period. “What have you been working on lately?”...

By Aryan Etesami Photos courtesy of Tim Sullivan    Tim Sullivan, a local contemporary abstract artist, was born into an Anglophone family in Montreal, Quebec in 1946. Ever since childhood, Tim had a ceaseless interest for various art forms as well as philosophy, and spirituality. Despite his passion for the arts, Tim decided to pursue a career in his other area of strength, the sciences and specifically Chemistry. He obtained his Bachelor of Science Honours and later his Master’s degree in Chemical Kinetics from Concordia University in Montreal in 1971. He then moved to beautiful British Columbia to further his Chemistry education at Simon Fraser University, where he left as a Doctoral Candidate in 1974. While Studying at SFU, Tim spent 5 months in London, England on what turned out to be a life-changing odyssey for the future artist. There he embarked on a journey of self-discovery and enlightenment, and came to the realization that Chemistry is just not what he was born to do! Following his return to Vancouver, Tim left the PhD program at SFU and took on a number of jobs as a chemist before changing course to studying Psychology; he was accidentally re-introduced to art in his late 40’s when a romantic partner gave him a book to read: “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. After reading the book, he immediately purchased the necessary supplies and started experimenting with paints and canvas, using his creativity. Tim’s reunion with his artistic side was followed by a series of demanding posts as a counsellor and a trainer for a mental health facility, as well as the responsibility of raising a child, which together would not allow for him to focus on art. The fire had already been lit however and as soon as he...

By Haley Cameron Photos: Noriko Nasu-Tidball   Mary Bennett has always been an artist. These days the longtime Kitsilano resident– “Kit-sil-eye-no,” she laughs, emphasizing the original pronunciation– incorporates collage and acrylics to produce two dimensional mixed-media canvases. Her favourite theme right now? Birds’ nests. But if you ask Bennett, her primary creative outlet is not painting.   “Creating a sense of community is my true art,” says the middle aged woman, who is retired from her executive role on the Canadian Unitarian Council, but just getting started on a career close to her heart. Bennett is quick to explain that community building has been a personal priority for as long as she can remember. A self-proclaimed Community Engagement Leader, Bennett can trace this passion back to her childhood.   “When I was in grade 5 I organized a birthday for my teacher,” shares Bennett, with a smile that reveals just a touch of her 10-year-old self’s pride. Fast forward a few decades and she’s still organizing gatherings as the Celebration Planner & Housewarming Coordinator at Kits House.   Bennett, a North Vancouver native, has known that she belongs in Kitsilano since she first planted herself on West 4th to sell tie dyed scarves in her twenties. “Kitsilano was all hippies then,” she laughs, not denying the classification altogether. The job sparked a lifelong love affair with the Westside neighborhood that has ultimately led Bennett to her latest role in the local neighborhood house.   Bennett studied Art Education, through a program that included studio training, before taking more of a Human Resources route with her career. Her corporate background is in team building and communications, but it wasn’t until she joined the Vancouver Arts Council that she realized how complementary these two avenues could...

Text and Photos By Valerie MacGregor-Rempel www.valeriedrempelphotography.net http://valeriedrempelphotography.blogspot.com/  My journey to British Columbia started off with a friendly request from a college and friend Timothy, artist/owner of Timothy J Sullivan Studio on Bowen Island. BC.  As am Humanitarian/Social Photojournalist and Women’s Advocate/Life Coach, I know my journeys are always filled with so many amazing stories and experiences.   British Columbia is a beautiful provinces and the scenery is eye candy to a photographer. This experience honestly touched my heart in so many ways. I new the BC’s landscape would be spectacular but the people I met along the way was simply marvelous.  I am honored and humbled that so many could feel my gentle/energetic spirit and felt they can open-up their hearts to a complete stranger. To some my camera intimates them but to other my camera is a tool to share their personal stories and set them free from what ever they are experiencing at the time.   A met Timothy O’ Sullivan on a group Facebook page for Artist over two years ago. We have established a working friendship and thought it was time to collaborate together in a joint exhibit at his studio on Bowen Island, BC. It was an awesome experience to work with Mr. O’Sullivan and to meet fabulous people from the Artisan Square.   It my quest to set up for the exhibit, I felt a wee bit out of my element. Not having all the items that I usually decorate my exhibits with I was truly fortunate to have met Sharon Dunbar owner of Bell’ Occhio. Mrs. Dunmar was so gracious and let me borrow several items from her store to contribute to make the exhibit sparkle. It is important to me that I include local shops...

