Some of you are saying, copyboy?…uhhhhh? and what in blazes does that have to do with photojournalism? Firstly I come from a newspaper family of writers and editors going back to the late 1800s. After I decided to leave school and with some strong urging from my grandfather decided to carry on the family torch and try the newspaper business. He was hoping I would become a writer like himself but that was not to be.

Now obviously since I knew nothing about working in the news business where else does one start?…well of course, at the bottom and a copyboy is, or was, the lowest of the low in the news industry. I am pretty sure copyboys and even the term have long disappeared from the lexicon of newsrooms joining other ancient terms such as “hot type” and “honey, get me rewrite”. Have any of you ever watched an old newspaper movie and hopefully noticed in some scenes a reporter banging out a story on the typewriter then rips it out and shouts “copy!” at which a young lad shows up takes the copy then runs it to an editor, who scribbles his edits then shouts the same and hands it off again. That’s a “copy”…boy….ahhhhhhhh of course you say.

Since I was working in the Pictures operation my job was similar but slightly different though I did have to clear copy. There were about six or eight machines constantly hammering out stories in a very hot and deafening small room. At regular intervals I had to go in and clear the copy, neatly stack it,  and give it to one of the photo editors on the desk who used it to write captions for photos and otherwise keep on top of stories of the day. One aspect of that job I will never forget was having to change a roll of paper and or an ink ribbon while the machine was still going…AND NOT!!!…loose a single line of a story. It was like being a one man pit crew in a car race, change the tires and refuel the machine without a hitch. Yes of course I mucked it up several times while learning, the paper was in crooked or the ink ribbon everywhere. One time after a particularly poor and slow performance I looked down at my sore hand, that have received several hits from the fast, hard hitting letter levers, and there was a complete word embedded in my skin. Once I got the hang of it, though,  I used to race the clock on the wall in front of me to see if I could beat my last time  ……ahh the good ole days!!….

My other jobs as one of three copyboys in the pix office was to dry photos produced in the darkroom, sometimes literally hundreds of prints for the  daily and weekly mail outs to newspapers,  pickup film from photographers on assignments downtown and to ride the red rocket to get photos from Toronto’s three newspapers (Star, Globe & Mail and Telegram) that CP had picked up to put out on the wire. Of course last but not least, several times a day I had to trek out to a nearby restaurant to get coffee and food for the photo editors. No coffee machines in the office in those days…hah!!! In fact I got to know the owners in the nearby diner so well that when on a coffee run I would go behind the counter myself and prepare the take away coffees, leave the money beside the cash and out without even being noticed. If it was food I could stick my head into the kitchen and tell the short order cook what I needed, “You Got it Buddy” he would shout back….ahh the good ole days!!..

By now you are probably really scratching your head, so where in gods little green apples does becoming a photojournalist come into this? Well between all the above mentioned jobs there were actually quiet times when I had nothing to do and when those times occurred I was into the darkroom and learning. There were four really great darkroom techs who took time from their work to show me the then mysteries of the Chambre Noir. Gem Mitchell was the main one who took me under his wing and spent hours patiently showing me how to hand process rolls of film and make prints. I remember one particular time after Gem had taught me how to “dodge” an exposure with one’s hand while printing, my inexperienced hands waved in and out of the exposure rather sloppily to which he quipped “You let me know if the print every waves back”. Though my family genes dictated I was to become a writer once I saw what news photography was all about that’s what I wanted to be. I remember I had a slight interest in photography prior to starting at CP but nothing inside me suggested that’s what I wanted as a career until I saw what life was all about in photojournalism and it was then I was hooked.

Using all my spare time while on shift and coming in on my days off, I steadily learned the trade. I would shoot pictures with my Nikon F and 35mm lens and constantly go into the office process and print then show my work for advice and critique to whomever I could. In 1972 I was promoted from copyboy to darkroom technician, I was thrilled!! Soon after I began shooting the odd assignment when needed. I started regularly covering Toronto Maple Leaf hockey games on Saturday nights, which CP paid me the kings ransom of five bucks a picture instead of overtime. My first big assignment taking pictures came in 1972 as part of the photo crew  covering the Royal Tour in which I spent several days following Queen Elizabeth’s events around Toronto. Later that year I got my second big assignment covering the Grey Cup Championship in Hamilton. In 1974 I was offered and without question accepted a transfer to the Ottawa bureau as a darkroom tech/photographer and a year later in June of 1975 I was promoted to a full time photographer. Over the next 35 years I went on from Canadian Press to work for the Hamilton Spectator, United Press Canada, Prime Minister of Canada and finally for the last 24 years with Reuters, based in Ottawa, Brussels, London, Toronto and now Vancouver. I am grizzled, scarred and now digitized but I am still as keen for a good picture as the day I started.

