:: W4B photography's companion blog ::

:: Sunday, July 22, 2007 ::

As the pipes play Auld Lang Syne, here is my final post on this blog...

To go along with the soon to be launched mikewoodphotography.com (which is not visible yet), I decided to create a new blog and let this one die a quiet death. I have had it since March of 2003, and it was my first foray online. It was my first attempt to get out here and see and be seen.

It predated my flickr page, my Myspace, my DA... well the list goes on. It certainly predated my interest in photography though it followed me along nicely as I took a stab at it. It was part link dump and part online journal and part whatever I felt like posting. And now and then had more than just a few readers.

Mike Works4Bandwidth had 1868 posts - including this last one which is cross posted one to my new blog. I re-branded it to W4B Photography's companion blog this spring to more reflect my current interests. It has been part of my online identify for more than four years. W4Bphotography - the name of my flickr page, and the one to this point on my business cards, was a contraction of the work4bandwidth name. It's easy to Google and it sounds good, but it doesn't really identify me as me, and I found I was always answering whether it was 4 or for or four in the address or flickr URL for people. :)

Besides, after four years of tinkering and tweaking and mucking about with the work4bandwidth profile template, it wasn't 100% working anymore. The archives are no longer visible for instance, the page counter is broken, and there are way too many dead links. Wouldn't be impossible to fix, but it is time to let it go.

An additional wrinkle was that there is a soft porn site in Europe that uses W4B in it's signatures on it's pictures and so on. My doing pics and their doing 'em was eventually going to clash somewhere down the road. I predate it, and it was unique in 2003. Not so much now. And they would have lawyers. :) So, while I could have made a domain that was W4Bphotography.ca or .com I decided to get one with my name in it. I toyed with lots of clever photo related names and things, and a simple mikewood.com was already taken, so I settled on mikewoodphotography.com.

To simplify the blogging business (I currently cross post to myspace, sometimes facebook and my facebook group, and work4bandwidth.blogspot.com, and used a LJ profile as well briefly), and to tie the domain and a single blog together, I decided to create mikewoodphotography.blogspot.com . Lengthy, but easier to remember and spell. Hopefully. :) I will still post to FB and MS, but given they have restrictions on content, I can't always upload full posts there. So I may resort to abridged versions, or notifications of posts here.

Not trying to pigeon hole the new blog with it's name, but the orientation of that blog will be photography: Posts about some of the shoots I do, the challenges and fun of being a photographer, and of course some of my photos. It will also be some of the stuff the old blog had too. It will be part online journal ( though not all the dirty details some people feel free to put online), and part link dump to other interesting things I find I want to talk about. Like the Tour de France for instance.

I enjoy writing and it was my first love before photography. I am quite rusty, but still verbose it seems (as I glance up...). I want to post more than I have done recently, but not as much as the 20-30 items a week like I managed some weeks like back in 2003-4. Doing shoots and editing, I just don't have time for that anymore.

So... this is goodbye to work4bandwidth. And hello to mikewoodphotography.blogspot.com.

Come on over and I hope to see you soon.

Mike Wood

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 21:11 [+] :: 1 comments
...

Honoured Dead.

From the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry

+Capt. Matthew Johnathan Dawe
+Cpl. Cole Bartsch
+Cpl. Jordan Anderson
+Pte. Lane Watkins

From the The Royal Westminster Regiment

+MCpl . Colin Bason

From the 1st Royal Canadian Horse Artillery

+Capt. Jefferson Francis

On July 5th, 2007, their Nyala armoured vehicle was demolished by an IED planted in a gravel road, killing everyone on-board 20 kilometres southwest of Kandahar City, Afghanistan.

The photo was taken last year in the Peacekeeper Park SW of London, Ontario.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:00 [+] :: 1 comments
...

Once bitten...
This is an echo of what Dana wrote last week on her Facebook, but not about the same person. It could also have been titled "tis the season..."

I take photography quite seriously. I work hard to make everything go right every time. When a model and I make arrangements to meet either for a 'go see' , or for an actual shoot, I have the expectation that barring unforeseen circumstances or acts of ( insert whatever deity you believe in), both parties will be at the appointed place at the appointed time. To put it bluntly, shit happens. I know that. It happens to me too. Cameras stop working. Computer get annoying. Weather happens. Traffic happens. People get sick. Real life intrudes. But if it does, I have the expectation that you will get in touch with me. Get mine and provide your contact information so we can cancel, delay or postpone. Check your emails.

As Dana said, there are many amazing models here in town. I have met some new faces already this summer that are inspiring. Some don't know they are models yet, others have a track record of shoots and are known to be super to work with. They bust their asses to show up - usually for free - and put 100% in.

Others, however, are perhaps too young (not in terms of years) to understand that there is a lot of behind the scenes that goes on prior to a shoot. Call it logistics. Call it planning or brainstorming. Whatever. I treat what I do like a business and I need for people to get this. If you don't show up for a consultation or a go see, I think of it like not showing up for a job interview. Not showing up to a photoshoot is like missing a day of work. Both do not put me in the best frame of mind. And really makes me reconsider working with that person at all.

If I have set aside part of a day for a creative model shoot, that means I am not doing a paid session or something else. We may shoot only for an hour or 90 mins, but by the time I prep my gear, drive there, shoot and drive back that can be three or more hours that need to be blocked out. It wrecks a day essentially when you don't come through. If you were left waiting somewhere, make up and hair done perfectly, wearing the cool clothes you washed and ironed, and I didn't show up how would that feel?

This will sound lame to some, but watch ANTM or it's poor sister CNTM. The show might suck for the ratings related cat fight dramas, but there is one thing models can learn from it. Take a look at their running around Sydney, Paris, Milan or Toronto on go sees. If they are late, get lost, do the appointments in the wrong order, or return past the deadline, then that's too bad. They are out of contention, don't get the prize, the job, etc.

Same thing applies for working with the photographers, MUAs, or fashion designers here in London and elsewhere. There are a lot of talented folks here who will bend over backwards to make beautiful photos with you, but only put up with so much before it's "thanks but no thanks." And just like models talk about photographers, word does get around.

I want what we do to be fun. Be artistic. Be creative. Something you may not have tried before. But I also want it to happen. I am generally pretty easy going and there was a time when I may have forgiven poor behaviour because I was building my port. But now, I have more than a few people who want to work with me, and want to hire me to shoot them. Paying clients, that I cannot easily brush aside, take priority. Models, or wannabee's, who cannot commit and don't have the common courtesy to get in touch, are quickly becoming not worth my time and effort.

Treat me with the same respect I treat you, and we will get some awesome pictures. Treat me with little respect, and you can go shopping elsewhere for your model fix.



Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:59 [+] :: 0 comments
...

I have been shooting lots recently, but not posting much I know.

Last week and the week before, I did two fantastic nude shoots with a new model named Meaghan. It was a blast and her and she had great fun. Meaghan's enthusiasm, contribution to the process, playfulness and sense of humour was excellent. For those who have never done a nude or partial nude shoot, it can be a tense thing on occasion for photographer and model alike. You really have to build trust between parties and sometimes it just doesn't click. But when it does ,it is awesome or cake or money or sick or whatever superlative you want to put here. :)

The images, several of which are on my flickr, turned out great and I know that they were well received by Meaghan and her guy. Seeing someone like that being so motivated to shoot and being excited about the whole process despite being initially nervous was great. I went from shooting someone who had not sat for anything at all, to portraits to nudes to someone who could could be a figure model. All in the space of three shoots.

The introduction was sheer chance and it took over a month before we could shoot as she lives out of town now, but it was worth every moment.

A couple of months ago, I posted a "Mike is..." Facebook status thing in which I mused about wanting to do nudes and got two great responses in a couple of hours that lead to shoots. I thought I would formalize it in posting this in the group (and on Myspace too).

If anyone in London or SW Ontario, is interested in doing some nude modelling and enjoys the style in which I shoot them, please get in touch. Doing nudes is only one aspect of what I shoot, but it is one I really want to get right. I have done roughly 12-15 nude shoots and they are incredibly tough to do without being cheesy or porn like. I want to work on that aspect of shooting people - especially while it is warm! I would like to do a couple out of doors nude shoots as well as figure study type shots. Forest/field/farm sort of vibe.

While experience is preferred in doing nudes, if you are comfortable with your body, think you would look cool, and would like to give it a shot, let me know. As Meaghan put it to me once, it is cool to step outside your comfort zone now and then.

Thanks for reading!

I will post more pics soon.

Mike
Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 23:50 [+] :: 2 comments
...

I left Kelowna on June 4th, around 11am after a view of the city from up on high on Knox Mountain which overlooks the downtown and Lake Okanagan. There are some killer hills here with switchbacks that would be wicked to cycle on on someday. When I am in shape that is...

I don't think I had left Angel's driveway before the drops started. By Vernon it was a massive driving rain that the wipers were having a challenge dealing with. The day before it was cloud free and about 35C. Today as I drive up to Rogers pass it was overcast and about 13C and dropping lower in the higher elevations. I can only imagine what it would be like in winter!. There were a couple of things I wanted to check out on the way to Roger's Pass - other than the mountains. And with those spikes into the sky wrapped in cloud it would have to be ground based. I thought I would start with the last spike. The Last Spike on the CPR railway connecting east n west. It is in Craigelllachie near Revelstoke on Hwy 1. And was driven in at 922am on November 7 1885.

The first picture shows a gold coloured spike in a railway tie. I doubted that this is the actual spike as someone would have taken it sometime in the last hundred or so years, but that is the location of it. I checked wikipedia and sure enough it is a conventional spike, the ceremonial one being removed to ward off souvenir hunters. The actual spike was given as a gift to the son of the patent office president at the time, and is still in the family's possession, fashioned into the shape of a carving knife. :) You really have to wander around the mountains to appreciate how difficult it must have been to construct the railway through these massive hills, mountains and passes. The scale of it all is staggering. Something we more or less take for granted these days.





I had seen Dragons in the mountains in an Enchanted forest children's attraction, but for the most part it rained...


When I got to Revelstoke it was pretty much crappy. I wanted to check out the massive hydroelectric dam just up the Columbia river. There are tours but even if I couldn't get in I wanted to get some shots of it. the high winds were making hell for holding a camera steady (the top of the dam is at quite an elevation) and the rail was splatting up the lens instantly. And besides, the only area I could park to shoot in some protection was on a narrow soft shoulder on a decline and in a rock fall area. Disappointed I didn't get to shoot it, but ah well. The drive up the mountain to the meadow in the sky was closed as it was only accessible about 1/2 way up - still snow covered and impassable apparently. :)

but there are trains here too:







So, after gassing up, I drove on towards Rogers Pass. It is at 1330m and is the route the railway and the TCH takes between Revelstoke and Golden. It is in the middle of the Glacier National Park and has been accessible since about 1886. And by accessible.... it gets up to ten meters of snow a year. To keep the highway open in this part of the country prone to avalanches, 105mm howitzer field artillery guns are used to cause controlled avalanches. You see here n there marker circles on the ground which I have to assume are for the positioning of the guns.



Rogers pass is cool. It is way up there. compared to the sunny and calm Crowsnest pass, this one, when I finally pulled in around dusk was a contrast. Tall sharp angular Selkirk mountains brooding in their cloud wrapped peaks. At one point there was a large CPR hotel located near the summit known as Glacier House where passengers from trains could stop over and dine. the nintey room hotel was operated from 1887 to 1925 with Swiss guides hired to show guests the mountain peaks. When the Connaught tunnel removed the need for trains to negotiate the pass, the hotel closed and was soon demolished. All that remains in a quiet snow filled clearing well off the current TCH (took me about 25mins to walk to it) are the building footings and piers and a couple of boilers.





I stayed at the Best Western Glacier Park Lodge right in the pass. A nice place but showing it's years. I would stay there again and would recommend it as a stop over on your journey one way or the other through the rockies. a nice small bar and friendly staff. Wireless too. I chatted with one of the staff who said that the place had gone down hill in the past few years since the new owners had taken over. The original owners of the place knew how to run hotels but the current Japanese ones, who owned a couple of other hotels didn't and they were not willing to put in the amenities and upgrades hotels need from time to time. He also apologized about the lack of hot water when I checked in. I had been preceded by a bus load of Japanese tourists and it is the custom aparently for them to all shower the moment they get to a hotel. So 100 showers at once. what this does is tax the boilers to death. To the point that one blew and caused he thought somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20k to fix and repair. He also said they were not getting the traffic they used to. That had the tour group not been there, I would have only shared the hotel with about 6 other guests who were working on the highway doing repairs.

In the morning, still mist covered and rainy, I headed on to Golden BC (timmies there!) and saw my first Mountain Goats and a truck that had its not best day on a twisty mountain road east of the town.





I will write more on it later, but I entered the Glacier parkway in Banff today as well (june 5th) and it is spectacular. Even rainy. .... More to follow...




Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 14:05 [+] :: 1 comments
...

June 3rd part 2
Drive into the Okanagan continues.
I continued after the collision into the Okanagan via the town of Osoyoos which is in wine growing country. the terrain reminded me very much of the southern California area. Santa Monica mountains. Very arid. And Very Hot. Temp here started to climb. And it would stay hot the couple of days I was in the Okanagan. at least 35 or 36 C. Not a clould in the sky and quite humid.

there were bears too:





I stopped in Trail BC as my sun screen was done and I needed more. and of course more gas and more Timmies. I scored a local paper and read about a bridge that was the subject of recent debate South of the city. It was old, with a wooden roadbed and on a route to the US that there was thought of increasing traffic on. Century old bridges are cool. Even if I go the wrong way looking for it. :) The Waneta Bridge is south of Trail on Hwy 22a. The cantilever 'Cooper Grasshopper' style bridge, was built in 1893, and has been in continuous use since. Originally a rail bridge, then rail and car, it was converted in 1947 to vehicle use only when a second span was made for rail traffic. It may be one of the oldest bridges in BC.





There was a tunnel out in the open that went no where but probably did once in 1913 (outside of Greenwood BC)



Pastoral scenes viewed from the top of Anarchist Mountain.



Layers of mountains above and to the West of Osoyoos at the bottom end of the Okanagan Valley - including an observatory in the foreground. I am finding balancing light conditions tough when the sky is bright and the trees are dark green....



and last, to illustrate the quick drop in elevation, this is how much the air pressure crushed my water bottle when I was down in the bottom of the Okanagan. crappy picture with the light n so on - and my windows needed de-bugging at that point, but interesting. I saw this last going into Las Vegas from the high desert in California on a long straightaway.



the drive up the Okanagan from Osoyoos is a pleasant one on world class roads. cycling on them, and on the tight steep Tour de France like switchbacks there and above Kelowna would be awesome. It is an easy drive with the lake on the right. I got into Kelowna around 10pm I think and met up with Angel who was super generous in offering her couch to crash on for a couple of days. I didn't really take any pics in Kelowna aside from one or two as it was too damn hot to be out and about. Still super high temps, no breeze and so on. We did a couple of walk abouts of downtown, I did a ton of laundry, and hanged out at a coffeeshop book store called Mosaic where the barrista was quite friendly and liked my tattoo and didn't think it was real as the detail was that good. :)

More to follow.


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:33 [+] :: 1 comments
...

Vacation 6
On June 1st, after Crows Nest, I drove via Hwy 3 to Creston, where I ended up staying for the evening and then headed on to Kelowna.

