Ottawa’s Largest Photography Club Teams with six Ottawa festivals
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Ottawa’s Largest Photography Club Teams with Six Ottawa Festivals to Offer Online Photo Gallery
OTTAWA, ON – May 3, 2006 – The RA Photo Club today announced a partnership with six Ottawa festivals to provide an extensive online gallery showcasing some of Ottawa’s premier spring and summer attractions. With over 250 members, the club is in a unique position to provide broad coverage, and offer an unprecedented diversity of visual impressions of the events.
The partner festivals include:
- the Canadian Tulip Festival (May 4-22)
- the Canada Dance Festival (June 2-10)
- the Cisco Systems Bluesfest (July 7-16)
- the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival (July 22 – August 5)
- the Alcatel HOPE Volleyball Summerfest (July 8)
- the Nortel Ottawa Dragon Boat Race Festival (June 24-25)
The Ottawa Festival Galleries will include hundreds of images by the end of the summer, and will be hosted and promoted by the RA Photo Club and linked to and from the festival sites. In addition, the photographs will be available for the partner festivals to support their marketing and communications efforts in other media.
The effort is being spearheaded by the club’s recently formed Urban Group. Mike Heffernan, the Urban Group leader, says the club efforts to showcase the city and the festivals can make a difference locally and abroad. “We’re proud of Ottawa. It’s a very beautiful and photogenic city. An online gallery will offer diverse perspectives and great moments, presenting the summer festivals with terrific depth to as many people as possible.”
Doug Little, Marketing and Communications Director for the Canadian Tulip Festival welcomes the collaboration. “The Canadian Tulip Festival is a vibrant feast for the eyes. Coming at the beginning of spring, it’s a visual and psychological relief to locals and visitors – a sign of life renewed. We are happy to involve the RA to get as wide a variety of shots as possible, and the online gallery will make these images available broadly to possible visitors to the city.”
Rob James, the chairperson of the club agrees. “The RA Photo Club has many skilled members, so we can cover a lot of ground. Every member has a distinct perspective and photographic style – so we expect the galleries to have an interesting variety – there will be photos that even long time Ottawa residents will find new and surprising.”
The festivals and photo club maintain an open and collaborative dialog so that the club photographers understand the marketing needs of the partner festival. In return, the festival provides preferred access to the members. A festival photography competition organized by the Urban Group will be judged by the communications staff of the festivals themselves.
Andre Sauve, Director of Communications for Cisco Systems Ottawa Bluesfest is taking the collaboration a step further. “Having this many photographers this enthusiastic about working with you opens up all kinds of possibilities. We’re brainstorming with the RA photo lineup on possibly employing time-lapse photography and audio-visual adaptations. They’re a great addition to our team.”
RA members can help large, spread out festivals cope with the scale of their operations. “We have a huge number of concerts and venues, so the RA photographers are going to help us a lot,” emphasizes Suzan Zilahi, Communications Director for the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival. She also appreciates the atmosphere of dialog. “We have to place restrictions on our photographers’ position and movement because of the subtle nature of our performances. The upside is we’ve found the club members very responsive and creative in approaching these restrictions.”
For Alex MacDonald, Director of Communications at the Canada Dance Festival, it’s an encore performance. “We’ve worked with RA club members before, and are happy to involve them again, particularly in shooting our innovative outdoor dance series. It’s a wonderful fit with the Urban group’s theme.”
Karen Wood, speaking for Alcatel HOPE Volleyball Summerfest, emphasizes the importance of volunteerism to the festival. “We rely enormously on volunteers to help us out. It’s wonderful to have the club assist us in our efforts to support the many charities that rely on HOPE funds.”
Stephanie Robinson, Team Services Coordinator for the Nortel Ottawa Dragon Boat Race Festival re-emphasizes the same point. “Charity fundraising is a community event and it’s great to have the RA Photo Club join the Dragon Boat crew.”
Heffernan couldn’t agree more. “It’s important to use your personal capabilities, whatever they are, to help your community. We have the skills and critical mass that enables us to make a difference. We want the world to know how visually rich and vibrant Ottawa is.”
About the RA Photo Club (www.raphotoclub.ca)
The RA Photo Club (founded in 1939) has over 250 members (ranked Junior to Master). Based in the RA Centre on Riverside Drive, it is the region’s largest and best equipped photo club, featuring a completely outfitted darkroom, digital lab, photographic studio and photo gallery. Its special interest divisions include Nature, Urban, Digital, Portrait, Figure and Glamour, Audio-Visual and Photo Critique groups. It regularly hosts presentations, internal club and inter-club competitions, showcases, group outings and educational workshops.
About the RA Photo Club Urban Group (http://www.raphotoclub.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=161)
The most recently minted special interest group of the RA Photo Club (April, 2006), the Urban photography group focuses on the theme “People and their environment.” The group focuses on showcasing and improving their member’s skill and creativity in approaching a wide variety of environmental and people related topics, including urbanscapes, festivals, events and urban abstractions. The group organizes regular outings, presentations and showcases. It also partners with community groups, organizations and charities.
About the Canadian Tulip Festival (www.tulipfestival.ca)
The 54th Canadian Tulip Festival is inspired by a tulip gift. In 1945 Queen Juliana of the Netherlands gave the Canadian people 100,000 tulips. During the Second World War, Canada sheltered the Dutch Royal family. For the birth of Princess Margriet, a room in the Ottawa Civic Hospital was declared Dutch soil, and overseas, Canadian troops were instrumental in the liberation of the Netherlands.