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PHOTOS: Top photo shows the version of teletype machine I worked with as a copyboy. Lower Photo shows one of the first photos I took after buying my first 35mm camera (Nikon F) in 1970.

This not the first time I have attempted this. The job is just so daunting I take one look and then shut the closet door. As daunting as this may be I have finally decided the time has come and have promised myself I will not stop till I have this collection in order and some of my past favourites scanned. I also plan to post some of these long forgotten images as I come upon them layer by layer. There are some I remember and hope to find and there are plenty others that have faded from memory and I am sure will bring exclamations like “Oh yea, I remember this”…..or….”holy emulsion batman, did I shoot that??”. So this months “On Assignment” is a few of the moments I have found so far. Some go back to 1973 and some will be fairly recent prior to going Digital, in 1997. There is no order or pattern it will be whatever I uncover under floorboards , as it were, and the layers of cobwebs.

On another note regarding scanning old negatives. I noticed while editing, something I haven’t done in almost 40 years. Namely the fine art of branding one’s camera. Now obviously for you Alberta folks I don’t mean take a hot branding iron out of the fire and press it against your camera…ahh com’on the thought did cross your mind at least for second.  Way back in the olden days when we used film in our Sopwith Camel Nikons or Fokker Triplane Canons there was no EXIF or IPTC that one could embed information such as your byline into images. This on some occasions could cause mis-credits when several photogs worked together on the same story. At times the editor might not know whose film was who’s and accidently put the wrong name on the wirephoto. I should mention, at this point, that back then your name did not actually go on the photo but rather just your intials. As a rule Wire photogs did not get name credits in papers at all just the agency. I do believe the first papers in Canada to start giving wire photogs bylines were the Calgary Herald followed soon after by the Globe & Mail sometime around 1980-81….but back to the story….. To help prevent mis-naming or rather mis-initialed photos we branded our cameras so that there was distinct marking on the negative that the editor knew as yours. To accomplish this you opened the shutter then took a small metal file or nail file and gently notched the side of the shutter frame, thus leaving a distinct mark on either the left or right side of the neg. The brands or notches varied in different ways that was recognized as yours. My brand was two notches , one up and one down. Others had for instance three notches one up two down or three up or whatever, the different combinations we numerous.  Of course there were some minor drawbacks, if you happened to loan one of your cameras  to a colleague or if you owned your cameras and wanted to sell any you hoped the buyer wouldn’t notice till he processed his first film…..doh!!!!. I only did the shutter branding in the early 1970s though…I stopped when better methods such as using film envelopes came along.  Anyways just another small story from my negative archive.

Well I think thats it for now…..so on a final note  I was recently interviewed by a website called FERNTV. You can find it at

http://www.ferntv.ca/FERN_TV/Andy_Clark.html

if your interested in reading it.

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Last weekend while covering the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Navy I was aboard the HMCS Algonquin out offshore covering a review of the fleet by the Naval Commander n Chief the Governor General. At one point we asked if we could go up to the bridge and take photos of the GG taking the review as we sailed by the various warships from around the world. No problem and up we went. Moments after we got up there and standing off to the side the GG was handed a ship momento to use. An old time Naval spyglass which she immediately put to her eye. Nice!!! perfect!!! just what we needed. Standing just behind her was a Rear-Admiral and a federal politician from Ottawa. As I began to shoot pictures attempting at first to go wide so as to hopefully include some of the anchored ships and the ambiance of the fly bridge, what unexpectedly but not surprisingly appears in my lens?… dirtying up the nice moment…a bloody blackberry poised to take photos…WTF!!!!!…and who was holding the idiot-berry?? none other than that federal politician standing just behind the GG. I couldn’t believe it!!!!…the phone/camera ebola virus has spread farther and more than I imagined. I stepped to my left but to no avail. It really ruined the moment for me….I quickly went tight on GG which at the time wasn’t what I wanted…but c’est la vie…and what then moves into my frame again!!….that damned ebola-phone!!!!. “Will no one rid me of this turbulent blackberry?” (…a select few words I borrowed from Henry II of England in reference to the Archbishop of Canterbury…but took some liberty and replaced the word priest). Unfortunately as the GG kept looking through the spyglass she panned the fleet slowly away from us then put the glass down a minute or so later and shortly after we were escorted back to the lower decks.