This is from the at the Alberta Visitor centre on the BC border on Hwy.



and this is a little further West down the road:



On June 2nd, I headed into the Okanagan...
(those sensitive readers may want to stop reading this post here as the next bit is a little graphic)

The drive, to this point in the trip quite pleasant, was to turn eventful in a most unfortunate way. On the downside of the Phoenix mountain summit pass on Hwy 3 near Grand Forks BC, the road took a long curve as it levelled out after a steep grade of 7 % or so. When I made a turn, I came across a pick up and an SUV on the opposite side with their 4 ways on. I thought It was a collison or something so I slowed down to assist as did the biker who was about 20 seconds behind me. An older guy in the lead pick up truck had hit a deer just moments before and was just rolling to a stop himself. His pickup truck was about 100 feet down range from the impact and the second vehicle was at the scene. He said the animal had jumped out of the bush with no warning and he couldn't do anything except hit it. Never had the chance to swerve.

I pulled over onto the soft shoulder and put my 4 ways on and got out to see if I could help or at least slow down oncoming traffic if there was a hazard. The doe was in the ditch completely blown open on its right side with a tiny fawn beside it. Both obivously dead. The driver of the SUV was holding a second fawn. It was still alive - but barely so. From what she described and it soon became obvious, both of the fawns (deer can have twins I later googled ) were still inside the mother and the impact ripped the mother open and brought them unceremoniously into the world. The one that was alive was still slime covered and wet and was asperating white fluid.

It didn't appear to be injured other than a scrape on one of it's ankles and was squirming and kicking its legs. Not in a seizure sort of way, more a natural squirmy way. The woman was going to transport it to a local vet in Grand Forks and I found a roll of paper towel to clean it and a towel to wrap it in. But it was not looking good soon after. The thing, while likely near term as they are born around now, was not well. It soon stopped regular breathing with it's tongue lolling out. Soon it stopped moving. The woman and I (mainly her) tried to get fluid out of it's lungs and drained a fair bit. She even did artificial respiration on the fawn for a few mins. But the shock was probably too much at such a young age.

The first time in my life that I have touched a deer - wild or domesticated, and it had to be to find a pulse in the neck of a now visibly dead tiny fawn through its wet and matted pre-birth fur. It was alive seconds before and now gone. Really sad stuff. It took a bit to get over witnessing that. And no, I didn't take any pictures. Sometimes participating is more important. The woman is to be commended for her efforts to save the lil guy. She went above and beyond what a lot of people would have tried to do.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 20:26 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Vacation 5: Up to Crows Nest Pass
So I left Lethbridge mid morning on Friday 1st June heading towards Kelowna in BC. I took the south route via Crows Nest Pass and highway 3. The countryside got fairly rolling as I hit the foothills and then the mountains just got bigger n bigger. One thing that surprised me was the number of wind farms here. One stretch before heading up the grade to CrowsNest had about 50 windmills it seemed. Quite impressive. I got a pamphlet somewhere but I have long since filed it.





Heading into Crows Nest Pass there stands a tree that has been in the same spot for about 700 years. The Burmis Tree is a limber pine and has an incredibly long lifespan. The roocks dig into rocks and the brances are flexible enough that the strong winds don't snap them, only bend. This tree died in the 1970s and finally toppled to the ground in 1998. Money was raised by governments and local grounds to put the tree back up and to stabilize it with anchoring rods drilled into the sandstone. One of the supports is visible on the left branch.

Can you imagine anything greeting travellers for that long? It was impressive for sure.




At the top of Crows Nest, I came across an abandoned coal processing facility from the early 20th century. The Leitch Colliery is a big facility that has been well preserved by the local BC tourism folks. I almost passed it by, but turned around and found I was the only one there beside the tour guides. Lindsay - one of the guides, gave me a personal tour of the facility. Normally the tour takes about 15-20 mins, but we chatted for well over 30 mins and I learned a lot about coal mining at the turn of the 20th century. I really had no idea about it. And the fact the coal mined here would be shipped to Europe. The buildings that are remaining. are solid structures made of stone that reminded me of a fortress vibe. The roofs are long since gone, but they are well preserved with lots of displays and information and old photographs on what the place looked like when in operation. Was a good stop over on a hot day. It was getting quite warm. At least 30C today. the guide told me about the landslide that occurred in 1903 too.





The Frank Slide as it was known occurred further up the pass. It was a massive landslide one night that took down the side of a mountain and buried the mining town of Frank, the coal mine there, and killing more than 70. In a couple of moments, 74 million tons of limestone crashed down and covered over 3 square km of the valley floor. destroyed the railway, created a small lake. Driving through it, it looks like an open pit mine. The rail was put through again in about a month, but the destruction remains. this link is what the slide looks like from space: started lower left and went upper right. http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=49.586511,-114.384241&spn=0.04752,0.135269&t=h&z=14&om=1 the grey area in the centre. all of that is the limestone debris coming from Turtle Mountain . I think the first natural disaster I have visited that is visible from space. Staggering. I took a small piece of limestone from well off the road as a souvenier. :)

Turtle Mountain - or what's left of it, behind the CRV is 7217 feet tall.



And speaking of tall, I think I stopped at the world's highest Timmies just down the pass. Crows Nest is 1396m ASL.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 13:34 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Vacation 3: timezones and radios
One thing that is interesting to deal with is the change in time zones. Eastern Daylight in Ontario to Central in MB, and then back to Central Standard in SK, and then Mountain Daylight in AB and so on. back n forth. I never know whether I am showing up early or late! that whole Sask time zone not changing is wierd too. part of the year they are the same as AB and the other part of the year they are the same as MB

If I had to try and keep track of radio stations too it would have been a chore. But I ended up getting a Sirius Satellite radio for the trip. Cheap receiver and a year's subscription. Not going to try n sell you on it but it is a good thing to be commercial free and able to get a signal pretty much everywhere except for under the overhangs at gas stations and in tunnels. It doesn't really buffer anything at all - or perhaps only a few seconds so when you lose signal its not like a CD player and skips are ignored. Tons of channels. lots of crap I wont listen too, but CBC Radio 1 and Radio 3 (only available on the satellite) have been quite cool. I was wondering how they were going to deal with the programming and thought they would default to one timezone like Eastern but they don't they tend to put on CBC Radio 1 programming whenever they feel like it. So knowing when you are going to hear a given program with all the time zone changes on top of everything else makes it always a surprise.

I have listened to the two BBC channels, the CNN, a couple of classic rock ones, and a lighter one called coffee house or something. But the most entertaining is surprisingly the Playboy Radio on channel 198. It seemed that every evening driving around I would hit at one point the call in 'talk' show with Christie Canyon and Ginger Lynn. For those not in the know, they are 90s porn stars and are completely hilarious. I am sure they are hot to most of their listeners, but they are the typical pornstar look. I much prefer the fit n trim ladies with less implantness going on, but they work well as a team and are pretty damn goofy. Hot too of course. Satellite radio has no bleeping or rules or taboo topics pretty much. So their conversations are right all over the map.

I can't even begin to describe what they do, but lets say they do it in the nude and have some pretty graphic discussions and perhaps simulated sex n stuff. Quite funny driving through the northern Canadian Shield area or the Prairies listening to them interview porn stars and strip (never listened to anyone strip before? Well tune into them each evening...) I think they are on for about 3 hours from 6-9 eastern (more or less. the time zone thing confuses me...). Wasn't expecting this when I got Sirius, but it has made the driving more entertaining.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 01:42 [+] :: 0 comments
...

5/30 and 5/31 Southern Alberta
Regina was just a stop over. Didn't want to do anything other than sleep and go. Getting antsy and wanting to see the Rockies. I hit the TCH and drove for some distance before seeing the salt flats in Chaplin. they are part of what appears to be a vast salt marsh about 75 km from Moose Jaw. Left side of the road is the flats and the right side some sort of processing plant for extracting the salt. I did one of my classic turn arounds on the TCH and headed back to somewhere I could pull over. I did and walked back about 150m to a small overpass which is in the image below. It's salt run off. Not snow. Though you could certainly convince yourself that it was. you certainly get odd looks from truckers when being on a lonely stretch of highway shooting this sort of stuff. :P



At this point I decided I would head SW to Lethbridge instead of north to Edmonton. I wanted to get closer to the rockies and hoped that Lethbridge would be better and more modern that Swift current, Medicine Hat and the like.

I shot a train at a couple of points as I caught up to it, it drifted away and it got closer again. I managed to get close to it at a level crossing as it was nipping by. an entire train of grain cars pulled by two engines and pushed by one. Went on forever. Easily 100 cars I would imagine. And a little further on on Hwy 3 near Burdett I shot a leaning house or shed on the open prairie. You can certainly tell from which direction the wind coming over the rockies is hitting the structure..







Lethbridge is an awesome place. Similar to London in scale I think, but in the foothills of the rockies. I asked Rachel at the front desk what there was to see and do and she suggested a trip down to the Waterton Lakes National park down by the US border was in order. She also suggested a few other local attractions and I felt that it was worth a stay so instead of one nite I stayed two nights in Letbeidge at the Days Inn. Wireless was spotty in the room, and I couldn't maintain a connection to upload or blog, but I could at least check my email.

I headed out via HWY 5 on the 31st to the Walkerton National Park. And at 1207pm I saw the Rockies for the first time. At first as it was hazy off in the distance I thought it was clouds then I squinted and realized that those were snow capped tips an inch above the horizon or so. Real classic mountains with snow on top, not the hills I had seen before. A little ways down the road, about half an hour or so, I pulled over to get a solid shot - and not a pin dot sort of thing. The Rockies and most mountain chains are split up into segments or ranges. The ones in this shot are part of the MacDonald range. I have asked and have found that there is no difinitive recognition guide for the rockies. I could buy a topo map which would do the job, but I would probably need a dozen or more of them. So when I say this is a pic of mount so n so, I am pretty much guessing based on local info which could be sketchy! :)



The Waterton park is nestled in those mountains and quite pretty. And not massively travelled like the bigger Banff and Jasper ones. So easy to not jostle with tourists when trying to take pics -oh wait, I am one. :P This shot is of the Prince of Whales hotel on a huge outcropping at the top end of Loon Lake. Like Lake Louise and it's resort, but on a somewhat smaller scale. Pretty cool though. the shot after is the view looking south from the hotel. And no I didn't stay there. :)





Near Cameron Lake (below) in the park and right at the US border, I was able to 'rescue' someone. I was flagged down by a couple who had two dogs. They said they had been chased by a huge silver tipped grizzly bear and had to throw their pack at it to get away. Unfortunate issue was that the keys to their car were in the pack. I gave the woman a drive to Cameron Lake below so she could call the park rangers and her husband followed along with the dogs. I never saw the bear but another car of visitors to the park did and they said it was lumbering down the road. I miss all the good stuff! Well not really. but still...



more to follow...


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 18:43 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Vacation blog, Part Deux
(editors note: I have been travelling and not writing or not having net…. my apologies. I know how some of you have been wanting to live vicariously through me for a bit...)

5/28 n 5/29. out of Ontario and through Manitoba...
Before I left Thunder Bay, I shot some images down by the harbour the first one is The Sibley Peninsula, or the "Sleeping Giant" accross from Thunder Bay. It's a natural rock peninsula in the shape of a giant sleeping person (head on the left). The rock juts into Lake Superior and forms Thunder Bay. One Ojibway legend identifies the giant as Nanabijou, who turned to stone when the secret location of a rich silver mine, now known as Silver Islet, was disclosed to white men. when I shot it, the early morning mist was still low and made it like a cloud bed. Using the circular polarizer filter helped being out some contrast. I have started to use it a lot for the landscapes when it doesn't cut down on the light too much.



I also shot a couple of images down at the grain docks. I used to work at Harbourfront in Toronto back in the early 1990s. One of the facilities we were responsible for was the abandoned Canada Malting buildins at the foot of Bathurst St. This structure was much larger - as with its two other sisters which were not accessible to me. The ship is the 700 foot class Canada Steamship Lines vessel Cedarglen loading up with grain with some old wood piles (pier supports in the foreground).





Not too far north of T'Bay after the Hwy 11/17 split, the terrain changed to being more flat forest and less rolling hills. there were still boulders around, but not to be blasted through, just going around. And near the time zone line I saw the following sign. Makes you realize how far North I am going :)



I finally shot my first ok moose pic today too near Firesteel River on the 17. I say OK, because most of my moose pics have been not too sharp. everything in the pic can be sharp, but not the animal itself. My theory is that the sheen of the hairs combined with a high ISO and low light at dusk. today was bright sunshine. close enough to hear it drinking and chewing the grass. no more than 25 feet at times. they are certainly curious creatures. like cows, but taller. Not sure on the comparable dumbness factor though.



Drizzling started soon after the moose shot and continued all the way out of the province off n on. I wouldn't see sun again for a couple of days which was a bit of a dissapointment. I stopped over in Dryden where my friend Sarah was doing some tree planting. When I checked their base camp, the cook said they were still at least two or three hours out so i left a note for her - which I am sure melted under her car windshield wiper as it started to downpour. Some of the worst rain I have ever driven in. Not fun when you are being chased by an 18 wheeler on twisty turny roads that are so rain soaked that the occasional hydroplaning happens.

Near Kenora I came across a plaque for the last spike put in the rail line between the Great Lakes and the Prairies in 1882. When I saw the sign, I thought the rail spike on the right was intentional, but someone had just left it there loose hooked on the edge.



I stopped for the last time in Ontario in Kenora which is just a heartbeat from the Manitoba border. I had a bite to eat at a somewhat ghetto Husky there (we are spoiled by the one on the 401 I have come to realize) and chatted with Mandy and sent a couple of emails from my phone. And to my credit, I have resisted shooting big giant things like nickels and geeze and so on, but for Louise I shot this Transformer inspired bug outside a metal recycler in Kenora.



Once I crossed into Manitoba, it was a huge difference. Mainly roads became straight all of a sudden. and fairly flat so I decided to press on past Winnipeg. It took me two days of solid driving to get out of Ontario, and I drove 3/4 across Manitoba in a couple of hours. when I pulled into the Husky in Brandon, I had driven 1022km today. I napped for about three or four hours in a corner of the parking lot and got up at about at 445am.

I had a specific plan. I wanted to shoot some grain elevators in Inglis which is Northwest of Brandon. Sounds boring I know, but the set of elevators beside an abandoned spur is the last set on the prairies. I thought some morning sunrise shots would be cool. I had determined they faced generally East so they were ideal for this. Unfortunately the weather continued to be overcast and my arrival at about 645am didn't mean any sun one way or the other. Made for somber dark feeling shots. Perhaps befitting these last remaining elevators?



I then drove around some back country roads (think lots of gravel and slow going) with the the idea of going around the top of the Riding Mountain National Park. It's between Dauphin and Brandon and is bisected by a highway. I had heard that there was a bison enclosure there and wanted to see if it was true. It is quite a haul to get to it, but worth it if you can go there. It is at the far end of Audy lake in the bottom end of the park and at the end of a 20km twisty semi gravel road. You drive into the vast enclosure (like African Lion Safari) which has not gates only those rolled steel tubes seen to keep cows in or out on farms. Apparently hoofed creatures hate em and wont cross. Enclosure has two routes a north one and a loop closer to the entrance. The north one was OK but not anything close enough to shoot. The South one panned out better. I got close enough to the plains buffalo that I could hear them breathing. Any closer and I would have smelled them.






The last shot below was one where I got a little concerned. I had been following this one and two others for the better part of 25mins or so. Driving on the road and stopping and turning off the engine, shooting em, and then moving with em and stopping. When they entered some trees I followed. And then came parallel. and about 4 feet from this one. He (?) began to tilt his head back n forth rocking it. As I have no animal behavioural science skills I wasn't sure if this was threatening. what I did know was that if it decided to charge, its 600lbs would do more than dent the CRV. so I moved off! :) Super cool getting that close to something I had never seen before.



