This here is Frank. He is my main teacher. He and Doug like to tell stories all class. I love school.

This here is Matt my room mate. I was messing around with portraits. My portraits have vastly improved. All it took was one class... Interesting...

This here is Megan. She is the lab tech. I'll be in second year with her. She rules.

Went and saw Xmen 3 this weekend with Sue, Nikki Flash and her boyfriend. On the way back Sue and I happened upon this car crash. Rear ender involving a mustange and a tiburon. Access rules.

Controlled Burn?

In what is termed a "Controlled Fire" this farm house burns to the ground.


Out back, tires burn and release a thick black smoke.

Finally the house is fully engulfed in flames. Moments later, the house fell to a pile of burning embers. The farmer seemed pissed off that we called 9-1-1, but when you see a house on fire and no one around, it hardly seems like a "controlled burn". I ran through a rain-soaked, muddy field to get these shots. It was strange getting that close to a fire, I could feel the heat on my face and didn't feel the rain at all. Maybe I was too close, but I got the shots. That's what counts.

This here is Matt Simms. He was jumping for the midget boys long jump at the COSSA track and field event May 18th 2006 in Beleville Ontario. I have to say thanks to him. This picture got me published in the Intelligencer. I have never been published so this was a big thing for me.

Photographing this was a big learning experrience. I was assigned a school to shoot and had a real deadline. I was outthere at 8 in the morning and didn't get to the lab until 6 pm, then I had to edit 300 images down to 4 to submit, AND I had to have them color corrected, cropped and sent in by 8 pm or I would have missed the press run. Oh and did I mention that it was raining at the meet? Plastic bag on the camera and all. But somehow I managed to still burn my freshly shaved head.

However I wouldn't give it up for anything...

Handbook Photo Deadline soon

So I am running out of time for the handbook photo's. I have most of it done. I should be able to finish tomorrow. I hope it is nice out, I have to get a couple models to do some random stuff. It would make it easier if I didn't have to worry about the weather. Here are a couple photos that I have taken for the cover, I hope they use the picnic table one, I liike it better. This was actually a really fun shoot. The people that I had for models were great. They are mostly Student Government people with one or two fill ins to even the shoot out.

These photos are from a Merchant Marine War Memorial serviice that I attended. It was really fun talking with the war vets. I should have stuck around, but the fishing derby called. (And turned out to be a bust)

More writing assignments on the horizion. I thought that I would hate the writing but Scott makes the class really fun. The thought of doing a print journalism diploma has actually crossed my mind in the past couple of days. School is addicting.

Hmm, now to kill 20 minutes while I wait for the bus. (Loyalist is inconviently located about 5 km from town.)

Here are a couple shots for school from a recent outting. The first one is from the Walleye World Fishing Derby. Yes, you read that right. Matt, and I were out at 12:01 am last night to get shots of the boats launching for the derby. This morning I met up with Matt and Aidas to get shots of the boats bringing the catch in. It is probably the first news worthy thing I have shot since being down here. Strange what makes the news in the smaller towns.

The second photo is Mathew Sinclair, A member of the Kinsmen Rotary Club. They have a "Toll Street fundraiser" where any car that passes through the toll booth is encouraged to donate. The group of guys were very enthusiastic to have their photos taken. I don't think they get too much press.

In other Belleville news, I no longer live in Res. I moved into town with Matt. We have a 5 bedroom house to ourselves. It's nice becuase it is in walking distance to pretty much everything worth photographing. The downside is I am now at least one bus ride to the school labs. I can do pretty much all my editing on my laptop, but the school computers and lab are more conducive to getting work done. The house is also owned by a couple of former Loyalist photojournalism grads, one who just got back from Afghanistan yesterday.

School is simply amazing. The teachers are all super nice and make the classes very interesting. It is always a downer when classes are over. Frank the main teacher is quite an interesting guy. He gets off on rants quite frequently and always has an interesting story about the most random topics.

Another nice thing about school, getting to use the equipment pool. Like right now I have a 300 2.8 and 2x converter. Now just need to go find a soccer game to shoot.

I found the most great thing here. Boh in bottles. Yes that is right, a liittle taste of home. There is a difference though. I can tell that they use local water. The taste is slightly off.

So I have been getting a lack of emails and comments here. Come on guys, step it up!