Well I was not amused to say the least….and thought later too bad they eliminated that old Royal Navy tradition of flogging….. “Mr. Christian!!!  assemble a punishment detail, if you please!!, a dozen lashes for the use of a cellphone camera”……

Nuff Said…at least for now

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I can count on one hand the number of assignments I have done this month. Even my ever present feature hunting is seeing some lean times. I have logged mulitple hours in the last month looking for anything but have come up empty handed considerably more times than not.  Speaking of shooting blanks things were looking good for some Stanley Cup playoffs coverage earlier this month as the Canucks headed into the second round and things were looking to keep me busy for awhile yet. Unfortunately recent history repeated itself and Canucks crumbled to the mighty Blackhawks…again!!!…crap!!!!

This month’s “On Assignment” is a series I did on women’s roller derby. A photographer colleague of mine Jenna Hauck is on one of the teams and another colleague TV camera sniper Aaron Johnston takes care of the video production for the games. After both mentioned on couple of occasions about coming out to shoot one of their game nights I finally made  itout back in April. What a hoot!!!. I remember watching roller derby on our fuzzy Black & White TV as a kid but had no idea  itwas still so popular. I really enjoyed the evening and I was pleased with the result.

Another thing that has been a real hoot over the last two weeks is having a Leica M9 in my hands. Brian Bell at Leica was kind enough to have one sent to me so I could give it a try. As I have mentioned in previous posts I have been a fan of Leica since I got my first of three film bodies (M2-M3-M4-2) and four lenses back in 1975. All of which I still have but alas do not use anymore due to my entering the world of digital 13 years ago. Once the digital M8 came out I bought one a couple years ago and have enjoyed using it and having a rangefinder to work with again. Not to mention all my old lenses work as good the day they were made, one of which was assembled in 1959.

Using the new M9 was a real pleasure. I won’t get into the technical aspects of the camera since I am not a technical guy. As a famous race car driver once said “I don’t know how the thing works, I just drive it”. The 18mp files are gorgeous and real pleasure to work on.  I shoot in the raw DNG format. Files are all crisp and didn’t appear to have that digital softness to them, though I am sure the lenses have plenty to do with that. The full frame of the M9 is nice too. The M8 is 1.3 which ain’t bad and have grown used to but my favourite lens is the 35mm Summicron f/2 and on the M8 it becomes a just about a 50mm. I have been using the 28mm Elmarit f/2.8 mostly which is I guess about a 35mm. It was therefore nice to use the M9 with my favoured 35mm. They have made several improvements in other areas such as quieter shutter and smoother sounding winder not to mention improvements on the preferences for the camera. The only downside I have and it has nothing to with Leica is using PhotoMechanic to edit. PhotoMech doesn’t handle DNG. It will view images but they look muzzy, so therefore hard to pick the right one sometimes. Many would say well use another software to edit or shoot jpegs…..yea I could but I ain’t so I suffer in silence. Overall though the M9 is a winner for me and anybody who likes to shoot rangefinder, many of today’s youngins don’t know how, I recommend the camera all the way.  That brings me to the second downside, namely the price. Just about 8-Gees for one here in Canada, something I cannot really afford. Of course I am lucky cause I already have lenses. Anybody who doesn’t your probably looking at almost 10 grand to be on the road with one. I am told that currently demand outweighs production so I guess there are plenty of shooters pro and amateur out there with lots of cash.

I posted a few of the images I shot with the M9 in my “Recent Work” folder.

In closing I want to recount a story I heard the other day on CBC Radio One. Before I recount this tale that will make my fellow photogs shutter (excuse the pun) I want to mention there is plenty of talk within the photo industry these days on how publications and even wealthy corporations don’t want to pay much for photos these days. I am sure there are all kinds of reasons for this, which I won’t really get into but I think much of it has to do with the “Internet” and fact with digital many bean counters think its easy to take pictures so why pay for it. I had a major book publisher call me few weeks ago and offer me a kings ransom of $25.00 to use one my photos on the cover of a new book they were publishing…..I think the book editor pretty well figured what my answer was after they heard about 30 seconds of silence from my end after their generous offer. I was very polite though and said thank you for the offer but no. I thought later the long distance phone call during peak hours probably cost just as much as their offer. Anyways to get on with the story I  heard on the radio, this was something that happened almost a 100 years ago and please excuse me if I don’t get all the details completely correct if anybody has heard it before.