As a side note, this was a National Park. signs say display valid park pass, etc. But it would help to actually see any park staff at either entrance. Nobody around. I would have paid for that. It was certainly worth the price of admission. what I would not have paid for was the little passengers I got when walking about the park area (that you were allowed to walk in... I never got out in the buffalo enclosure. ;) I found I had somewhere between 8 and 10 ticks. i know they like the animals, and when i was walking in some grass they hopped on board. Of course I only noticed this when driving. and I kept finding them for the next few hrs. never got bitten by one, but they were certainly unwelcome!



With the driving around the park and such the trip between Brandon MB and Regina Sask was 1006km. Would have been about 300 less without that. I slept well and tick free that nite.

And then was Saskatchewan and the Rockies... More to follow.


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 03:30 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Vacation saturday 4/26 and sunday 4/27 Ontario
Before I headed out at 0145rs early on Saturday morning, I had a Tarot card reading done by Shiloh and watched a burlesque show that starred her, Corey, Sarah and a few other folks I know. Both were quite good fun. the reading was full of promise and I will have to get her to do another for me. :)

Going via 4 and 89 - to avoid Toronto, I headed up the 400. A couple of coffees and 378km later I pulled into the new truck stop in Parry Sound.



One of the things that struck me about the drive north and into Canadian Shield country on the TCH was the placement of inukshuks on the cuts put through the shield for the highway. At first I thought that they were set up there by construction workers as they seemed to be predominantly in locations where work was underway or was recently completed. But they continued up the TCH as far as Thunder Bay. Inukshuks, like the one I shot below about 66km north of Parry Sound, are replacements for people. To show you were there. Some of them were in precarious spots and all not quickly accessible. I am curious to see if these continue as I proceed westward. the shattered sharp segments of rock will not be as accessible after leaving Ontario.



North of PS, I detoured to Byng Inlet as I was under the impression that it was a somewhat abandoned industry town. Nope. Full of cottages. There were piles from a really long gone pier, so perhaps there was something to the story, but nothing else. But had I not gone down the side road I would not have discovered the Shield Toilet. This is where the Out in Outhouse comes from. Pretty funny seeing this contrasting against the pinkish stone. :)



I stopped next at French River. I suggest this place as a stop over as it has a fantastic visitor centre (just before the bridge on the left going North). Brand new and high tech, with quality displays and friendly staff. Oh and super clean washrooms. Though a fair bit of this is probably missed as it is at the far end of a unpaved gravel lot and below grade and not easily seen when parked. You could hit the picnic area toilets and never know what you missed.

Weather on day one has been great. Super sunny and warm. I got gas in Espinola, and at 1.09 that was the lowest I would see for a while... I shot a cemetary near Spanish that had some quite colourful flowers that reminded me of the crocus 'infestations' we get. Except they are pink instead of blue.

I tried to nap in a rest & picnic area but to no avail. Was getting pretty damn tired at this point but stopping for a bit was enough to let me get on to my destination.

I decided that stopping in Sault Ste Marie would be as far as I could realistically manage in one go. And about 730pm I pulled into town. Of course, as is a theme with me when travelling I tend to get turned around fairly easily and somehow missed the obious signs and did the scenic tour via the predominantly run down and industrial sections of SSM before finding my way down to the harbour. I figured that getting a room down there would be good. though here in lies a second problem. At someone's suggestion, I thought that I would check out the Sault Ste Marie amongst the Hurons historical site. I had seen that as a kid with school and thought a return visit would be great. Only problem was that that isn't in SSM. It's on the Wye river in the Southern Georgian bay area. heheh. 680km or so back the other way. Ooops. :) First day's travel was 931km. Long day with only a nap.

Sunday morning, after a bit of a well needed sleep, I woke up to drizzle that would follow me throughout the day - getting bad at times. I also tried one of the Tim Horton's meat donuts, err I mean breakfast sandwiches on the way out. Not in the class of a McMuffin (or an othewise healthy well balanced breakfast), but meh. I headed north towards Wawa. I passed a marker on the TCH not too far north that was the mid way point on the TCH between the Pacific and the Atlantic. Some 4000 km in either direction. Ouch!

I stopped for gas at Agawa Esso station. Full Service. The first non self serve I had pulled into since sometime in Quebec a couple of years ago. Been a while since someone other than me cleaned the side mirrors and all the bug splatter off the windows. Very welcome.

As it was either drizzling or raining the whole way up on this leg (till just before Thunder Bay), the only stop of note was at the Superior Provincial Park. I went here to check out the Pictographs that the local Ojibwe people had painted on the rocks down on the shoreline. It was a trek down. the trail was only about 400m but somewhat slippery in the morning mist.




I understood what the warnings meant when I finally saw the location. The drawings, such as the one of the creature Misshepezhiu below, are quite small and done in red ocre. To get to them you have to walk out on a severely sloping outcropping that is lapped by waves. There are rescue ropes about every ten feet bolted in the rocks and hanging into the water so the mis-stepping tourist can hopefully pull themselves back out. To get the shot of Misshepezhiu - the spirit of the water, I had to be at a precarious angle leaning backwards, fairly off balance and not on the best situation. It was cool, however to see these old drawings. It made me wonder how modern wall art and graffiti will be looked upon in the coming centuries. Facing away from the narrow rocks and steep cliff face was Lake Superior - or Gi chi Gamiig to the Ojibwe. The name means Great Lake. And as Superior is the world's largest Fresh water lake, it is a fitting name. It would take me many more hours to travel around her.



Continuing through the Shield I began to notice suble changes in rock types. Grey shale or slate, granite, pink rock and brownish. Some heavily layered near horizontally and others thicker and at precarious angles. Going into the vicinity of Sault Ste Marie the boulders and forests opened up into smaller pastures for horses and cattle and then some arable land which was not visibly planted. Heading North on the 17/TCH out of the Soo, it was nearly instantly mountainous. Considerable (for Ontario) elevation changes on a consistent basis different types of trees too. Despite the last name, I know very little about tree types, but there seemed to be more birch or white pine here than seen to that point. Going north of White River (between Wawa and Nipigon) the hills were still rolling, but the effects of what must have been a huge forest fire at one point had stripped the trees and for as far as you could see in most directions everything was dead or growing back. It was drizzling, so perhaps on the return trip there will be photos.

Some of the worst rain I have ever driven in was in the winding and twisty roads near Terrace Bay which is between Marathon and Nipigon. Bad to the point that it was not clearing off the road and when you have a moment of hydroplaning with an 18wheeler behind you, it certainly focuses your attention. :) Weather finally cleared after Nipigon and it was fairly clear skies to Thunder Bay.

Final stop before seeking a place to sleep was the Terry Fox statue at Thunder Bay. Terry Fox succumbed to his cancer and had to give up his cross country run near the spot above the TCH on which the lookout and interpretive centre was placed. That section of highway is named the Terry Fox Highway of Hope (I think). How staggering a thing it must have been for him to do what he did. In warm and bitterly cold weather. Jogging in his signature hop-skip style with an artificial leg. With cancer slowly coming out of remission. You hear the stories around the time when the various Terry Fox runs happen each year, but I tell you, with the exception of a small segment on the St. Johns side of Newfoundland, I have driven the whole thing he ran. And until you actually see where he did what he did, it doesn't hit home. The guy was a hero for sure.




Today's drive was 739km. Pales into insignificance really.


More to follow...



Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 02:54 [+] :: 1 comments
...

A New Hope

So as some of you have heard, I recently resigned from my position at work. Seems that a change was in order and the time was right to do it.

Over the last couple of years, I have developed a preference for taking the road much less traveled. It has taken different forms - be it on one of my 100km bike ride on a dusty or rainy road somewhere near London, driving through the Mojave or Northern Newfoundland, sailing on my great great grandfather's tall ship off the coast of California, or hiking into the middle of the Grand Canyon. I suppose I am an explorer at heart or something. Not sure.

I am doing this now once again with the potential to encounter bigger things, and to hopefully expand upon my passion for photography - and get paid more frequently to do it! :)

I am meeting more and more people who are excited to work with me (or have heard of my work) and bring their own sense of self to the shoots we do. I have worked with some super talented, exciting, beautiful and open minded women with whom I have collaborated on shots - like the one above with the London model Kat and the fashion designer Violet (on the left). The encouragement and excitement and passion that they and others have is certainly contagious and fun. It reinforces that there is so much more out there than the 9-5 world. Or as in what would have been my last shift - the 6pm-230am world...

I am initially going to head out West. As far as the Rockies, but not as far as the Pacific. I have a shopping list of locations I want to see and photograph which is too extensive to put here, but it is a considerable off the Trans Canada sort of tour. I am going to shoot more landscapes and places - take my time doing it. Not a whirl wind like I have in the past.

When I return, perhaps it will be to stay, perhaps not. But I will be back mid June - with a few gigs of pics for sure. and super eager to take up modelling and portrait shoots again. So those interested let me know and I can start booking the last week of June and into July. Tell your friends who are interested in hiring a photographer for their shots too! :)

I will be blogging en route/posting pics when I can get net access. Though the next time may be in Winnipeg.

I saw a sign recently that said "Aspire to Inspire before you Expire" and that sums up nicely my goal in life.

Oh and the "A New Hope" title? Today is the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Star Wars movie. May 25th, 1977. :)

See you soon!

Mike

:: Mike Wood 09:38 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Salute to a brave and modest nation

This is written in the perfectly succinct English manner..........enjoy.

A British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It is
strange how it took someone in the UK to put it into words.

Sunday Telegraph Article: "Salute to a brave and modest nation" - Kevin
Myers, The Sunday Telegraph, LONDON - UK

Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan, probably
almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian
troops are deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will bury its
dead, just as the rest of the world, as always will forget its sacrifice,
just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.

It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid
both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis
is over, to be well and truly ignored.

Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall,
waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire breaks out,
she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers, and suffers
serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and the dancing resumes,
there is Canada, the wallflower still, while those she once helped
glamorously cavort across the floor,blithely neglecting her yet again.

That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continent
with the United States, and for being a selfless friend of Britain in two
global conflicts. For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two
different directions: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had an
address in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that it never
fully got the gratitude it deserved. Yet its purely voluntary contribution
to the cause of freedom in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any
democracy.

Almost 10% of Canada's entire population of seven million people served in
the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. The
great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops,
perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order of battle.

Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect, it's
unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popular Memory as
somehow or other the work of the "British".

The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began the war
with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half of the
Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warships
participated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadian
soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada finished the war with the
third-largest navy and the fourth-largest air force in the world.

The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as it had the
previous time. Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film
only if it was necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in
which the United States had clearly not participated - a touching
scrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has
any notion of a separate Canadian identity.

So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in Hollywood
keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian. Thus Mary
Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, William
Shatner, Norman Jwison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter and
Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception become American, and
Christopher Plummer, British.

It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases to be
Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakably Canadian as
a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quite unable to find
any takers.

Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievements of
its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completely unaware of
them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and are unheard by anyone
else - that 1% of the world's population has provided 10% of the world's
peacekeeping forces. Canadian soldiers in the past
half century have been the greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions
on UN mandates, and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to
East Timor, from Sinai to Bosnia.

Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular on-Canadian
imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia, in which out-of-control
paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Their regiment was then
disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act of self-abasement for
which, naturally, the Canadians received no international credit.

So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selfless
friendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan? Rather
like Cyrano de Bergerac, Canada repeatedly does honourable things for
honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, it remains
something of a figure of fun.

It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud, yet such
honour comes at a high cost. This past year more grieving Canadian
families knew that cost all too tragically well.

Please pass this on to anyone who is proud, and content to be Canadian; it
is a wonderful tribute to those who choose to serve their country and the
world in our quiet Canadian way.





Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:44 [+] :: 1 comments
...

Getting nicer outside, getting busier too.
Been quite busy, now the time to be outside is here again. I have started shooting more and more, though posting and being online less and less. Facebook borrowed a bit of time, but now it is under control. Will post more soon. No more forbodding and doom. More optimism and world is my oyster stuff. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:39 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Sense of forboding and doom

To be followed soon after by Optimism.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 02:23 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Violet Couture at the fashion show Friday

I shot the Animal Rescue Foundation fundraiser fashion show at the Palace theatre here in London the other night. There were many solid designers there, though my bias was towards one in particular.

The shot here is Leia modeling the Versailles wedding dress made by local London indie designer Violet Couture. It opened Violet's set for the show right before intermission. It was very cool to see Violet's work finally being exposed to a wide audience - the 350 seat theatre was pretty full.

I can recall what is probably close to eight years ago her intial tentative steps into sewing and design. Her progress and fearlessness in attempting new garments and looks was impressive. Everything she designed, she learned from and improved on in the next garment. In 2006, she focused on making some of the most detailed, beautiful and spectacular corsets I have ever seen. Rich fabrics, fully lined and some with steel boning.

In the fall of this year, she started to work on spectacular dresses inspired by Elizabethan garments that incorporated corsets. One was shown at the Arts Project on Halloweeen. And others, such as Versailles, premiered on Friday at the Palace.

Violet is a natural born designer. Self taught and with a great deal of imagination , she is driven and motivated to turn inspiration and thought into completed and stunning garments.

Seeing her work, I am never not impressed. And I know when she gets 'discovered', she will continue to impress and wow more and more people - and who knows perhaps the fashion industry. :)

You will be seeing more shots from me in the coming months with models sporting her designs. I look forward to seeing them!

And if you are interested in one of the best custom made corsets you have ever seen or worn, get in contact with her via her myspace page. Tell her Mike sent you. :)

Mike Wood
W4Bphotography
London, Ontario
Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 13:00 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Not giving up photography :P


"The all licking eye"


I am not giving up photography. I thought it would be an amusing April fools as someone got me. And quite a few fell for it to my surprise. And some even sent heartfelt emails on the subject.:)

I have been so lucky as a photographer to never work with a prima donna subject. Not even a difficult one. I have been blessed (and I use that word sparingly ) with working with some super cool and interesting and fun - and yes beautiful - women.

I love fiddling with ISO settings and Fstops and depth of field to just get the shot right. I love finding a location that is just so and brainstorming a shoot. And I always have fun shooting with someone and trying new things. And I probably always will.

I look forward to a spring and summer filled with photographic opportunity and fun. But I am going to ride my bike more too. The tattoo was one of my resolutions this year and riding more was another.

But I think I can balance the two nicely.

Mike
W4Bphotography
London, Ont

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 01:52 [+] :: 0 comments
...

decided today to give up photography

Well March is done and I am realizing that I am done with photography. going to concentrate on cycling again. no more Fstops, ISOs blurry pics and all that. and prima donna models? don't get me started.

Mike
formerly that photography guy.
London Ontario

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 02:37 [+] :: 2 comments
...

Birthday Four Zero
So March 21st was my birthday. 40th. The Big four zero. The FourDot. I wasn't building it up or anything, but people were certainly here n there thinking it was a big deal and probably trying to convince me of that. :) Nice try everyone. heheh

So. I wanted to do something different. I suppose I can't argue too much about not being in mid life. Not so much crisis, but definitely midlife. I decided getting a sports car was out of the question. The one Honda has is an S2000 (can't see me in a Civic sporty thing with neon and a wing, drifting in a parking lot) and they are not really me. And besides it's Canada and I couldn't drive it more than half the year.

So I wanted to do something different. I toyed with going somewhere big. Iceland. I realized that it was a bit expensive to do this year and needed more planning and some options were already taken bookings wise. So I settled on a tattoo. To give some background.... I didn't have any. I had originally toyed with the idea back as far as the 80s. If Ben Johnson won the gold in the 100m, I boldly told my friends I would get one. He did and I had a problem as I didn't have an idea. But then he cheated and I decided linking some ink to that was wrong. I am glad I didn't do it as that would have been a bad vibe. I forgot about getting one for some time. Wasn't on the radar.