“It’s wonderful to see what happens when people bring great ideas to life. It truly is inspiring.” ~ Editor-in-Chief It’s only been a little over a month since the garden was born and the work parties are already well underway. Kitsilano Community Centre, along with its community partners, Urban Systems Foundation, Can You Dig It and Society Promoting Environmental Conservation (SPEC) and many community volunteers, has been using a collaborative approach to transform its literally vacant exterior spaces into an amazing organic vegetable garden that adds beauty, value, and a distinctive identity to its neighbourhood. Under the leadership of Robert Haines, the board president, Gabriel Pliska, the Garden Committee Chair and board member, Oren Burnspark, Garden Coordinator, Ben Mulhall from Urban Systems Foundation, and Cinthia Page, Can You Dig It Project Coordinator among others, the garden is a unique collaboration of artists, local adults and youth and kids, and garden lovers. It is such a valuable asset for neighborhood development by developing and nurturing public space which promotes sustainability, food security, community education and public health, and coming together. I have “attended” the last 2 work parties and here are some photos we took. People’s smiles are so glamorous and the garden is so lush and green, which is the best kind of advertising!!! Congratulations to Kitsilano Community Centre Collaborative Garden! For those who are interested in volunteering and/or learning more about the collaborative garden, please contact Kitsilano Community Centre and follow us on FB.            ...

Dear Readers,   Oh, June….. Summer is coming! If summer were a leisurely time, I would love to catch up on my own reading. Recently when my brainy friend alluded to Bloomsday, little did I know that I am now hosting Ulysses readings on June 16th to finally catch up with Joyceans (better late than never)!  In James Joyce’s Ulysses, he writes:  Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.   In this epicenter that Joyce outlines, all that is as true today as it was more than 100 years ago.  And in our June issues, we here at Kerrisdale hope to capture all those figures from all walks of life to connect us with a sense of where we’ve come from, a journey of self-discovery:  Salomé Nieto on her own vision of contemporary dance with elements inspired by two powerful physical traditions, Japanese Butoh and her Mexican roots; Sudè Khanian on her exploration of the world of optical illusions where Qi meditation meets her Iranian roots;  Noriko Nasu-Tidball, our beloved Playbook photographer, on her journey to capture ordinary people in extraordinary ways with her strong sense of Japanese heritage, and a success story by Leigh Boyle, a talented young woman on fire!    Speaking of summer, don’t miss our Crossroad Cafe: A Complete Guide to BC Campgrounds: Thursday June 19 7:00-8:30pm.  Call 604.257.8100 today! Playbook will be back in the late summer with spectacular Arts Issue.  Here is to a sweet summer, like the one James Joyce had, the summer of 1904 (find out here if you are interested) !    Keiko Honda, Ph.D., MPH Chair and Editor-in-Chief Community Engagement, KCCS...

By Aryan Etesami Photos courtesy of Leigh Boyle   Sometimes all that’s needed to make you happy is a nicely done manicure! And the best person to attest to this statement is no one but an ambitious woman named Leigh Boyle. Leigh is 26 years old and although born and raised in North Vancouver, has finished all of her school years up to the 12th grade at Crofton House School here in the Kerrisdale neighbourhood. She holds her Bachelor of Arts in Communications degree from Trinity Western University and is currently working as a fundraiser at Union Gospel Mission on the downtown eastside. What sets Leigh apart from a typical, working university-graduate however is that she is the founder of a successful non-profit, volunteer-based society called the Lip Stick Project. After graduating from university, Leigh travelled to Swaziland, South Africa for an internship and later to Ethiopia to work as a communications officer. Soon after however, she started to feel very lonely working a routine job and being unable to effectively communicate due to the language barrier. As a coping strategy, Leigh started volunteering with a local women’s hospital, where she encountered many women living with a painful condition common in some developing countries, called Obstetric Fistula. Limited by communication difficulties, she surprisingly came to realize the best way to bring some happiness into the lives of these women may be nothing else but a good old manicure! When she later returned home from Africa, Leigh was encouraged by friends and family to re-establish the same practice within our healthcare system here in Vancouver; and that marks how the Lip Stick Project finally came to life. Today, men, women and children facing challenging health-related situations at local hospices and hospitals, have been receiving professional grade...