Back in 1912 during the presidential election campaign. Theodore Roosevelt’s campaign manager had about three million pamphlets printed up exalting some of Roosevelt’s election platform. He also had what he thought was very nice photo of Roosevelt printed on the literature also. Before the pamphlets were distributed it was pointed out to the campaign manager that he did not have permission from the photographer to publish the photo and under the copyright laws of the time he may be forced to pay the photographer up to $1.oo for each one printed.  So in a moment of sheer bravado and some will say maybe even pure genius the manager sent a telegram to the unknown photographer. I am not sure of the exact wording but basically it said.  “We are using one of your photos in our election campaign. I think this is a marvelous opportunity for you, how much are you willing to pay us to do so.”…….Apparently the rather naive photographer answered back the same day saying. “Thank you very much for the opportunity but unfortunately I can only afford $200 maybe $250. ”

I guess I completely blew it, when I turned down the book cover then…..In hindsight I suppose I should have offered the book editor the $25.oo….. Damn!……

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PHOTOS: Canucks losing to Blackhawks, My Leicas, Photo taken with Leica M9, The photo the book publisher wanted for a cover

Like last year I have waived my Black & White only rule on this site and posting images in colour so they can be viewed as they were judged…

PHOTOJOURNALIST OF THE YEAR/2010

The following are images from my 10 photo portfolio that won Photojournalist of the Year. The first one is Canadian Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff just after he won the leadership at the party convention. That’s followed by a soldier framed by an eternal flame during a Remembrance Day ceremony.

The next photo is a Inuk woman selecting the head of a slaughtered seal during a community gathering in Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic.

The fourth image is of a Olympic Torch Bearer wading into the cold north Pacific surf on the west coast of Vancouver Island in the first few days of the torch relay.

The fifth image in this series is of Aurora a Beluga whale just moments after giving birth to her calf at the Vancouver Aquarium.

The next image shows a Montreal Canadiens hockey supporter reacting to a goal scored by the Canucks during an NHL game here.

Number seven in the series shows residents looking at the evening sunset reflecting off a giant cloud of smoke drifting over Lake Okanagan resulting from three forest fires burning on the edge of Kelowna in the British Columbian interior.

The eighth image is of an athlete on a trampoline hanging over a new Air Canada jet painted with a 2010 Olympic Winter Games motif which had just been rolled out during a ceremony at the international airport.

The next one shows a patron at a local bar having a drink after work and ignoring Liberal Party leader Michael Ignatieff meeting with party faithful at the local watering hole.

The last image is of marijuana activist Mark Emery embracing friends before surrendering himself to authorities to be extradited to the U.S. to serve a prison term.

Finally I am also including two other images that took prizes in this year’s contest.

The first one was of an 82-year-old player watching teammates from the bench during a geriatric hockey tournament involving about 30 players all over the age of 75. This image placed third in Portrait Personality.

Last but not least was second place in Sports Feature of a goalie on the Swedish women’s hockey team adjusting her hair before a game during a warmup tournament leading up to the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

In closing would just like say sorry about the lousy layout. My mastery of the WordPress is still in the learning curve period and find it still a bit of head scratcher……till the next update coming soon I am off to the TV to watch this evening’s NHL playoffs, round two on the road to the Holy Grail of hockey.

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I was in GM place, with thousands of other people, July 2, 2003 when IOC President Jacques Rogge uttered the words “The 2010 Olympic Winter Games goes to…….Vancouver….”. The home to the NHL Vancouver Canucks immediately erupted into a roar that would not be heard again until February 12, 2010 when Sidney Crosby scored the overtime goal to win the Olympic hockey gold medal for Canada.

Though I am not a hardcore Olympic veteran like many of my photo colleagues I now have eight games notched on my cameras, five summer and three winter. Back in 2003 I was only at number five and I thought this might be kinda cool. Instead of me going to the Olympics the games are coming to me. Though there is a certain pleasure in going to the Olympics usually in far off  foreign lands, this time, I thought no worries about crowded airline flights and even worse jammed airports then trying to find hotels or Media Villages in strange cities. The best part I would not have to fight the crowds getting out of Dodge after the games….always a painful exercise. I remember Salt Lake City in 2002 as the worst I have ever experienced. I got to the airport at 8:30 am for a noon flight and did not reach the ticket counter to check in until 4:45 pm…ugggh.