Then as I got into more photography I began to appreciate the artistry of ink. I photographed a few people who have ink and asked 'em questions. I hung around with someone in the fall for a few weeks and I had the opportunity to explore her tattoos - in a fairly platonic sort of way of course :) - and really be nosy about them. I also found that there was a connection between photography and tattoos. When I take a picture of someone or an object, it didn't exist before then. Might have been an idea that I crafted, worked the angles, put some thought into. But that moment was not in existence before I clicked the shutter. And after, it is there. Permanently documented and on display for all the world to see. Given life. Same with tattoos. Different medium. Different outcome and arguably more permanent than photos -though photos I have taken will outlast me.

The idea I had for the tattoo I did, did not exist until very recently. There was a concept, something with meaning, a design and then when handed over to the tattoo artist it was given life. Something that perhaps has not been done before quite that way before.

I had a design around Christmas time but it would not have worked out. Cool, but would not scale. I showed it to a few folks and even had it sketched out and found images on the net. But it would not fit on my forearm without a lot of monkeying and it would have been not what I wanted. I let it sit till recently. I wanted something that covered a bit about me. Who I am or what I do. Ruled out right away getting a camera etc. :)

I wanted something to symbolize that I travel, like to explore off the beaten path, that I am proudly Canadian, and that my family has a maritime tradition. I settled on a compass rose. It's the map symbol for North South East West etc. Older ones had a fleur-de-lis on the North compass point, but I am not French or from Quebec, so I wanted it to be replaced by a maple leaf (and no not the Toronto variety). To balance it, I wanted a leaf at all the cardinal points. To show that no matter where I go, what direction in life I take, I am Canadian.

In the centre of one image I found online was a stylized sun, which I didn't like but the feel was 3d and metalic pewter-like and it was something I did like. I replaced it with a ship's wheel. Think big wooden sailing ship wheel with spokes. The Star of India, the ship that my great great grandfather Captain T.E. Phillips commanded in the 1870s and 1880s figured prominently in my mind. I have walked her decks under sail out in the Pacific of San Diego - and briefly took the wheel, and could feel a connection to him then. I have always enjoyed the maritime vibe. I loved visiting down East and Newfoundland. It is in my blood. So this design was born. And it would be done in black and grey.

I solicited input from quite a few folks as to who should do it. Everyone who has ink has a favourite artist. Or an opinion on who to go to and who to avoid. I checked out the work of a few people locally. I had been chatting off and on with Liona and her guy Jesse Tierney who works at Hardcore. We emailed back n forth some design ideas - inlcuding the one in December I didn't get done - and we met up last Friday in the shop on Richmond and tossed ideas around and finalized the design. Within a couple of days he emailed me a cool design. I wanted it to be done on my birthday and so we settled on a time and we were good to go.

I wanted company for this, so Mandy offered to come along. We had a nice birthday lunch at East Side Mario's and I found a couple of props for a photoshoot with someone on Friday, and then we headed over. She was there to torment me with photos of me in anguish and pain I think more than anything! :)

I wasn't sure how I was going to be ,as this was quite outside my experience and comfort zone to say the least. I talked to people and it varied from "it tickles" to "stings" to "worst pain ever!" And everything in between. It does depend on where you get one done too of course. Fleshy areas are better than... collar bones for instance. But regardless, I was nervous and she could tell. Not something I had first hand experience with, and had not seen done live before either. I don't think watching Miami Ink counts somehow. :)

We positioned the stencil (think old school purple ditto machine ink) on my right forearm and applied the pattern. It wasn't quite right so we wiped it clean and repositioned it. Everyone agreed it was a better spot. Slight difference in location but much better. I asked lots of questions about the machines as he set up and about the different needles and the rubber bands on them and so on. It was quite interesting learning the behind the scenes.

The whole process took exactly 2hrs. 637-837pm. Pretty much bang on for his estimation. Did it hurt? Well, I would be lying if I said I couldn't feel it. It was no where near as painful as I was (and Mandy was) building it up to being. I was tense as he started but it was not bad. I would say it was stinging. Continuous stinging. Not as much painful as it was uncomfortable. I was able to carry on a conversation, and even texted someone on my phone while he was doing it. :) I also think Jesse was quite amused by the banter back and forth between Mandy and I. Not something anyone really gets to see. For us it was amusing to look back on. heheh

The worst part was after he took a quick break before starting the shading. Think of it like this: you go on a long walk or hike. You take off your boots or shoes to rest for a moment or two and then put em on and walk again. The blood has rushed in and made the soles of your feet super tender and you took the first steps. So going at the same area again with a tattoo machine after a pause, and now much more sentistive skin made me wince a couple of times. I honestly think the toughest was the wipe down at the end. That did sting in an overall way. Oh, and pulling off the bandage this morning. What hair that wasn't shaved certainly made a great gripping surface for the surgical tape! That hurt more than the tattoo when tool it off. :)

Would I recommend a tattoo for everyone? No. It certainly isn't. You do have to live with what you have done. And you might not like it the next day. Or the next year. Or when bits of you begin to sag etc. But it is a cool thing to do and if you are looking for someone in London to have a go with, talk to Jesse Tierney. He is one of the nicest guys I know, very knowledgeable about his craft and I would recommend him to anyone.

Day one of my 30s was a big birthday party in a Mexican restaurant on Yonge Street north of Eglinton in Toronto. I have a rather unflattering Polaroid picture of me wearing a sombrero that night too somewhere... In the past ten years, I moved to London. Bought a house and am now back in an apartment. Got married and divorced. Picked up photography as a hobby /obsession/ second career sort of thing. Traveled a fair bit. Explored a lot of this great country. Met some cool people. Seen some cool things.

The last day of my 30s (some 3650 days after the sombrero) was spent doing a semi nude photoshoot of a super cool model in a downtown bar closed for the evening for us with pro lighting and rocking music. A lot can change in ten years. :) With how my 40s started, I imagine a lot will change in the next ten too.


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:28 [+] :: 1 comments
...

Winter is getting done

Winter seems to be ending. Well that is what I am thinking at the moment anyhow. clocks are going forward 3 weeks early, it is above zero C for for the first time in a long time and only supposed to get better during the week... I shot the first daylight portrait in a long time yesterday (Nicole's) that didn't involve freezing and the photoshoot was something I walked away from quite pleased.

Light is my enemy or my muse depending on the season it seems. I much prefer natural settings to studios, unless I am going for high contrast nudes or figure studies, but that is about it. Put me outside in warm weather and I - and the people I shoot are happy.

I am looking forward to nicer weather, more shooting opportunities and less restrictions. Warm weather means varied locations to explore and this year will be better than last in terms of shoots. And starting them earlier on in the year as opposed to really mid to end of June. I am excited to see what the year will bring - in terms of new faces to shoot, locations and hopefully more photography business.

Finger's crossed, I will have a domain bought, built, and hosted by early next month. I procrastinated too long and have someone working on that now. There was a time when I would have coded that by hand and done the work, but now I don't need the hassle and want a fait accompli. Tough part is or was settling on a domain name. The variations on my name were taken - not surprisingly. And something like mikewoodphotography.com, while free is perhaps too long for the spelling challenged - though easy to remember and I am leaning towards it. Every photographer site seems to have "photography" in it's title - tough to get around if you are doing that I suppose unless you can grab a domain with just your name. Something clever would be good too - though not necessary.

Working on setting pricing for shoots is a challenge. Huge variance in that in London amongst the photographers I have found to this point. I had a rough guide set up last year, but it was very rough and sometimes too flexible and lacking in consistency. I am always for giving a break to someone, but as many people have pointed out, undervaluing my time or my images is something that I should never do. That being said, pricing myself out of the market is also something I don't need to do either. Thoughts on that from the photographers out there? TFCD work is good and can work out for everyone (and has treated me very nicely over the last year as I built up a portfolio) but getting some compensation for my work is good too and I will be transitioning into more and more of that unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise - ie a fresh new face I would really like to work with.

I am excited to get a few projects underway - a figure study set with a new model named Marissa is up shortly, a Suicide Girl photoshoot in a couple of weeks - hopefully one of three or more this year, shooting some of Violet's corsets in a fashion show in early April - and more of them later in the year in my other shoots, using a farm setting a friend of mine has to do some outdoor nudes when warmer, and perhaps some return engagements from some the of the coolest folks I shot last year - and hopefully many more new fresh and exciting people. I will also work on two 'complaints' from my friends too: lack of guys and lack of landscapes and interesting things like I used to shoot regularly. I will see what I can do. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:34 [+] :: 0 comments
...

N.


My friend Nicole wanted a portrait done so we did a quick shoot Friday afternoon. Up till today, she had never sat for a photographer before. :)

Window light. No flash. London, Ontario.


Mike
W4Bphotography
London, Ontario

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:56 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Like Snow
It is winter (still!!!!) and despite it being bitterly cold again, Raven braved it for some pics out in the snow in a favourite dress. First of two shoots we did Friday.

She, then, like snow in a dark night,
Fell secretly. And the world waked
With dazzling of the drowsy eye,
So that some muttered 'Too much light',
And drew the curtains close.
Like snow, warmer than fingers feared,
And to soil friendly;
Holding the histories of the night
In yet unmelted tracks.

--- Robert Graves

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 01:22 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Even Bunnies Need Force Fields

Second try at low light alternative light sources. ISO400, 20 sec, F8.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 03:49 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Happy Valentines Day!



Being single on valentines ain't so bad - well having a lovely woman to share a bottle of wine with would be good... But being a photographer means I can take fun shots like this. So it sort of balances out. :)

Happy Hallmark Day everyone.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 02:08 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Hey baby it's cold outside
CBC weather at 1pm said it was " -16 celsius in London and surrounding areas. slightly colder with the wind chill." Slightly? Wind chill is -28 or so. Beyond nipply. So cold the liquid laundry soap froze in the back of the CRV overnite. slowed down laundry a bit today... And yesterday all I did was go out and get Kat and do a few pictures in my spare room/home studio. The shirt was created by my friend Renee for me as a test. Works great I think.




Mike Wood
w4b photography
London - Ontario - Canada

www.flickr.com/photos/work4bandwidth/
work4bandwidth.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/w4b
w4b.livejournal.com/

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 14:09 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Firefox2, leather covers, and flickr woes

I found a leather cover for the MotoQ. I got it at the Telus store at Hyde Park. Was a long circle tour from Argyle where I started to get to there, but no one had one that I liked - or had any. It was the last stop before going online and ordering one sight unseen. Fits like a leather glove. It is a great sleeve design which protects the keys and yet still allows use without fat fingering. No complaints so far. The longer I waited the more likely I would have scratched the screeen for sure.

I also updated Firefox to 2.0.0.1 version and added the Metal Lion Vista theme. Like using a new piece of software. spring cleaning for the browser is good once in a while. And via Thomas Hawk, I installed the Greasemonkey extension to make it a helluva lot easier to upload to multiple groups on flickr.

I am in a dry spell with photos at the moment. Too damn cold outside to shoot anything interesting and no one's schedules match up too easily for models. I was popping about though on flickr and was reading in the forums a couple of updates...

I am an old old skool flickr user and was on it when Flickr was Canadian (as in before August 2005). The vibe was different then. Subtle, but different. Now they are restricting the number of tags (to 75 per photo) and contacts to 3000. And Nipsa's accounts without notices which I have covered before. the 75 tags I care little about as that's pretty extreme, but the contacts? I am at 900 now. Earlier today, if I crossed 3000, I would not be able to add anyone else. So no one would be able to track my pics and I couldn't have them in my contact's photos. the thread goes on for more than 1800 replies and at one point one user suggested that it be a reciprocal thing. If you and your contact were both eachother's contact then it wouldn't count towards the limit. The flickr folks implemented that on the same day. Which was cool. they still have not implemented a way of figuring out who is a reciprocal contact or not though. I hope they do though.

The other thread I read was in relation to the Yahoo single sign on for flickr. Mid march it is manditory to login via a yahoo account. Not whatever you used before. As an old skool flickr member (as they are referred to) we were allowed to maintain the old login for about 18months. I created a Yahoo account at that time but have not used it once since and have not merged - though will be forced to now. It has gone dormant more than once. It has spam despite my never having used it except to test it out between my gmail and itself. It is Yahoo and now I will have to remind myself to login to it for no reason at all other than to keep it alive.

Yahoo has some bad reps lately with ratting out Chinese dissidents and just handing over user info to the american goverment but we shall see. One thing is for sure. When flickr becomes even more yahoo - like going from the blue/red to the garrish yellow/purple or adding an " ! " or god forbid becoming flickr.yahoo.com and more branding... I am outta there. I don't want my stuff associated blatantly with yahoo.

And I will let you know how Iceland planning is going when there is more to say. Cost is the main factor at the moment.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 00:41 [+] :: 0 comments
...

weekend ups n downs

I was supposed to go out to Salt on Friday night (my Saturday) but I developed what could only be characterized as a bad headache which turned into a migraine by late evening. I got progressively worse and worse.

I am not one to take meds for anything so I don't usually have much around (unless on vacation for just in case situations) and so accordingly when I reached for the extra strength Advil/Tylenol/generic they bottle had expired in Apr/06. This was at 3am or so. When your head hurts bad enough you feel nausious (sp) it's a bad thing. I toughed it out for a while, but even the dripping gutter downspout outside my bedroom window was causing a Chinese water torture effect. I moved to the comfy sofa in the living room and tried to sleep there but nothing was cutting it.

At 630ish I googled Shoppers Drug Mart (eyes blinded even by a dimmed laptop screen) and found one close by that was infact 24hrs. I thought it was only open till midnite. Had I given in earlier I would have gone. I also needed to go before it was light out as I knew driving in bright light would have been too much.

I got some Tylenol. Gobbled them in the car and then headed home. curiously I was hungry and so detoured via the Sausage n Egg McMuffin drive through and then when the meds kicked in I slept from 8am till about 1pm or so on Saturday afternoon. Once awake I was feeling fine. But what a night.

Before being ill, I researched phones. I have been wanting a new cellphone for a while and a couple of people I know have got the smartphone style phones recently. I don't need the whole write an email or work a spreadsheet ability of a Crackberry, but having a QWERTY keyboard is good for texting which I have found I do more and more. And doing on a standard phone keypad is a pain. I plainly suck at it to the point if I get a txt I have been known to call the person back as its too involved to txt them. :)

Anyhow. I researched devices (those who know me know when I research something it is quite a ruthless and exhaustive thing) and it came down to really only a couple of options. I settled on the Motorola Q. In black. I spent the better part of yesterday evening learning it's features, browsing wiki's , forums and more forums for it, and programming numbers and other info.

It's a slick device. The deal with Bell was good too. In store purchase with a contract was about $50 less than I thought it would be. And it came with a second extended life battery which doesn't seem to be offered by all carriers. Adding ringtones or wallpaper is a drag and drop. and despite what the Bell site says the EVDO network is in London now. Their online maps are about 3months out of date. I have a couple of cases in mind for it. but it's all good.

And I have figured out how to turn the ringer off. Which is good for where I work. :)

HelloMoto. :)


Mike Wood
w4b photography
London - Ontario - Canada
flickr.com/photos/work4bandwidth/

:: Mike Wood 14:17 [+] :: 2 comments
...

Getting ready for Work


or is it play?