By Haley Cameron Photos by Lydia Nagai For Salomé Nieto, dance is not just a career. “It’s my oxygen,” says the Butoh dancer. Twenty one years ago when her ex-husband asked her to relocate to Canada she agreed under a single condition. “I told him that if I could dance in Canada I would go.” Luckily the answer was yes and she has called Vancouver home ever since.   Salomé’s stylistic focus is initially surprising. The 47-year-old hailing from Mexico City calls herself a Butoh dancer, a post-war genre originating in Japan, however this was not always the case. “I was trained in contemporary dance with a traditional Western background,” she explains. It was Kokoro Dance, a local company she worked with upon her arrival in 1992, that introduced her to the modern Japanese style.   “I’ve spent a lot of years trying to show diversity but I am ultimately most comfortable with Butoh.” According to Salomé, Butoh deals with themes of humanity, fragility, renewal, and constant transformation. Translated as “firm step into the ground with arms opening away”, she explains that it is the strong sense of expression that spoke to her. “I love the imagery, the focus on sensation,” she says. When I point out that her arms haven’t stopped moving since we sat down to talk she laughs and tells me, “My thoughts are bigger than the words I have.”   Butoh has taken much of the world by storm. Salomé says she is continually amazed just how much the art form is appreciated worldwide, citing that South and Central America, Europe and Asia are all incredibly supportive of the genre. “I haven’t necessarily found my place in Vancouver,” says the local dancer who does most of her collaboration internationally. “It isn’t...

  Artist Sudè Khanian          Sudè Khanian is an Iranian born artist specializing in Qi (energy healing) and philosophical art (Vaguest art) that is sometimes associated with Surrealism movement. Sudè is a Persian born Muslim who practices a form of Qi meditation referred to as ‘pure Qi’. The influence of her monotheistic religion as well as Universalist philosophy of Qi is evident in her paintings, both in choice of colors and lines to accentuate a single yellow or white focal point as well as within her detailed use of optical illusion to interrelate and derivate.  In contrast, the influence of her Persian culture and her experience of war is less pronounced in the paintings and is limited to random poetic expressions within colors, shapes, and figures; something that is repeatedly observed in works of contemporary Iranian painters as well as the traditional Iranian Miniature.    Apart from the Qi healing aspect of her work –which can be very subjective and not acknowledged or accepted by all belief sets  –Sudè states that her use of optical illusion and the discovery journey that the paintings take a viewer through, according to latest science researches on optical illusion, stimulates many areas of the brain. This stimulation helps the viewer fee alert, yet relaxed....

By Katja De Bock   If you are a regular reader of Kerrisdale Playbook Magazine, you will have noticed the beautiful photos of our interviewees, capturing the essence of their personalities with just a short click of the lens. You might be surprised to it’s an emerging photographer, Vancouver-based Noriko Nasu-Tidball, who made the professional photos.   In my experience as a producer and interviewer of television magazines, the videographers dominate the set. They have to set up their gear of tripods, lamps and cables in what is usually a very short time. However, for the nervous interviewer and self-conscious interviewee, that time seemingly takes forever. Moreover, the videographer often interrupts the flow of the interview as the subjects move in and out of focus, or when camera cards are full or batteries empty.   Not so when I am working as a writer with Noriko Nasu-Tidball as my photographer colleague. When my editor-in-chief, Keiko Honda, and I are speaking with the interviewee, Noriko has the astonishing ability to become what they call a “fly-on-the-wall.” You don’t hear her, you don’t see her, and yet she manages to make hundreds of photos per session, of which only a handful will be selected for the magazine.   For most of the interviews in Kerrisdale Playbook, Noriko relies on ambient light (daylight) and does not ask the subjects to pose, as she wants to capture the gist of the moment. An exception is a group portrait at the end of the interview.   Noriko says her love for vérité-documentary style of photography began during her childhood. She grew up in Susami, a small town in the Wakayama prefecture (administrative district) in Japan, as a daughter to a banker and a kimono storeowner. Magazines were always around...