Over the next several years it was interesting watching everything slowly come together. Every month in the beginning there always seemed  to be something Olympic to cover. Ground breaking on this and news conference on that. During this time it never really sunk in that someday that distant tidal wave was gonna crash onto our shores. The first real sign of things to come was about a year ago when from mid January to mid March there was 15 winter sport World Cups held in Vancouver and Whistler to test the future venues. For two months I spent my time driving back and forth to Whistler to the point I wasn’t sure whether I lived in Vancouver and commuted to Whistler or the other way round. Every weekend we had a World Cup and on a couple occasions even had two or three all going on at the same time. By the end of that flurry I felt I had already covered the Games. Sorry bub…that was just the warmup next stop the 2010 Olympic Winter Games…….ohhhhhhh.

Signs the Olympic Tsunami was imminent (in more ways than one , as you will soon read) was late October last year with the arrival of the Olympic Torch. I spent the first three or four days chasing the Torch up Vancouver Island, which was actually kinda fun and got some decent images that included some nice moments when the Torch was carried out into the crashing surf of the cold north Pacific waters to meet a surfer in Tofino. How do I know it was crashing and cold? That’s because I failed to take note ahead of time the tide might be coming in and ended up almost to my knees in that icy cold November sea as the while photographing the torch being handed off.  Now these things happen when covering news, but the stupid thing is, back on shore in the trunk of my car I had very good pair of hip waiters that I had failed to put on during my “stupid is as stupid does” moment over the turning of the tide.  It was all worth it though, I was happy with the images.

Fast forward a couple months to mid-January about a month out from the start of the games….the city is beginning to take on an Olympic look and it has also taken on that famous look Vancouver is well known for.  The nickname ‘Wet Coast” might offer a hint….yes folks none other than our winter rain.  Of course there was nothing unusual about this to us locals, I mean it had been raining since mid-November the universe was unfolding as it should. What did surprise me was the number of my foreign colleagues who began arriving and expected to see snow or at least more wintery conditions.  There is lots of snow I said, and exactly where its supposed to be around these here parts pointing to the local mountains. But, but……no buts about it folks the anomaly here is the not the weather but the Olympics.  I had put out a memo to all my Reuters colleagues weeks before advising them of the weather and to make sure they brought plenty of  rain gear to stay dry but was surprised how few heeded the warning forcing many of them to scramble to local outdoor stores and cleaning the shelves of waterproof clothing.

The rain also became a threat for one venue, namely Cypress mountain where the snowboarding and freestyle skiing was to be held. Though plenty of snow had fallen up there in November and December, a couple of weeks before the games we got a weather front that comes up from Hawaii called a Pineapple Express bringing warm air and monsoon  like rain. It quickly threatened what snow they did have and forced them to start trucking snow in from the mountains a couple hundred kilometers away. On one day they invited the media up to Cypress to show the competition area was in good shape despite the weather. I was happy to see all looked good to me but it was raining so hard I had on two layers of rain gear and as I left an hour or so later with plenty of soggy pictures could only think how lucky I was that I was not going to cover any events up there during the games.

As for covering the games themselves. Well it was all blur for me. Went by so fast its a bit fuzzy now to think back and separate some days from others. My main assignments during the games were long track speed skating, short track and figure skating. Between that I did the curling medal games and a little bit of women’s hockey. During the figure skating the position I had on the opposite of the rink from the judges put me in direct line with TV cameras and no matter who skated, at some point during their routine I was obviously visible in the background and every night began getting e-mails and text messages from all over from friends and colleagues who were watching. One colleague said he saw me more on Japanese TV than their own athletes. Funny thing was that each time I appeared the skater was either too close or had their back to me so therefore I wasn’t shooting which resulted in constant text messages ribbing me and my work ethic and exactly what was I doing there then.

With regards to my work during the games I can honestly say I didn’t come away with any zingers. My photos during from the games were ho-hum and average at best. This month’s “On Assignment” , for what its worth, are photos from the Olympics and the Paralympics. Nothing spectacular really came my way and it was more of assembly line photography for me, action, jubo, medals…..and repeat.