This was one of the first shots I did with Kate that day. Perhaps the second frame. I told her right after I took this that we were done. We had the shot. She thought I was kidding, but sometimes you just know. :)


Mike Wood
w4b photography
London - Ontario - Canada

www.flickr.com/photos/work4bandwidth/
work4bandwidth.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/w4b
w4b.livejournal.com/

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 03:42 [+] :: 2 comments
...

curves.
My cool friend and graphic arts guru Renée is very pregnant. Very. And when I found out at the end of the summer or so she was going to have a baby,I told her I wanted to shoot her just before she was due. We were quite pleased we got to shoot a set earlier in the week. Glowing. :)







Mike Wood
w4b photography
London - Ontario - Canada

www.flickr.com/photos/work4bandwidth/
work4bandwidth.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/w4b
w4b.livejournal.com/

:: Mike Wood 13:15 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Vacation 2007 in... Iceland?

I am in the very early stages of planning a vacation this year. Last year sucked for it and I didn't go anywhere interesting. So to make up for this, I think I am going to go to Iceland. At least I think so. I used GoogleEarth and zoomed around the place and read tons of info on it for several hours last night and began to bookmark interesting info on it. I purchased a Lonely Planet guide at Chapters too. Just the pocket one as the big one was not available.

A good and surprising thing is that the Iceland Tourist board's web site is highly comprehensive, detailed, and has a vast amount of information right there. Excellent stuff and while not quite one stop shopping, it is a start. Icelandair flies out of several places - including Halifax -and while I can't seem to yet find info on flights within Iceland to explore, that as an option, renting a car (4WD is a must I think) is going to be the plan.

Over 20 hours of daylight mid summer, glaciers, whales, a hair below the Arctic Circle - you know I am going to cross that ! - and a highly educated and English as a second or third language population... the Althing, a really long underwater car tunnel, puffins, a rich maritime tradition, hotsprings, the location of the Reagan/Gorbachev Summit, gorgeous scenery...

Yep. More to follow.

Mike
W4B photography
London, Ontario
Canada

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 17:44 [+] :: 2 comments
...

Japanese on Mars

It has been raining here constantly. And when not raining, overcast. All of which I am sure should have been snow any other year had it not been for this global warming. I found this image while waxing nostalgic for some of the stuff that is temporarily lost after my hard drive damage and it seemed apropos.

I touched it up a couple of days ago, but I shot it on my trip down East in 2005. It was taken at the bottom of the 30 steel stairs at Hopewell Rocks at the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick. At low tide you can walk on the bottom of the bay when the tides have dropped close to 25+ feet depending on the day. That day it was shoe sucking mud on the bottom and a fascinating walkabout in the crappy weather.

A group of Japanese tourists were going down the stairs in front of me. It was drizzling more than anything at this point, but as soon as they cleared the last step, one by one they popped open their umbrellas. The shot is reminiscent of like a Cristo sculpture of sorts. (He is the artist who likes to wrap things in fabric etc).

Mike Wood
W4Bphotography
London, Ontario

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 13:29 [+] :: 0 comments
...

things to do in 07
I don't do New Year's Resolutions. Well not normally. Call it goal setting. Or an agenda. Here are a few for this year that I thought up recently (in no particular order) and decided to put to paper - or the equivalent digital variety...

1. Back up frequently - and don't knock the back up drive onto the floor again - now I have a .5 TB sized one.. . :P

2.Ease into getting fit again. walk before I run. And actually use the Goodlife gym membership I pay for!

3. With photos, take Quality over Quantity. Less editing that way. :)

4.Get back to driving around the province and exploring and getting lost on purpose down the road less travelled.

5. Take a good long vacation somewhere.

6. Get that web site done and a domain. (as if the LJ, DA, Myspace, flickr, and blogger are not enough!)

7. ride the bike like I did in 03-05. though perhaps not as far. :)

8.Eat healthier.

9. Drink less coffee and more water. go back to tea perhaps.

10. get at least one tattoo.

11. pair down my stuff. get rid of the storage unit. less is more.

12. find a cool loft style place to live in with huge windows and high ceilings.

OK. eclectic list I know. but most are managable and the whole lot is do-able. Oh and I felt that adding have a girlfriend or relationship of some sort as #13 would jinx that so I didn't add it. :)

Does anyone else make resolutions?


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:56 [+] :: 1 comments
...

May the best ye've ever seen
Be the worst ye'll ever see
May a moose ne'er leave yer girnal
Wi' a tear drap in his e'e
May ye aye keep hale an' he'rty
Till ye're auld eneuch tae dee
May ye aye be jist as happy
As we wish ye aye tae be

Translated...

May the best you have ever seen
Be the worst you will ever see
May a mouse never leave your girnal
With a tear drop in his eye
May you always keep hale and hearty
Till you are old enough to die
May you always be just as happy
As we wish you always to be

all the best in 2007!


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 01:24 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Data Recovery needed in London, Ontario!!!!
If anyone who is in London can recommend someone who can pull data off a hard drive that is toast let me know. My back up drive (with more than a few pics on it) is toast and I really need to pull images off it and burn em onto DVD or whatever.

You find me someone you know is good and I will be suitably grateful!

Mike
w4b photography
London, Ont

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 15:10 [+] :: 1 comments
...

Holiday Photos

I shot a couple of pictures over the weekend. Played around with the set up of the 'home studio' in my spare room. Home studio being an overly grand description of how things really are. :) No one was around to christen the place so I had to make do with running back and forth. Even with a remote it was a pain. I certainly prefer doing only one role at a time. :)

"Christmas Portrait I"

"Christmas Portrait II"

I also shot a couple of nite time outdoors shots. I was about to go to bed on Christmas morning and took a look outside and found it foggy. Desolate, moody and not very Christmas like. Much like me. :)

"Traveller and Guiding Light"

"Spheres to Infinity"

Mike Wood
W4Bphotography
London, Ont



Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 04:08 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Merry Christmas!

There is no snow here in SW Ontario right now and not likely to be any on Christmas day, but a couple of weeks ago there was. Lucky for me I suppose since I wanted to make something like this. :)

Have a safe and Happy Holidays (if you get them).

Mike
w4b photography

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:42 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Kat got your tongue?

Second in my occasional 'tongue's out' series. This one with Kat. She asked if she should get a marylin or a labret as a third piercing. I said labret and voila. second in my occasional 'tongue's out' series. This one with Kat. She asked if she should get a marylin or a labret as a third piercing. I said labret and voila. She is going to get a shorter post for it, but it is pushed forward because of the tongue in these shots. :)

the second shot is my 1900th photo posted to flickr too.

Mike Wood
w4b photography
London - Ontario - Canada

www.flickr.com/photos/work4bandwidth/
work4bandwidth.blogspot.com
www.myspace.com/w4b

Carpe Diem

xposted

:: Mike Wood 12:03 [+] :: 0 comments
...

[Read prev post first for understanding...]

So over on flickr, I received an email from a fine art black n white nude group admin (anyone can be an admin and I am one for instance on two groups), saying my request to join his/her group was declined as I didn't have any content (they are now hidden for the most part) and s/he felt I was just looking to join because I wanted to check out some 'pink' as s/he put it. I found it amusing that in a BW group there would be no 'pink' and s/he made an interesting choice of phrase... heheh

This is too funny. Rock and a hard place eh. :)

Mike



Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:38 [+] :: 0 comments
...

NIPSA'd on Flickr.com



Takes a bit to get me steamed. Unless it comes to photos. My photos specifically... Over on my flickr site, NIPSA is a standard that the Yahoo folks that own Flickr enforce on a somewhat haphazard basis. It stands for Not In Public Site Area (or more sarcastically described by users as, "No Illustrations, Profanity or Smut Allowed." ) And if you look at the URL to the FAQ I just linked to you will see something damn ironic.

When your account is tagged as NIPSA, this limits the views by others as you have violated their community standards as described in their terms of service. I interpreted the TOS that full frontal was not good, but it appears that nipples are no go either. Another flickrer, Sol Lang, pointed this out to me the other night and I did some checking. Check his stuff out too. He is brillant. And add him as a friend if you want to see more than blackout spots.

I temporarily created a free account and checked some of the groups I have posted to. I did this to see if my shots were showing up to other people. Another way is to log in as someone else and do a search for tags you know you have used (say "w4b" or "Mike Wood"). It seems that some of my photos are never being seen in the groups I post them to as they are masked/cloaked.

And I am not the only one. looking at the rough counts of pics posted to some groups when logged in as me or logged in as 'not me' there were variations as much as several hundred photos. You can search for me and you get a "no photos by w4b photography are visible to you..." even the groups I administer like the London Ontario and Honda CRV groups. But others group members are seen. And these are not the nudes in question these are anything I have posted. Oh, and did I mention Flickr does this without warning? It is not as bad as Myspace simply deleting your account, but much more subtle and annoying.

So accordingly, I have set my nudes (the ones that show nipples) to friends only. I don't really want to do this as there is nothing at all pornographic about them and they are not graphic. And there appears to be much more real porn on there now and then (including genitalia and ejaculation in really crappy amateur fashion) which seems to be more fodder for the flickr cops but they seemed to zero in on me...

I emailed flickr and told them what I suspected, what I assumed was the issue and asked them to unflag my account. While I can appreciate terms of service, and not having minors see nipples ( because the kids might burst into flames or something - though I understand that doesn't happen too often), what I actually object to the lack of warning. And the underhanded way that this has been going on.

And it has possibly been going on for some time. I posted shots of Safire that got well over 15000 views each, dozens of comments and favourites-ing. Similar shots of others got good view counts (say over 1000 per photo), but no where near as much commentary. In retrospect I am sure that came from my friends and contacts and not those coming across my stuff accidentally. If Sol had not given me the heads up on this I may never have known what was going on.

If you are on flickr, and want to see some of the "friends only" shots, add me as a friend or send me a message. But if you have no pics, or net only pics, I won't add you.

flickr is a fantastic place to share pics, learn about photography and to meet other photographers and fans of photography. I don't think that my opinion of this has changed at all over the last three years. But it certainly has in terms of some aspects of how they administer their community.

I guess I am part of the flickr elite now. And we seem to have our own group too. :)

Watch for a new web site in the future. I am starting to work with someone who is going to cobble a site together for me. Back in the day, I might have done the coding myself, but I find that too picky and tedious. If I am going to spend time doing something that fussy, it will be the post production of the shots I do. :)

/end rant.
--
Mike Wood
w4b photography
London - Ontario - Canada
Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 23:10 [+] :: 1 comments
...

Winter Wonderland -2k6
So London had it's first snow fall of the season and it was a doozy. We got over 3 feet 1 meter of snow in 24 hours or so. Driving to work yesterday afternoon was a crawl. 40kph on most roads. super slippy roads.

I park underground at work so I luckily didn't have to deal with much during the day other than looking out at it get progressively worse and worse. London transit cancelled bus service sometime before midnight and it is still cancelled around noon as far as I know. Driving home up richmond at 1am there was no traffic and the only challenging thing - I have a Honda CRV with 4x4 AWD - was on Sunningdale and Highbury/Fanshawe Park Rd area. hardly any streetlights and the horizontal 'warp speed' kinda snow in the headlights. roads were down to a lane and a half so when cars were approaching eachother it was challeging at times.

I got in after about a 45min drive and then had to dig my way in to my driveway. was mid thigh deep from the curb. there was no way i was going to get far even with the 4x4 so I carved out a trench for the CRV with space to get out and space so I didn't bury the tailpipe and then backed in. I waded to my front door through powder and that was that.

This morning I went out and checked and still more snow. The picture doesn't really do it justice because had my car been parked all day outside it would have had 4-5 times more around it. the driveway was buried and so was the car from plows on Fanshawe Park Road. and this was the heavy stuff too. The drive is supposed to be plowed and I am not too concerned about the dig out (at this point) since I have 3hours still to be at work. I am going to have a coffee and some food and edit some pics. Oh and yesterday, in a brief patch of blue sky amongst the storms of snow, Corey and I got together and shot some pics outside in the snow. they were cool. More to follow on that. :)

Keep warm everyone!

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:14 [+] :: 0 comments
...

To post or not to post that is the question
If you scroll back through this blog, you will see 3 and coming up on 4 years of posting there. I used to post voraciously. I used to write reams of stuff and was linking to everything under the sun that was of interest to me. Now that has transitioned to more photo oriented posts - since that's what I do. But I was showing a few posts from November 2004 to a friend I know recently who had never seen them. It was about my adventures hiking in and out of the Grand Canyon. I really wrote a lot. And wrote fairly well too. It was cool reading it all from a fresh perspective and through the lens of time.

I mentioned that to a few people and they indicated that they wanted to see more than just pretty women on my blog. I can't deny they have a point. I am pretty busy either shooting pics and editing and planning the like, but I am going to try and post a little bit more. Not so much personal stuff, but... stuff. Stay tuned.

Oh and I may cross post between LJ, Myspace and blogger. So if you think have seen it before, you have.

Mike
w4bphotography

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 13:08 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Presenting tongues
Thought I would try something different and so I decided to do a close up shot of Amanda's tongue. She has a piercing and several balls for it so it made for a cool prop to do a cut out of.

Going to make it a theme with different girls.

Mike
w4b photography
London, Ont.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 03:30 [+] :: 0 comments
...

OK. this is for the Canadians in the audience. The Tim Horton's commerical with the old guy coming into the hockey rink and giving his son a coffee while his grandson is on the ice. Son is surprised to see him there. Was touching the first oh 300 times last year. Saw it again for the first time this year and rolled my eyes. I hope they don't run it all winter. Try to spend some money on the advertizing why don't ya.

Because we have always got time for Timmies. :)




Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 01:01 [+] :: 1 comments
...

Corey Photoshoot



Corey) and I got together last week and shot some photos to see how we worked together in anticipation of other projects to come.

For Corey, This was the first time working with a photographer other than herself and she rocked. She has posted some shots on her site she liked, and the ones I selected, I have posted on my flickr so you may have seen these already. I am a little behind in keeping blogs n such in order. But regardless the photos are still good ones whenever you see em. :)

Cool cats n all Corey. You were awesome. Thanks for letting me shoot you. Can't wait for the next time. :)




Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 13:14 [+] :: 0 comments
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the 300k multiple Mandy

Over on my flickr site, I surpassed 300,000 views on Thursday afternoon. In anticipation of this, I thought I would do a couple of pictures to commemorate that - sort of anyhow. Back in May, my good friend Mandy and I went north of London to Clinton, Ontario and did a chilly shoot in an abandoned building near there.

One of the ideas I had at the time, but didn't have time to put together in post production, was a multiplicity shot or two. I finally did that post production earlier this week.

Mandy is one of the people who got me into thinking I might be alright at shooting people, and was responsible in a way for some of the exposure I have got. So it only seemed fitting I clone her. :)

Mike
w4b photography
London, Ont.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 01:25 [+] :: 3 comments
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A little photoshoot with the lovely Kate. For the river shots, at times we were up to our knees in quite cold water going over some seriously slippery rocks with tiny fish swimming around us. But it was worth it and it we had a blast. Thanks Kate! :)

Mike
w4b photography
London, Ontario

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:30 [+] :: 0 comments
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Home again.

I have to day that it is good to be back. I got in before dark yesterday after driving from Saginaw over to Port Sanilac, then south a touch to Point Edward/Port Huron and across the bridge again to Canada. I can honestly say that aside from some small criss crossing in towns here n there, there was no backtracking or covering the same stretch of highway twice in my trip. Even the Bluewater bridge technically as the East and Westbound bridges are in fact two different bridges. :)

The drive from Saginaw was fairly quick I suppose. I stopped at this little hole in the wall truck stop on Sanilac rd / hwy 46 at Van Dyke rd. At least looking at the Googlemaps satellite view it seems that way. anyhow. Since I have this knack of sleeping in or perhaps better put, staying up late, I always miss the breakfast in the hotels. And in Saginaw, the Comfort Suites only serves it till 9am. I mean really. That's damn early. So as a result, aside from a XL coffee from they Meijer's gas station I was running on empty. So the chicken salad sandwich - on Wonderbread I think - was the best damn sandwich ever! Washed down with OJ it was the last thing I had in the US before hitting the border. Oh one thing. I bought some crystal light flavours. A lemonade one and an orange juice. Lemonade: awesome! Orange: kinda Tang like n would pass on it.

