Orbis Pull for Sight 2010 - Vancouver (FedEx Area at YVR) | Richmond

When I first heard about the Orbis Pull for Sight, the novelty factor of people pulling an airplane was quick to catch my attention! However, after reading more about the their organization - flying all over the developing world to assist blind and visually impaired children - that was really the impressive part! Perhaps it's just my own bias as a photographer, but I consider vision to be the most important of the senses and it's hard to imagine living life without it. I really admire the medical volunteers who help these kids!




So Rosy and I decided to make use of a rare wedding-season-Saturday without a wedding, by going out to Richmond to cover and blog about this event. It turns out there was already an official photographer and a fair amount of media coverage (we saw Global TV, Fairchild TV and a Canadian Press photographer among others) - a much bigger event than we initially expected!

Aside from being a lot of fun watching people's contorted facial expressions ad answering the question "how many people does it take to win a tug-of-war with an airplane" (20), it ended up being a great chance to check out an area that is normally off-limits to visitors, including the cockpit of one of FedEx's planes ... that doesn't happen every day(!) and the whole experience was a further chance to play with a new wide-angle lens (Nikon 14-24mm).

There was a Lion Dance team (from a local Kung-Fu club) to kick off the festivities ...

I narrowly avoided being attacked by the hungry dragon. :D

Security was tight, but this fine member had a couple of minutes to tolerate my photo opportunism.


The main event featured teams of 20 pulling the planes over a 4m distance as fast as possible (usually between 6 - 10 seconds).

Best team name ... the "Runway Models" ;D

Success!

Not all of the planes were so big ..

And some found other ways to pass the time ...

I didn't realize those pilot windows opened!

Well ... time to call it a day ;>