The one thing I have never covered before is the Paralympics, which follow about 10 days after the Olympics. They are much easier to cover since there are only four venues in the winter version, and in this case two in Whistler and two in Vancouver. Since I spent the Olympics in Vancouver thought I would spend the Paras in Whistler which consisted of Alpine and Cross-Country events. At first I had planned to just concentrate on looking for some nice images day by day. Generally and unfortunately after the Olympics there is somewhat less interest in the Paras. Most media outlets have tired of the games though interest in Canada was still high. As Canada began to win medal after medal I was forced to start covering the events meaning no time to look for those different angles which was unfortunate . All in all though it was a good time and very inspiring to watch these disabled athletes do what they do.

That’s about it for this posting……….

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PHOTOS: My shadow and I leaving the figure skating venue:  My first Olympic credential, Montreal 1976:  The latest credential:  My shooting position at the Olympic speed skating oval:  Olympic cauldron viewed through rain covered plexi-glass: Yours truly at the figure skating: A couple of colleagues relaxing during a break in speed skating…..

As usual I covered the opening of the alpine downhill ski season in Lake Louise for two weeks and then drove up to Edmonton to spend a week covering the Olympic curling trials. It was a record breaking week but not on the field of play unfortunately. Edmonton, as most people in this country know, is famous for its harsh winters and I have experienced it many times, however this time round the word harsh was a very weak adjective indeed. When I arrived in town it was -35 celsius. Not bad for a winter’s day in Great White North, but by weeks end it had dropped into the -45 range “Ohh this is getting ugly”, and by the weekend…. jumpin gee-hoza-fats, it was -58.  Edmonton was declared the second coldest place on planet Earth only a degree or two behind some weather station in Siberia and I do believe broke temperature records going back to the ice age. Of course this all happened on the same week world leaders were meeting in Copenhagen to try and solve glo…mumble…ing… Uhhhhh??, “Say that again?”……sure….. Gloooowwww…Ballllllll….Warrrrrr….Ming!!!!…sorry my face was numb from the cold.

Just realized I am getting ahead myself here. The alpine downhill skiing was great as usual. I always enjoy the two weeks in Lake Louise each year.  The Reuters, AFP and EPA photogs stay at a log lodge & cabin place called Baker Creek about 10km from the mountain out in the wintery forest all alone and away from everything. No TV or phones in the spacious fireplaced rooms and the cellphone signal is very dodgy, but the place does have ok wireless internet. The owners know us now having been there for the last four or five years and we are treated well. Each day after the skiing is done I usually head out to look for wildlife photos in the area until dark…some years are good some years poor. This year was poor. I went out once or twice and saw nothing but the odd coyote or elk. The lodge owner told me there was a family of black wolves in the area but no joy on that either.

Following my two weeks of lovely wilderness living, it was, as I mentioned on up to Edmonton and the curling. As I have said in other posts, I like to cover curling. Many think its a boring sport to cover and yes no great decisive spine tingling moments action come of it I do admit. Curling is not a game of action but rather a game of reaction photographically speaking. I find it a challenge to watch for those moments during a game and I honestly believe the sport makes some very nice photos if your patient and watchful. Its more of a sport one has to be attentive and eyes open…instead of sitting there with your autofocus and 10fps cameras waiting for bodies to fly. In Canada curling gets plenty if ink in the papers and online but unfortunately many papers and now online gallery editors appear stuck in the past, or may be ignorant of the sport. I can’t get over the fact they use the cliche photos time after time. Since I cover so much curling I avoid shooting these photos as best I can. Though I admit I do the odd one when forced to. They are simply just plain boring, yawn. I can’t count the number of times other photogs covering curling either for the first time or very rarely head immediately toward the cliches like hungry fish to the wormed hook. Then!! the papers local or national do the same. Man!!!…. two fish on one hook….go figure. Now I don’t blame the photogs per say covering curling, as I mentioned, maybe new or they just wanna get a a quick photo and get out of there. I might say that sometimes young photogs are looking for that instant, look at the back screen zingers, that you just don’t get in this sport, so in some ways the cliches satisfy that craving quickly. As for the papers and online galleries??? I would hope they might know better or at least grow tired of running the same gimmicky photos month after month during the curling season, even year after year. To be fair curling has moments one must shoot that are obviously repetitive like all other sports….but its the cliches and gimmicky photos, uggggh! I also understand that many times one has to shoot the same images from the same events, hell I shot two or three images like that today while doing Olympic preparation features. But please give it a rest folks curling makes some nice images so quit looking for the run of mill and the cliche-gimmicks. Anyway that’s my rant for the month…just something that continually irks me to the point “It makes my Toes Curl(ing)”…as it were.