I headed down 46 to hit Port Sanilac - and to avoid doing 69 again (nope. too easy leaving that alone). Sanilac - which is on Lake Huron just a bit North of the bridge, has a lighthouse which looked promising. And was right down on the water in town so quite easy to find.



After shooting some pics of it ( I went out onto the large breakwater surrounding the marina/ harbour to do this shot) I bee lined for the border. I encountered more construction here n there which was part n parcel for the whole trip really. It's not just Ontario that tries to get everything done before winter apparently. :)

Crossing the bridge was fairly OK as crossings go. I chatted with the CDN border guy and he asked if I had anything to declare and I said no - other than wanting some Timmies and shaking my empty travel mug. He chuckled and waved me through without even asking to see ID. I guess that, and the Canadian flag on the window mounted post gave me away, eh? :)

I stopped in Sarnia and met up with Miranda (for the first time) to stretch my legs. We chatted as we walked about Canatara Park for a while. The place certainly has some photo potential and would be worth a return visit. Even in Winter it could be quite good.

Timmies (Godsend!) and I was on my way again. I rummaged around and found my Ontario map and debated getting on the 402 again back to London, but decided I would go out of Sarnia on Michigan road heading East. It, after a couple of slight dog legs turns into Egremont and then Fanshawe Park Road. Straight line in. Not the fastest way, but I was going to get off the 402 at Strathroy n go in to London that way as I am on the top edge of the city so why not?

All in all, 1871km door to door. I think I filled up on gas 5 times. At least two were partials as I didn't want to risk being on empty on a rainy stretch of no where. Most interesting bit? Not sure if there was one. You could say an unremarkable vacation aside from being away. Which means, of course that the next one is going to be really good. Maybe this time I will go out to the Rockies. Or Monument Valley, or back to Newfoundland. Maybe drive the length of the Mississipi. Who knows. :)

OK back to work work on Monday and back to groceries n laundry n such now.



Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:27 [+] :: 2 comments
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Vacation: 43 28 N 83 58 W elev: 162m
That's Saginaw, Michigan. The Comfort Suites here is pretty nice and located pretty close to the I 75 and near restaurants and such.

The drive down from the top end of the Lower Michigan peninsula was similar and different than the drive up the otherside. Rainy. Perhaps not as much but it was raining. It took less time as the distance was a little shorter and I was able to get in well before dark and have a poke about. New Crystal light singles flavours here. Or is that flavors?

I think that the Lake Huron side is a nicer drive than the Michigan one. It is no where like the most spectacular drive that I have done in Canada - around the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia - but it's OK. The geography isn't much different than Ontario, but with a couple of differences: more people being one. There were times that I would have liked to pull over and take a look at things but traffic was junk. Traffic in a one horse town often. The other difference is that in Roger's City (yeah another 'city') there is an massive open pit limestone mine. staggering in scale. So of course I had to go take a look. A real 'wow' moment about what we can do to change the face of the Earth.

This was, however, primarily a lighthouse drive. I saw four. The first at Mackinac City, the second at 40 Mile Point, and the one below at Presq Isle - there are a lot of French names here, but I imagine that it is pronounced Presk eye-eL. ;) This particular lighthouse is 113 feet tall and was built in 1870 replacing a smaller one built on 1840. It remained in operation with a lighthouse keeper until 1970 when it was automated by the USCG.

I thought the black n white complimented the clouds n crap weather. After all, a light house is very much at home in bad weather. :)



I will be home tomorrow evening after a brief meet up in Sarnia. And I think, after a bit of a reflection, that taking photos of models is a lot more fun than driving around rainy Michigan. Who's up?



Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 00:27 [+] :: 0 comments
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Vacation: Mackinaw City MI
** There is no Lat Longitude currently as I am sitting in the lobby w/o the GPS running**

I left Holland MI about 11am or so and headed south slightly to Douglas/Saugatauk. there is an old great lakes passenger ferry there. And go figure it was closed for the season. I got some shots of the exterior which was quite cool, but not exactly what I was hoping for.

I headed back up to Holland up the HWY 31 and checked out the huge dutch windmill there. that too was closed for the season (sensing a trend here folks?) but this time I decided to drive in the "staff only" entrance to the Windmill Island and check it out. I got some good shots, but they are still on the camera in the room... I also kept running into this very attractive jogger with her dog. She was blond and wearing michigan state sweats. All I could think was that she would be a good model. :) But I let her be and went on my way.

The mission today was to simply head North on the west side of Michigan, stopping here n there for photos. And I accomplished this for the most part, but the drab weather made getting fall colour shots pointless.

My next stop (I had a banana for breakfast) was to go to the USS Silversides. A WWII pac fleet deisel sub part of the pacific Great lakes naval museum in Muskegon. Was pretty cool. I got some exterior shots of it from the dock and a hedgehog launcher (something pretty much only my brother would like).

I had intended on dropping in at a couple of other places but I found that the distance geography was not in my favour and I underestimated how long detours were going to take. So I pressed on and stopped next (insert a couple of leg stretches n pee breaks due to bad coffee) in Frankfort, waaay up the coast. No wait, I did stop briefly somewhere else first in Manistee where there was a cool semi abandoned roll on rail ferry of some sort - also closed for the season ...

Anyhow, near frankfort, there was supposed to be this lighthouse. And after a drive through some dunes I came across a mid 1940s looking building with functioning lighthouse. I got some shots and then beat feet as the rain was coming in... It held off for a bit, long enough to have the most enjoyable drive around Crystal Lake. windy roads, nice looking cottages and so on. Great fall colours too - except for the overcast would be great for pics...

I stopped in Traverse City (they name a lot of places here with city...) and ate some extra greasy Wendy's and fired up the GPS... It was going to be dark well before I got to the hotel and I figured having a co pilot would be beneficial. Not half way out of the city did it start raining. And traffic slowed to a stop. Literally. I called AW on the phone and chatted with her for a bit on a crap connection. Call back was much better. I think that the 50 mile conversation is going to be a pretty penny when I get back, but having the company during the slow traffic and after as I made my way North was good. Made the day infact.

I get to the Comfort Inn Lakeside in Mackninac City (yep another City) around 930. check in to the swank room with a beach access balcony and a huge hot tub and fire up the wifi. Except the signal is so piss poor that it is barely in the yellow. 1megabit if i was lucky. tracerouting out proved it was ok, it was just not even good enough to check my email without it dropping. So here I sit in the hotel lobby. In the interim - it is about 1130pm, I watched CSI NY which had a suicide girls themed episode with a couple of real SG's I recognized - Nixon for one. Was cool. :)

Anyhow, I am going to take the laptop back to the dead zone and look into moving some pics. I might do this again in the morning briefly to check email and so on, but it is a touch of a nuisance.

Plan for tomorrow is to drive south down the Lake Huron side after checking out the area. the bridge is huuuuge!!! though I bet if I shoot pics the DHS folks will be on my ass.

Mike

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 23:27 [+] :: 1 comments
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Vacation 42° 46'N 86° 4'W

I decided I wanted to go somewhere while on vacation. I had a few options, but since I had to work one day in the middle of the two weeks off (don't go there...) several options fell through. I had thought first that driving around Lake Erie would be cool. From London, via Detroit counter clockwise back up to Buffalo and Niagara Falls. And then back via Hwy 3. Check out the port towns n such. Well, Buffalo got hosed with snow - over two feet. So I ruled out that. Then I thought a cheap flight to Hawaii sounded neat. And they had a significant seismic event. I had a lot of pictures I could do with people. And did do some, but I thought going away would be good too.

So I thought finally I would go to Michigan. I had picked up an AAA/ CAA travel book some time ago and began to read it. I came up with a clockwise coastal tour. Go from Port Huron accross to Holland, and up the Lake Michigan shore to the top of the southern peninsula to Mackinaw City and back down the Huron side n back across.

I crossed the border at about 330pm today. The Bluewater Bridge at Sarnia was super slow, but at least I wasn't a trucker. they were backed up forever! Security was normal-ish. but as I approached the border, I didn't recall seeing before the xray scanners at each lane. The DHS or border guy was pretty easy going but still you always have that moment crossing the longest undefended...

It rained the whole way. light or heavy. doesn't matter. I stopped three times. to stretch my legs and to take a leak. And a pleasant surprise: there are actually Timmies deeper into MI than only at Port Huron. Seeing them on the highway exit signs was cool. Oh, and MI State Troopers use dark blue Blazers or Denali's for their speed traps. That's another wrinkle when you are trying to pay attention to the speed when you are used to KM and everything is in MPH. But 70MPH is pretty nice to pump along at (around 120kph).

Speaking of pumping. Gas. $2.19 a gallon. Even with the conversion of USD to CAD thats about 60-62 CDN cents a liter with my late nite math brain operating. About 20 to 25 cents cleaper than London at the moment.

I got in to Holland around 7pm. It was getting dark and the roads were a little confusing with two highways not going East to West or North to South but seeming to cross eachother more than once. I took the wrong offramp n got turned around. Lucky for me, Leanne n Chris loaned me the GPS reciever for the MS streets n trips and I fired up the laptop and found where I was - or where I wasn't - and where I should be. I plugged in the hotel location and it told me how to get there and tracked my position as I got closer - I had the laptop running on the passenger seat - police car MDT style. And when I got here it was pretty much bang on. perhaps 30m off where I was in the parking lot.

I checked in and found there was nothing in the dark here to do so I went in search of food. I hit Meijers (huge food stores here in MI) and Target. Fun to poke around as they have product we don't. I picked up a Gerber multitool as I can't seem to find my Leatherman at home. But I resisted anything else at this point.

Tomorrow, I am going to head up the coast from Holland and see what I can find and hopefully take some good pics. As I was telling Mandy tonite on IM, it's been some time since I have taken non people pics. Be interesting to get back into it. I don't like not having creative control. Even at the football games this year it wasn't the same. But it's all good. Change is good. keeps me fresh. And I know there are about six people back home itching to work with me on some pics, so I have something to look forward to when I am back.

More posts to follow if I have time. I did book places to stay with WiFi so as long as it is online, I will be.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 23:59 [+] :: 0 comments
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Happy thanksgiving, eh?

It's 20C or 70F outside here in SouthWestern Ontario at 6pm, and it was an awesome couple of days weather wise. Did a couple of photoshoots yesterday and have a couple more later this week, but I am on vacation for a while so some kicking back will certainly be in order as well.

If you are interested in a photoshoot, let me know, maybe I can make some time over the next couple of weeks.  People interested in winter shoots give me the word too: it's just around the corner now.

Have a Happy thanksgiving everyone!

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 18:17 [+] :: 1 comments
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One really hot n humid day back in early August, Poetry - aka Dawn -  and I got together for icecream and discussed maybe doing photos together. I was really busy, and she was going on vacation... so several weeks later we ended up doing a shoot in a park by the Thames here in London.  Dawn was super to work with and tells great stories. 

Enjoy the pics.

Mike
w4b photography
London, Ont.



Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:50 [+] :: 0 comments
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A couple of weeks ago I found through Myspace a lovely woman named !Kate! who had some cool cameraphone pics on her profile with killer eye contact. I thought she would be an interesting subject to photograph so after she relocated to the city, we met up for a 'go see' kinda coffee and right away did a shoot downtown.

Check out the results below. :)

Oh and if you are interested in being a subject of a photoshoot and are near/in London, Ont, get in touch with me. I am trying to balance the limited TFCD time I have available with paying sessions and the full time non photo related  job. I will be having some time between now and mid October while the weather is still good to do some outdoor shoots, so get in touch.

Mike
w4b photography
London, Ont.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:23 [+] :: 0 comments
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If you or someone you know is having problems with IE closing almost right after you open it... Thus far it is limited to XP - more specifically, IE 6, but other versions could be affected. For any assistance with this issue, call Microsoft. This is not something originating from your isp or to be resolved by your isp.

AV software providers and Microsoft are quoting a Microsoft Internet Explorer buffer overflow vulnerability that was found a couple of days ago. MS is working on releasing a patch scheduled for October 10th. From Symantec: "An attacker can exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code within the context of the affected application. The method by which this vulnerability is currently being exploited will typically terminate Internet Explorer. This vulnerability is currently being exploited in the wild as Trojan.Vimalov. This vulnerability affects Internet Explorer version 6.0 on a fully patched system. Previous versions may also be affected."

This is MS security Advisory 925568 which mentioned Oct 10, 2006 as the fix release date.

This is the Symantec site that I quoted from.

If you use a Mac, Linux (or FireFox) you should be good to go. and last thing, you can use Windows Explorer and type URLs in the file path address bar to get online. If you can disable third party extentions in IE. This stops it too but could stop add on tool bars and other plug ins from working.

sorry to go all nerd on you, but I used to do this a lot. :)

Mike
w4b photography
London, Ont

:: Mike Wood 10:09 [+] :: 0 comments
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A bit behind in my blogging of photoshoots, but here is the lovely Miss Mary. We spent some time at various locations down by Springbank and the river here in London one afternoon in August and got some cool stuff.

Check it out.

Mike
w4b photography

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 15:03 [+] :: 0 comments
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Moving n boxes

Just a quick comment that i have been busy moving and such and am living out of boxes and the usual mayhem that goes along with that. I will be blogging a shoot or two in the enxt couple of days. I know it has been too long, but I have been quite busy networking and have lined up about six new models who are interested in working with me.

And just wait till I have the home studio set up and running. That will be great!


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 14:49 [+] :: 0 comments
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Curiously, while I can do it fairly well, I don't like doing self portraits. So I asked the wicked London, Ontario photog Echo (her Deviant or her Myspace or her Echo Visuals site) to do some quick shots of me last weekend. We spent perhaps less than half an hour together with Siren looking on - and dodging massive amounts of rain - and she was able to come up with some damn cool good shots. And she works with film. Old school!

It was interesting being on the other side of the lens for a change and I can appreciate in a small way what all the people who model for me go through! Though I have to admit, just standing there and taking directions seemed pretty easy to me.

But I will stick to behind the lens work- even though it is fun checking to see if someone has left a comments about me.

I am in the midst of moving too, so flickr stuff n such is light at the moment, but when i am settled in I will have a mini studio space. and there are at least five or six new models that I am anxious to post/work with. stay tuned. Mainly this post is for my only reader Carmi! :)


Mike
w4b photography
London, Ont

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:12 [+] :: 6 comments
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Andrea and the Corset

Andrea and I got together for another photoshoot last week. When I first met her, or soon after, I thought that she would look great in a corset. So I was able to borrow one of London, Ontario indie designer Violet's  "temptress" style corsets.  (Thanks!!!)  We found an exellent location just behind where she lives and set up near the back of a covered parking structure backing onto the Thames bike path.

I wanted curves, shadows, and a lot of grain in these shots, and no flash. I like the feel that natural light gives. It was fairly shaded  in the garage with most of the light coming from outside, so I bumped the ISO up to 800 and even 1600 in some of the frames. Andrea is great to work with and is a natural. Expect much more of her later in the summer! :)

And if you, or someone you know, would be interested in modelling (TFP, TFCD) or if you would like to hire me for a project, let me know! I am sure we can work something out.

Silouetted and backlit.

