I Guess I Blew It………!!
Talk about All Quiet on the Western Front, this place has gone back into full Rip Van Winkle mode since the end of the Olympic Winter Games….and that’s not a bad thing. Vancouver has always generally been a quiet, sleepy, laid back city but I guess after the last few years as momentum for the games slowly began to build things got into a rhythm that’s now gone.
I can count on one hand the number of assignments I have done this month. Even my ever presen
t 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 ca
me 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 gue
ss 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 h
as 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
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.
unity gathering in Nunavut in the Canadian Arctic.
and in the first few days of the torch relay.
nt cloud of smoke dri
fting over Lake Okanagan resulting from three forest fires burning on the edge of Kelowna in the British Columbian interior.
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.
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.
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.
ather 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 d
uring the games.
vered 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.