Annually, the Dutch Royal Family still sends 20,000 bulbs. This year’s theme, World Flower Rendezvous, is in honour of the XXIIIth Annual World Flower Council Summit, held for the first time in Gatineau, Quebec. The international theme permeates this year’s new attraction – the Tulip Promenade. Situated in Major’s Hill Park (MHP), 150 5-foot high individually painted tulips create a colourful rolling walkway that connects three expansive live tulip beds containing over 100,000 tulips. It also features pottery, photography, tulip art, music in the tulips and artists at work. As well as visits by Cirque du Soleil’s Quidam and Canadian and Paralympic medalists from the 2006 Torino Olympic Games, MHP will be home to Sunlife Financial Kids World and the International Village. Other events/sites include Commissioners
Park, Flotilla Weekend, and the Tulip Ball.
About the Cisco Systems Ottawa Bluesfest (www.ottawabluesfest.ca)
This year marks the thirteenth annual Cisco Systems Ottawa Bluesfest – Full Throttle! The July festival will feature more than 1,200 of the best Blues, Roots, R&B, Soul, Gospel, World and Pop-rock musicians in the world. Located in the Festival Plaza and the green space surrounding Ottawa City Hall and neighbouring Lisgar Collegiate, the Blues Fest main stage features headliners such as Great Big Sea; Bonnie Raitt; Blue Rodeo; Nelly Furtado; John Lee Hooker Jr.; Rosanne Cash; Junior Brown; KC’s Boogie Blast featuring Gloria Gaynor, KC & the Sunshine Band, Sister Sledge and Sue Foley, among many others. The festival features many side stages, and great music in multiple dimensions. Bluesfest is an energetic and dynamic experience with a wide diversity of music and atmosphere.
About the Canada Dance Festival (CDF) (www.canadadance.ca)
The Canada Dance Festival Society is a presenter of contemporary Canadian dance, a partner and a community player that facilitates the development of the art form, its artists and its audience. The Society’s mission is to celebrate the enormous wealth of dance in Canada by presenting the best new Canadian choreography to a wide audience, thereby making a significant impact on the development of Canadian dance artists. A signature event is the national Canada Dance Festival, presented in Ottawa every two years. It brings together over 250 artists from across the country to participate in a nine day event, attracting close to sixty Canadian and foreign presenters and media.
Since the first presentation of the festival in 1987, the CDF has participated in commissioning over 70 original dances and has been the catalyst for countless national and international tours. Many international members of the dance community attend the festival to follow the development of Canadian dance and to select artists for their respective festivals and dance series.
About the Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival (www.chamberfest.com)
Each year, thousands of music lovers travel from across Canada and around the world to attend the largest chamber music festival in the world. The 13th Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival will present 120 concerts from July 22 to August 5, 2006. Over 250 of the top international and Canadian chamber musicians will perform in acoustically perfect heritage churches. Many of the greatest musicians have appeared at the Festival including the Borodin, Hagen, Tokyo, Julliard, Emerson and St. Lawrence String Quartets, Beaux Arts and Gryphon Trios, Emma Kirkby, Ida Haendel, Gil Shaham and Louis Lortie, to name just a few. Passes are $80 (Canadian) for adults and $40 for students and permit listeners to attend most of the concerts.
Nortel Ottawa Dragon Boat Race Festival (www.dragonboat.net)
The Nortel Ottawa Dragon Boat Race Festival began in 1993 with the assistance of the Hong Kong Canada Business Association. This little known sport eventually grew to be one of the hottest sporting events in the Nation’s Capital and around the world. By 2004, the sport – which once featured only 25 teams – now has 180 teams participating in both corporate and community categories over two days. In 1998, the “Pledge Challenge” was instituted and our paddlers have raised over $800,000 for local charities.
At our festival, you will see much more than just dragon boat races – examples of our on-site events include the following:
- Multicultural performances all day on the Festival’s main stage
- A children’s activity area that includes rides, a crafts tent, and much more!
- A variety of concessionaires and exhibitors representing our cross-cultural community.
About the Alcatel HOPE Volleyball Summerfest (http://www.hopehelps.com)
HOPE is a volunteer-driven, not-for-profit events management organization that raises funds for community-based charities. Inspired by Terry Fox’s run across Canada, in 1981 a group of friends in Ottawa founded HOPE to make a difference in their community. HOPE’s flagship Volleyball SummerFest event combines recreational volleyball with live rock entertainment. Each year, more than 25,000 players and spectators flock to Mooney’s Bay Beach in Ottawa for the greatest summer party in the region. These participants have helped HOPE raise millions in support of more than 100 local charities. Not bad for a group of friends that wanted to make a difference.
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Media Contact Information
RA Photo Club
Mike Heffernan, Urban Group Leader
(613) 296-2123
mikeh@binaryrhyme.com
Canadian Tulip Festival
Doug Little, Marketing and Communications Director
(613) 567-5757 ext. 245,
doug.little@tulipfestival.ca
Cisco Systems Ottawa Bluesfest
Andre (AJ) Sauve, Director of Communications
(613) 247-1188 ext. 229
ajsauve@ottawabluesfest.ca
Canada Dance Festival
Alex MacDonald, Director of Communications
(613) 947-7000 x743
amacdona@nac-cna.ca
Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival
Suzan Zilahi, Communications Director
(613) 234-8008 x 241
media@chamberfest.com
Nortel Ottawa Dragon Boat Race Festival
Stephanie Robinson, Team Services Coordinator
(613) 238-7711 x 226
team@dragonboat.net
Alcatel HOPE Volleyball Summerfest
Karen Wood, Knock on Wood Communications
(613) 236-8452
media@hopehelps.com
Tags: partnership, photography
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