Looking into the Abyss

Profile with bare shoulders

Looking up at a statue

 

Out-take: my so serious friend. :)


Andrea and the wall

Mike
w4b photography
London, Ontario

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 13:56 [+] :: 1 comments
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Introducing Andrea
I worked with a woman named Andrea on a couple of different days recently. I was introduced to her via my friend Leanne and while she has never modelled before, she is 5' 8" 'n a bit, fit , natural and very genuine, and has lots of cool freckles. :)

We shot down by the Thames river here in London, Ont, in two different locations and at two different times of the day - one near sunset and the other closer to midday. We had a good time and it was great working with her. See for yourself. I am sure there will be more of Andrea in the future. :)







Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:26 [+] :: 1 comments
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reflected in Katana

Been slow in posting pics as real life is intruding n such, but here is a series of photos of Jaclyn from when we went out the other week. We had an Asian theme idea and I borrowed a replica Japanese Katana from Jeremy that I wanted her to wield in some of the shots. Think Kill Bill as inspiration (which I borrowed from Violet).

We headed to a park like location late one afternoon, and shot some photos with her getting used to handling and wielding the sword. We were there for about an hour and then we were approached by three Security officers who took exception to our shooting pics where we were (with the big sword being prominent in their minds no doubt though it never came up in conversation).

They didn't want others to use the location for similar purposes - as this had been done in the past. They took my information and told us too leave the location. I imagine I have a property ban or something in the mail, but no trespass charges were given to us. This was a first for both of us! And a lesson learned to be either a little quicker or less obvious. :)

ambidextrous ninja princess

Security waited in their vehicle and watched us leave and we headed away to a hasty plan B location which I have used before. The light was completely different at the second location. Softer and warmer. I got the last two shots there and Jaclyn looked awesome. Well, she looks awesome everywhere, doesn't she? :)

stairway heaven

At rest

Oh, and if anyone is interested in modelling for portfolio work - yours or mine, or paid work if you have something in mind, and you are in the London area, get in touch. I am always looking for new faces and I am sure we can work something out.

Mike
w4b photography
London, Ont.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:42 [+] :: 0 comments
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sticky
Saf and I got together for an another figure study photoshoot the other day. After taking shots of her in some of her outfits, this one would start out as a straight forward (I find that amusing still thinking this is straight forward for me) nude bodyscape shoot as with the photo above. But I wanted to introduce liquids into the shots. Water or oil and caramel or something similar. I wanted some specific shots that were inspired by Toronto photog Scott Murdoch who once posted similar - and far superior - shots on his flickr but has since removed them.

We brainstormed a bit and with Scott's assistance determined that corn syrop would be the best. We shot at Saf's place and I set up a backdrop and moved around some furniture to get a clear space to shoot. And we had a plastic sheet down for drip catching. A shower curtain works quite well in a pinch. and aside from one light to cancel some shadows and bounced off the ceiling, the entire shot was done with window light.



If you think that this is difficult to execute, it is tougher than that. I didn't have Mandy as an assistant today so the pouring was either done by myself or Saf. We chilled the corn syrop in the fridge a bit to slow it down, but it was quite easy to work with. when things got too messy, she hopped in the shower and we essentially reset the canvas.

On a personal note, an image stabilized lens came in handy with the shots. Trying to remain focused when zoomed in on a gorgeous woman's chest with syrop dripping off a nipple is not something that you encounter everyday - and try to photograph it. And it occasionally meant awkward angles for me and her. Saf either lay down or kneeled or stood on a small low coffee table, and I bent over her kneeled or sat on the floor beside her or did what was needed. My camera after an hour of this was getting heavy, and the added IS was a good friend. :)

For this last image, I decided to emphasize the syrop more by taking a profile shot and only having the syrop in colour in a black and white shot. Only thing I would change is to perhaps make the syrop blue next time, but the colour in the shot below is a combination of Saf's tanned skin and the syrop. Nothing else. I wonder if you can easily colour corn syrop? I know you could use paint, but the translucency of the syrop in blue would be cool in a BW image. And less messy to clean that paint. Since I have the better part of a litre of the stuff left perhaps I will experiement with this on another day. Maybe find another volunteer too. ;)


And as a side note, sometime during my posting this series on flickr, my page views tipped over 100,000! That's three times what I have here! Though, I can totally understand why my pictures might get a wider response and return views than my now weekly-ish prose. :)


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:55 [+] :: 0 comments
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Dedlynietshaed Corsets

Violet wanted some photos of her corsets for her clothing line she is working on and so last week I obliged and collected Jaclyn and went out to Violet's place near the river here in London and did some photos. It was pretty rushed. I need to realize that I need to be more realistic with my commitments and having photoshoots near back to back. I never seem to get it through my head that things will take longer than expected and so on. I just want to pack my days with more activity than is possible in a normal week I guess.



Jaclyn n Violet sorted out corsets and accompanying pieces and then they were the speedy quick change artists and put on the first set, checked the makeup and went down to the river bank about 100m away. I did some single shots and some two shots, and we back n forthed to the house to change as they alternated between corsets and even a wig for Jaclyn. I also put on some bug spray as the mosquitos are out!



I also realized that I could maybe do wedding photography with the shots like the one below. I don't have the gear for that and have turned down one or two offers, but it was interesting thinking about it. Violet loved the pics and I think they will do well as a beginning point to showcase her awesome design work.


As for the rest of the day, my next shoot was more artistic/fetish nudes (not with Jaclyn or Violet), and the next day some swordplay with a 42" Japanese katana, and I almost got charged with trespassing. More to follow. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:22 [+] :: 1 comments
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Renée

I had been chatting with Renée online for probably two months now I think, and met her through her myspace site. She is a local graphic artist and is a wiz with the photoshop. I had seen some of the self portrait stuff she had done with her camera on her site and at one point offered my services if she wanted to get some photos done by someone else instead. After a few scheduling issues - don't you hate it when real life intrudes? ;) - we were able to meet up yesterday. Not only for the first time photos, but first time f2f.

After picking her up, we grabbed a coffee at Tim Horton's and she looked through my portfolio before we headed to Parkwood. She brought a few outfits to try out and it gave us a good selection to play with. She started out in a pair of short shorts and a tank top and put together a killer look. I posed her on a few rocks n trees n such and made a lap of one of the buildings before changing it up slightly, adding and removing some accent pieces. We moved around another building shooting n posing in roughly the same area as Violet and Mary, and changed again.



Of course at this point there were two challenges. One, it was incredibly windy. And with her fire red hair blowing in the wind that made it tough for some shots - and was making me wobble too! But it worked now and then. Second challenge was that the local school board apparently uses the area on Fridays for Orienteering and such. The board has some classrooms set up, but this was the first day of using the Parkwood area that I had seen any kids n teachers out and about. So we had an audience at times and had to wait now n then to change outfits. I don't think that Renée had modelled with an audience before but she was a trooper.




We finished up down by the small dock which I used last year. And I still wanted the dock to stick out more into the pond so I could get further from a model, but that isn't possible shy of doing some wading with the ducks. :)

Working with Renée was a blast. Her long lines, and her fire red hair (which I am noticing seems to be a theme...) makes her all that cooler. Oh, and her sense of humour ( which I had found out after chatting with her before) is just as good in person. ;)

I look forward to the next time Renée. You were wicked.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:36 [+] :: 3 comments
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Violet and Mary
On Friday afternoon I wanted to meet up with Miss Mary - one of Steph's (aka Violet's / Miss Dedly)) friends. Violet came along with me as an icebreaker and we had coffee at the Starbucks downtown and went for a wander. I can now say that I have now been in ShoeNet. For those in London who don't know, it is an interesting little store run by a Filipino woman and is frequented by people interested in big see through shoes and sexy costumes... And located beside Solid Gold's on Dundas at Clarence. Anyhow. :)

After a bite to eat at the Market, the girls were up for a quick photoshoot to see how we all worked together so we piled in the CRV and headed to the outdoor studio. I did some shots of both girls separately, and then together as we wandered around some buildings looking for good exteriors.



Not having posed two people at the same time before - or worked with either of them, I found the "who do I focus on?" thing the most challenging. And making sure I was not unintentionally showcasing one girl over the other was another item to factor in. Both elements were not what I was expecting - and actually tougher than nudes from the day before! :)

But as you can see from these shots which were later in the session, there were some solid results. Both Violet and Mary want to do some more. I will be getting more shots of Violet's corsets as well. She makes very high quality custom made corsets amongst other things. And with some models to show them off, they will be a huge hit.

Two valuable lesson from this afternoon. First was that I can pose two people together at the same time and have them interact meaningfully, And second, that I need to bring bug spray. Swatting mosquitos and taking pics are two things you can't do well at the same time. and of course photos won out, so I have itchy legs and arms now. :)



Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:55 [+] :: 0 comments
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For all things, there is a first time

I had mentioned previously, I think that I was thinking of booking the top floor of the Arts Project as a studio space for some photography. That was last Thursday. I picked up Mandy at her place as she was going to be my photographer's assistant. We headed downtown and unloaded the gear from the CRV in the Galleria parking and walked up to TAP at the corner of Clarence and Dundas. It was fairly warm up there and we needed to blast the windows open to make it a little more bareable. The space is gorgeous. Huge 10 foot high windows. Brick walls. Lathe and plaster. And it was all mine for a few hours.

Tony Pacheco has asked me to do a CD cover and perhaps some liner photos, and some promo stuff for him and the space had a Springsteen video feel to it. We discussed some ideas and got down to shooting. We got some great shots over the space of 90 minutes. But until he has seen em, I am not going to post em as this is his baby. I will blog about that when its cool.

Now, part two. I had wanted to do this for some time, and when I met Ms Safire about six weeks ago on Myspace she was looking for a photog and was going to go out of town to do photos for her portfolio and for a couple of things she is interested in participating in. We met up for coffee late one nite and I was taken by her intensity. She is a really attractive and fit woman and very focused in what she wants. She also dances. We were looking for studio space so when TAP came to my attention, I thought while not ideal, it would be pretty cool to try out. I wanted to do it right and we discussed some shots - a few outfits for her and also some black and white figure studies for myself.

I had never tried that particular aspect of being a photographer. But as there is a first time for everything, and I had a willing model, I got down to it. Ms Safire showed up about half an hour after Tony left. She brought several outfits and we picked and chose a few as we had about an hour to shoot before we got booted.

Mandy knew what to expect and I had seen Safire before, but moments after coming up stairs and picking her first outfit, Safire simply changed out of the dress she was wearing and into her bikini right in front of us. Not the normal thing for Mandy - or for me, and perhaps Mandy was momentarily taken a bit off guard, but she was a good sport and was a real pro. She was helping with the lighting and the set up and fixing outfits and being a great all around assistant. I really could not have done the day without her!

Safire and I did some preliminary shots in the outfits we selected, and as we were running out of time I wanted to get some nudes in as well. We set up in the best section with the best light. This was of course by the windows. Anyone looking up would have got an eyeful I am sure as she was standing in the buff in various poses. :)

I got into it fairly quickly. I realized after getting over the momentary and obvious "ok how do I do this?" that I get with everyone, that I could give some good directions and come off with some rather good shots. And this was confirmed when I got home and reviewed them. Safire was great to work with and is a really cool woman.

It was all quite tasteful and I tell you, if you are a photographer, and want to try nudes, get someone who is comfortable with their body, comfortable being nude, and find a good private location with good light. All that would make it a whole lot less awkward that it might otherwise be. You might not get kick ass shots ( so to speak) right off the bat, but hey, showing up and clicking is sometimes half the battle.

Safire, Mandy and I were quite pleased with the results of our hour and we are looking forward to the next time. Safire and I have already thought up at least three or four more projects. More to follow fore sure.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:15 [+] :: 2 comments
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Bif Naked

I am just wrapping up my first long weekend of 2006 and I thought I would give my weekly photographic re-cap. Lots of goings on this weekend.

I booked off the latter half of Wednesday May 31st as Ian at work had given me the heads up that Bif Naked was playing at Norma Jean's. I headed up there for 930pm and caught the end of one band, scouted the stage for angles and decided left side of the stage was a good spot. I headed up there and ran into Ryan Jarvis - who is a big Bif fan - and a couple of other people from work. After finishing my beer I headed to my perch. I took in Britt Black - another of the Bodog records acts - and then around 2315 Bif made it to the stage. I had been pointed out as being OK by Ian and at one point the bartender came up to me and offered me a bottle of water gratis and a waitress named Kathy came up to me as she shoots pics there on some evenings.

Of course at the point that Bif was to appear, a very tall security guy stood nearly perfectly in my line if site. But while annoyed, I was grateful about 25 mins later. A handful of songs in to her set, the fat overweight jackass who was to my emmediate left kept losing his balance. He was way beyond drunk and found it amusing to try and offer Bif 5 dollar bills - think stripper like. Anyhow, he had no success and kept dropping his money. On the last time he dropped two or three fives the security pointed to him to pick it up. the fat bastard - as I was referring to him in my head - could not fight gravity and tumbled forward onto one of the monitor speakers on stage. The huge bouncer picked him up forcefully as I get up off my perch and get a couple of feet distance. This was when the fat bastard decided to take a swing at the security. He missed once and cocked his right arm to take another shot. We were shoulder to shoulder and at that point I was quite annoyed so I grabbed his arm with one hand and allowed the security and his friends to eject him. No harm to me or my gear. :)

Bif was ok. But as I had been lead to believe, not as impressive in person. She is a tiny thing and wears too much make up. But I liked the show despite all of that I was about three to four feet from her during her set and encore. I got some OK shots too, but not up to my Scarlet Sins standard. BTW they were playing there on Friday nite and I was tempted to take them in too - I even emailed Karli as an FYI, but I was all pictured out at that point.

I hung around with Ian till after the bar was closed, met the owner in the hope Bif would come back in for autographs but no such luck. Still an interesting evening - despite being pretty damn deaf since, yes once again, I left my earplugs at home. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:05 [+] :: 0 comments
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Introducing Jaclyn

After a couple of scheduling challenges -real life does interfere now and then :) - Jaclyn and I finally got together for the first of what we hope is many photoshoots on Friday afternoon. The original plan was to go up to where Mandy and I shot photos the week before, but I was iffy on that as it was overcast and the radar was threatening rain. So I thought staying close to London would be best as it would give us the most options if the skies opened up.

After picking her up, we headed to my favourite secret outdoor 'studio,' gave her a tour of the area ( like I did for Stephanie earlier in the day), and began shooting. All I can say is that it was worth the wait. She really knows how to model, and brings ideas to the table. She is awesome and fun to collaborate with, and a real pro. We took pictures in eight locations in perhaps a little under two hours before it began to rain in earnest. It was a brief downpour, but Jaclyn suggested that we get some images in the rain and, well, you can see one of the results below.

My thought was that they would all be black and whites, but the contrast of her red hair and fair skin was too much to not share now and then.







I posted seven or eight pics on my myspace site in the blog section and only a few so far on flickr. With so many to choose from that were excellent it was an embarassment of riches. And I thoroughly enjoying going through them.

Expect to see more of Jaclyn in the future.


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:38 [+] :: 0 comments
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Seems like week after week it is weather that I talk about. 10C and a sky that might have well been Venus for all the sunshine we saw. Drizzle, wind and low temps make for unpleasant weather for taking pics - especially with a model in a cocktail dress or two.

Mandy and I drove north of the city to where we explored that abandoned building from last week. And if you go into Tim Hortons dressed to the nines in a little black dress in the middle of the afternoon in rural Ontario, you might get the odd look. I felt quite under dressed beside her in my jeans, baseball cap and tee!

We did a drive by to make sure there were no workers or others around and then gained access to the building through the same entrance we used beofre. No kids inside either - which would have ended the plans. With no windows, it was a little breezy inside and once I had blocked out where I wanted Mandy in the abandoned communal bathroom I began shooting. This shot will involve some photoshopping due to the complexity of it, but the lighting and composition turned out well as you can see from the one above. Couple of outfit changes for her and the occasional warm up between shots and we were done.