This is going to be my only update for next month or two. As I have said repeatedly the Olympics are coming and suspect I am going to be somewhat busy…not to mention covering the Paralympics two weeks after. So I was so inspired by our Prime Minister proroguing Parliament during the Olympics I have decided to do the same on my website. There is a chance I might add something during the games…possibly a rant or perhaps something funny that happened. Failing that I will be back to update sometime in the Spring or maybe when Parliament comes back, whatever comes first.

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PHOTOS TOP TO BOTTOM: Steam rises from industry and river during extreme cold in Edmonton. Our mountain home at Baker Creek during Downhill Skiing. A coyote howls in the forest near Lake Louise. A typical cliche curling photo.

The negatives appeared to be in pretty good condition too.  A couple showed signs of  wear and tear but overall I was very impressed. I was warned many years ago by a Kodak fellow that my negatives would begin to degenerate after 5 to 10 years because of the corners we cut during hand processing at the wires. Though I have found some of started to go bad the percentage is so low it would hardly register statistically.

As you will see I have no great moments of rock history nor moments of photographic skill in the collection. In fact if I step back and critique myself  the images are average at best. I was at the time, a green, sodbusting photo rookie who had only picked up his first 35mm camera (Nikon F) two years earlier and as we all know I was there for the music, right? Suffice to say that’s my story and I am sticking to it. Mainly I felt the images had some historical significance and several colleagues, upon my mentioning I had discovered the long lost images, asked I post them if  for anything else, posterity and a walk down memory lane. So here they are back to a time when rock was young and I was even younger.

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Not much else to report this past month, covered the men’s and women’s downhill skiing in Lake Louise as I do every year then went up to Edmonton to spend one of coldest weeks I have experienced covering the Canadian Olympic Curling trials. One day it was -54 celsius with the wind chill, “Geeezuz H christ!!!” as my grandfather used to say “Thats not fit for neither man nor beast”. Of course no need to say the curling is indoors…but still….I thank my lucky stars for that little mercy.

Overall its been very, very busy for me past few months. As I mentioned in an earlier post the 2010 Olympic Winter Games are coming to town and I am not sure I am ready or even looking forward to it.  I believe this will be my 7th or 8th Olympics and in the past I have always “traveled to the games”, this time however “the games are traveling to me”. As I am sure all would agree its preferable to travel to a foreign countryor city to photograph one of the top sports spectacles on the planet……BUT….. a totally different perspective, I have to say, when you stay home and the Games with trumpets blaring and flags flying ceremoniously arrive into your town.

In less than two months this city is gonna morph into something else and my intial thought was to run-away and get the hell out of Dodge, as it were. Was thinking how about two weeks holiday on a Tahitian Beach watching the Games on TV. Yea I like that!!!…hmm better not it would likely be a career ending move with my employer. I know!!! ….how about breaking a leg skiing on nearby Grouse Mountain just a week before??..not bad!, not bad at all!… I can’t ski a lick so that would be a plausible mishap and excellent excuse to watch games on TV and stay home away from the impending zoo…..naw!, second thoughts are telling me…….six weeks in a cast not to mention the discomfort or rather pain of breaking said leg is sending me back to the drawing board. A Canadian naval frigate was in the harbour few days ago, guess I could join the navy and see the world….nope, too cliche, same goes for joining a traveling circus, me thinks. I have always joked with friends that someday when I grow up, I am going to be a cook on a rusted tramp steamer in the South China Sea, well maybe this is the time. Like skiing I can’t cook a lick either so I’d be perfect for the job…..naw I am grabbing at straws here. Guess I will just stand up and face the music…..the Games are coming and I am going to be there with bells on….or rather cameras.

For any of you reading this that are coming to the games to photograph, I now seriously say it should be a good show. I have been to all the venues multiple times to look at and work and they all are lookin good to me. My personal favourites are the Olympic Oval for the speed skating and the Callaghan Valley for the Nordic events… especially the later, very nice venue indeed. The Olympic photo manager for the games Nick Didlick has picked a first rate crew of folks to assist us and I have nothing but good thoughts on how this will play out. Vancouver is one of the prettiest cities in the world and combine that with Whistler not to mention the drive up there you might not wanna leave…though we encourage to do so..ha ha. Remember too, they don’t call this area the “Wet Coast” for nothin. Bring warm rain gear!!. This does not include Whistler, plenty of snow up there this year…then again sometimes in the past it has.

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PHOTOS: (Top) Shows Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull performing in 1977. (Middle) is a speed skater at the Olympic Oval, (Below) a ski jumper at the Nordic venue in Callaghan Valley

So please standby I hope to update the site by the middle of next week. This month my On Assignment will be some real oldies from the past…and of course the usual Recent Work…..

PHOTOS: Don Emmert of AFP and Jonathan Hayward of CP staying warm at Downhill. Yours Truly sending photos from laptop during Downhill.

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The ballet was kinda fun. Spent about an hour photographing two principal dancers for the National Ballet preparing for the annual Nutcracker in a local dance studio. It was an open media availability and figured a whole gaggle of reporters and cameras would show. That was the bad news, the good news was only a couple three media showed up making life easier to do some decent photos.

The Olympic Torch Relay was more of a challenge. Following its arrival and the lighting ceremony on the steps of the provincial legislature the torch was off and running and therefore required plenty of planning to find your spots or pick your moments shooting and then of course filing my  photos and then hopefully getting to the next spot sometimes many kilometers down the road. It was a fun three days though finding out exactly what was going on at certain times was trying. The hi-light of the three days, for we photogs, was the Olympic Torch being carried on a surfboard just south of Tofino in Pacific Rim Park. Though it seemed to be an open secret ,the torch relay folks would not confirm it would actually happen till only hours before. Since Tofino is a two hour drive along a small road to an isolated area on the west coast of Vancouver Island this forced a couple of us to skip other possible torch events to make sure we got there for something we did not know for sure was going to happen. On another occasion when the torch stopped at a small First Nation reserve the relay folks told us the flame would arrive one way and leave the same way. Well it arrived on queue but then went in another direction when it left leaving us standing in the wrong spot….ugghh. My favourite, though, was on the first day when the torch was to be rowed across a lake by the Canadian Men’s eights rowing team. We were assured several times the boat would not go fast so that we could keep up with it along the shore and thus photograph a handover to another rowing crew mid-way. Well nobody told the rowing crew and once the flame was onboard a couple hard strokes by the crew and they were off like it was a gold medal final. Now I am not overweight or anything but my 50-plus year-old body ain’t what it used to be and thats a fact!!! The mere chance I did actually make it in time for the handover is a testament to these old bones still having some spunk in them…..puff, puf, weez, weez.  Would have loved to have followed the Torch in the days following Tofino as it made its way up into the Arctic. A colleague Jonathan Hayward of Canadian Press did so and I saw some nice images from him that I would have liked to been there to, hopefully make too.

Finally there was one thing that did bother me during the early Torch Relay. On the first day the flame ran around in and outside Victoria before returning to the legislature in the evening for a celebration. During that time there were couple hundred anti-Olympic protesters marching around many of the streets the torch was due to travel down. This caused the flame to divert several times and eventually forced the torch folks to put the flame into a vehicle and drive it to the celebration. Meanwhile the protesters marched up down streets chanting “This is what democracy looks like” and “Whose Streets?, Our Streets” . Now I have no beef with their message everybody has the right to protest in this country. Unfortunately their so called democratic rights took away other’s rights and disappointed several Torch runners who lost their chance to carry the flame, not to mention several hundred people who had come out of their homes to watch the flame go by. This reminded me of a sign I saw in a rather liberal Amsterdam night club in 1970 that said “You can do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t prevent others from doing what they want”. Something these demonstrators might have heeded instead of shouting obscenities and demanding “their” rights to those on sidewalks who only wanted to carry  or view the Olympic Torch Celebration.

A week ago I got myself a second Canon 5D Mark II. As I said in last months post its a beauty camera I just love it!. Combine two 5D IIs and my digital Leica M8 I am “Good to Go!” as they say. Ohh and no I haven’t used the video yet. I played with the video one day to get a feel for it…..but in the meantime unless Martians land before me, maybe witness the second coming, or hell freezes over and the Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup, think I will stick to stills for now……..

Lastly the cover photo I have this month is an oldie I found while going through some negs. Shows a poor soul on the streets of London, along Oxford Street if I remember, who is out cold after a few tips of the bottle beside him. Photo was taken in 1973 during one of my photo holidays as I called them. I would load up on Kodachrome and Plus-X-B&W and spend two or three weeks doing nothing but shooting pictures usually somewhere in the UK. Always loved the light there for some reason especially up in Scotland.

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Photos: Top shows myself and 3 colleagues waiting for the Olympic Torch in Pacific Rim Park. Surfer coming ashore with Olympic Torch and his board. Local residents show their opinion of anti-Olympic protestors