We moved into the big room - which was once about seven or eight individual multi bunk dorm rooms with their walls removed, and I did the shots I wanted in there, plus some window shots and some quick ducking as vehicles drove by. :)

We moved to the exterior of the abandoned motel, and had to wait for the realtor to leave. He drove up and talked to us (well me, as Mandy had been changing in the back seat behind the tinting) and thought we might be interested in the building. We were, but not for buying. We shot some pics on the stairs outside and the roof deck, but Mandy was really cold (see below) and I couldn't in good conscience make her do more shots. This *is* for free of course. :)



With no TH in the house, We ended up warming up in a Family Restaurant on the main strip in Clinton. It is about a block north of the city buildings on the same side. And all I can say is huge portions. Good service. A welcome rest stop on a rainy day. The swiss burger with fries and some industrial coffee hit the spot for me.

Oh! And ponies. I can't let my post go by without commenting that Mandy has a good eye for spotting unfenced in *real* ponies standing in driveways. And as I didn't believe her, she was quite insistant in making me turn around and go back to the end of the driveway and stare at two non moving ponies as they stand there keeping dry. I think I might have got punched in the arm a couple of times too. :)

Later in the evening, Kelly and I headed to The Last Drop, a pub here in London, and met up with Dawn (my awesome friend and lead singer of Repair) who was in town from Toronto. I have not seen her in months and it was great to catch up a bit. Quite a few others were there, including David, from The Electrocult. I know him through work, and we might be shooting some promo/performance shots in the next month or so. Made a couple of other photo contacts this weekend too.

Despite a crappy weekend weather wise, a not too shabby one. But once again, pleeeeeease, more nice weather. Please...

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:43 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Mandy. through mirror crack'd



Light on the photography this week. More back end stuff. As I hinted at last week, I am working on a project with a model named Jaclyn, and after meeting with her, I thought it would be neat to do an interesting piece of body make-up that will look like a tribal Maori tattoo. As she is slim and fair skinned, a heavy piece like that would really stand out. She has a cool body of work so far - and while my stuff wouldn't be the same or so photoshopped, it is going to be cool and we are both excited.

I emailed a few people and got some ideas about how to do transfers and what sort of theatrical make-up to use for the tattoo. Now, as I have very little in the way of artistic ability when it comes to anything other than a camera, I thought having someone with some experience doing the traces or templates would be a good idea.

Morgan, Jordan, and Jaclyn suggested that I get in touch with a local tattoo artist who might be able to help out. AnthonyVee has done theatre work and temp pieces before and works in town so I emailed him through his myspace and he agreed to help out. We are going to get together soon and talk specifics, but this could be really great I think.

My search for a useful temp space also turned up something good. The Arts Project downtown has studio spaces above the theatre and the gallery. And on the top floor was supposed to be quite cool. Morgan, once again quite helpful, suggested contacting the booker for TAP and I went over on Thursday afternoon. Tall brick walls, big windows, lots of character. The last point, would mean a fixer-upper if it was a real estate ad, but for my purposes it would mean a cool space to take pics. Jaclyn and Mandy for sure, could use it as well as Saf I think. I would need to probably bring in some lights, but the natural light for cool black and white portaits would be sufficient on a lightly cloudy day. Exciting stuff and quite cheap too. :)

And speaking of cloudy, it has been cold and damp all weekend. No good for picture taking. Nothing really turned up. On Friday I was going to shoot some pics of Nicole's new house in 'a before and after' fashion as she renovates, but she was going to be out of town. And she reminded me she still has to model for me too which would be cool. Perhaps in one of the still empty rooms?

On Friday I also wanted to check out the abandoned motel that I found last year. I have an idea for a shot involving either Mandy of Jacklyn and the empty pool. I took Mandy with me and we drove off North to check it out. The pool is full of rain and snow melt water currently, and is no good for the shots I want to do, but Mandy really likes the location and I know we could spend a day there shooting.

I gave her a tour of some of the other buildings and came across one of the two abandoned training barracks buildings I saw previously. One was torn down right to the point the stairwells were the only remaining structure. The other had it's main door breached so we went in for a quick look. Even with Mandy doing a CSI look around with a flashlight, the ground floor was too dark, but gutted nicely. The second floor was perfect. Blown out walls. a huge open space, but an intact cooridor and lots of available light.

Mandy found an empty bathroom with no bits of porcelain left intact. We were not really set up for pictures today. Mandy in regular clothes and not much make-up, but I wanted to get a shot of her in one of the cracked and shattered mirrors. I only took a handful of pics of her and the best one is above. We have a couple of other shots planned out which should be wicked if we can get access to the building again. I imagine we can, but if not then the abandoned motel could be a good back up.

Everyone now is waiting on good weather. Consistently good weather. And waiting is something I don't do well. :)


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:02 [+] :: 0 comments
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Aylmer and Burwell



My weekly search for what this part of the province offers took me South. South because I solicited a "North South East West?" from someone as an initial course selection and I thought that would be fine.

I packed some of the new lemon lime Crystal Light and a water bottle or two and headed out. I got gas at the Husky truckstop on the 401 and then headed down Highway 74 towards Lake Erie.

I found a couple of interesting barns, slightly dulled and needing some red paint but crisp enough. A little cemetary on a rise just off the road caught my eye, and then the interesting Cheese and Taxidermy sign in the tiny intersection of a town of Mapleton. It's on a curve and if you have ever driven by it, you know what I am taking about.

Down in Alymer, I recalled seeing a couple of old mansions on my last pass through back in early April when meeting up with Mandy and Jesse (the first fur hoodie pics of Mandy). When my brother was at the Ontario Police College in 2003, which is located on the east side of Aylmer, I met him for dinner a couple of times. We ate at a diner in mid town, and another time at a Swiss Chalet. I didn't know the lay of the land anywhere as much as I do three years on,and didn't know how quaint and attractive this town of 7000 or so was.



I shot pictures of two houses, both on the main East West street. The first a Second Empire style mansion with manicured lawns and possibly a BnB. The other house was built in the mid 1870s in the Queen Anne Revival style (from the corner tower and large two sided veranda, but examples I have seen are more than one story). I shot a few pictures from the sidewalk and side driveway. This attracted the attention of the owners and we chatted for a bit. The house was being renovated and wasn't a bed and breakfast (though it had been in the past at one point) but rather a private home. I learned that the stone porch had been added around 1917 and had some excellent masonry work done when they completed the look in the past couple of years. Stones matched very well with the originals. The owner said his house had been painted and photographed many times. We exchanged cards after chatting for a bit (he has a travelling Military Pipe Organ business) and I continued on my way. After seeing the house Mandy expressed some interest in getting some pics taken there so, I see us possibly coming back if the owners are cool with it.

I grabbed some architectural shots of the downtown, but some were in shadow, but worth a return, and then headed south this time on Highway 73.

A little later, a red Case tractor encapsulated farmer - in a dust cloud tilling the field near Vienna Line and 74 grabbed me. I watched the farmer turn around and head back down the next row. It wasn't quite the same effect from a couple of vantage point down Vienna Line or on 73, so I drove back up to where I orignally spotted tractor and waited for him to finish the row, return and come into view between the farm buildings. The sun was hitting the wind pushed light brown dust cloud at a cool angle and it was overtaking the tractor just slightly as if the dust was like it was leading it. I have no idea how farmers handled a day of that in an open top International Harvester or John Deere back in the day.

My real destination the new power windmills on Lake Erie and they were not far off now. The 'Erie Shores Wind Farm' was opened only last month, and a good majority of the 66 massive wind turbine generators are up and running along a thin strip on the north Coast of Lake Erie between Elgin and Norfolk Counties in Ontario. Mainly on Nova Scotia Line around Port Burwell. A section of road I cycled on once or twice in the past couple of years.

Most of these towering structures with 125 foot blades are on private access roads and you can't get near them, but I found WTG 13 and WTG 14 (WTG being wind turbine generator, of course) approachable down Richmond road. It runs South off Nova Scotia Line between Copenhagen and Port Burwell. Heading down the road and vaguely seeming like I was trespassing a construction site - as I had to get out of the way of dump trucks and a flatbed with a huge Komatsu digger on it - I got some good looks at the big machines. Tough to tell if they are the scale of the one by the CNE in Toronto, and I can't find any specs online, but they are impressive big. And certainly out of contrast to what you normally find around here.

It was a little hazy, so some shots were not happening for me. But a few minutes East as I headed towards Port Burwell, I came across the shot I had in mind before heading out. An old barn, somewhat abandoned, and the new windmill. contrasting the 19th and 21st centuries. the old and the new. It is just off the road and so I parked on the soft shoulder and got out. This is WTG 22. I think the composition was ok, but the slight haze and wind (d'uh) was making for a tough shot. More time would have been ideal, but I shot a few frames and settled on this as the best. I think a tripod and a longer exposure on a cloudy day would be better, but OK for a first effort I think.



In Port Burwell, I walked to the end of the breakwater and back, and then drove through town and came across the 1836 Trinity Anglican Church (no pics yet posted). The drive North on Highway 19 up to Tillsonburg and the 401 is a curvy and fairly interesting one but not picture filled on this time out: I had an appointment back in London I couldn't miss - with a model that I am going to work with for some cool themed shots in the next few weeks we hope.

Nice teaser for what is to come, eh? :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:32 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Found my deer
I ended up going to Westmount to see if I could get some pics of Matt Hughes - the UFC fighter - who was in town for the weekend. Turns out his flights were delayed so he was a no show. I went out of the city South then West and around Byron, Westelbourne, etc. I snapped a few pics here and there, found the church at the end of Little Church Side road (there had to be one, though I was hoping for an older structure).

Somehow as I was without a useful map - Newfoundland and Labrador's not helping - I found myself on the Oneida Indian reservation (after driving down Little Church west after it crosses Bodkin side road south of Littlewoods Rd). I had never been here before and likely won't go back. Crossing one side of the road to another the scenery was night and day. Normal farm land and rural scenes to large sections of property and streets looking like a war zone, with a bandoned cars rusting out, severely damaged buildings and children who should be in school playing and watching me drive by. It was a real third world like experience. And slightly unsettling as everyone who drove past me was checking me out. I did a loop through the reservation past the modern looking sports n community centre and back East out along Oneida rd, which turns into Littlewoods/ Hwy 35.

Later, I stopped at a small abandoned concrete bridge, and then kept on driving. I was going to go back for 7pm to find Matt Hughes (he didn't show then either), and had time to kill so I went South towards St. Thomas along Col. Talbot Rd past the Ford plant. I wasn't intending to go that far, but didn't see anything interesting.

I got some sick $$$ gas in St. Thomas, and thought I would check out the deer at that farm nearby. I pulled up to the fence line and parked and was watched by about 50 deer. They were quite distance away, and a few came within 100m but nothing closer. I drove up the fence line and saw another group of 25 much closer. I watched them for a bit from inside the CRV and shot some pics through the driver window. I decided that if they were going to run they would anyways, so I got out. Tails went up, but not much stirring. I just slowly walked up to the fence line. The shutter noise was quite loud out here and that caused them to jump now and then. At one point, when they were 30m away, all but two took off as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and rustled some dry grass.

The remaining two were much braver. The circled closer and closer till they were no more than 5-8m on the otherside of the fence. Eating grass and watching me with one eye. This went on for about 15 minutes or so. I think in the morning they would be better lit from the east, but a good effort. Was the highlight of the day. :)



Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:42 [+] :: 2 comments
...

Flat week
It was a long week work wise, and I had a couple of early days well before work getting stuff done. I did some networking regarding some people who are interested in modelling for me - as I think I have exhausted my current pool of friends who would be up to doing this and pushing the edges out a bit ;) I made a few new contacts and sent out some feelers to others. And I might have a CD cover shoot as well from a former co-worker in the near future.

No news on the apartment hunting. Nothing meets my needs, but I am goal setting for beginning/mid July to have a place suitable to have a corner set up for photography and not something I tear down and set up each time. Big windows, natural light, high ceilings, hard wood floors and a safe place to park the CRV. A loft just ain't happening here in London with all that.

I did get to have a tea with Steph though and that was nice. Have not seen her since she moved back to London despite chatting with her a fair bit on MSN.

I was hoping to have something to shoot/post photo wise today but that doesn't seem likely at this point as the person whom I was going to shoot is under the weather. And despite it being sunny and blue skies out there, that isn't ideal photography conditions for landscapes. *And* it is too damn cold at 8C to ride the bike or sit on a patio and catch some sun over a beer. Enough "Ands..."

One thing I did do this week is update some of the photos in my printed portfolio and I am thinking sometime this summer I might divide it up into two: One for people and one for landscapes etc. Or one G rated and the other R rated. Not sure. ;)

I did wash the CRV yesterday morning after having breakfast with Amanda super super early at the Husky, and it might like it's pic taken somewhere interesting. Not sure what the day will bring, but something will turn up.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:01 [+] :: 0 comments
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River Walk
exploring: Those of you in London probably know that the Thames River is quite low this year as the conservation folks have the dam down by storybook wide open so the levels will be no where near 'normal.'

For a good chunk of Thursday afternoon, I spent some time exploring the river from the water level. You can walk along the rock strewn edge which would have normally been well and true submerged for many years prior to this. You can walk - all be it not without a good pair of hiking boots - the length between the footbridge to the thames Valley Golf Course, past the old dam and right down to the new dam near Boler Road. The river side of the 1871 era pump house on the sSuth side of the old dam location is also accessible.

I parked up top near Springbank Drive, walked down to the building and shot some pics over the edge and then descended to the river's new level. It was quite fascinating seeing a bit of history exposed. For example, there are the remains of wooden posts all in a row which were used to retain the wall near the dam. Some have bits of 19th century iron rebar sticking out all rusty. A century of erosion has exposed others on the old dam itself, with some wooden posts and beams still having the square plate that went on top of the embedded rebar. The plates acted as a big nut or lock for the rebar. I picked up a loose piece about 3 inches square, rusted and rounded on the edges, and with bits of concrete stuck to it. A nice keepsake.

Below the retaining wall - where the pungent smell from where the sulphur spring lets out, you can actually walk underneath the structure through two large square intakes. At the least I think they are intakes. Logic says they were old water intakes, for power generation, but that would require more research. And more water proof boots as it was slimy down there in the muck. I shot a full memory card, but it was one of the small 512s so I had to go back to the CRV.

I brought the CRV down closer to the Pumphouse and then went back at it from the downstream side of the dam. This is where I found the bench above. As near as I can tell, the bench must have been pitched over the side of the high retaining wall near the pumphouse and stayed submerged till the water level dropped. Then someone dragged it out to where it was on the sand bar. The pegs on the ends of the seat and back were done - probably rotted away - and so whoever reassembled the bench used strips of tee shirt to anchor the edges. And then someone smashed the seat slat. This perch would have only been good for scuba divers here not too long ago but the view - minus the tiny little flies - was a good one.

This was a good find and I would have been happy with just this, but a little further down stream I came across three or four Canada goose nests with mother gooses - I know it's 'geese' - heating up some eggs. No eggs visible, but lots of downy feathers and the mother wasn't going anywhere. I didn't go too close - as the guard geese were getting rather pissed at me and for the obvious reasons of not wanting to harm the things, but it was cool.

Then my Atlantis moment below. Or my Planet of the Apes moment. There were three or four of these vintage lamp posts strewn about the riverbed close to the South side about 100m down from the old Dam. Probably dumped to shore up against erosion - or perhaps by lazy city workers. I felt like an archaeologist discovering some ruins not seen by modern man. I know it was only the Greek influenced Ionic style of these early 20th century shafts, and not exactly Atlantis, but not what you normally expect to find in a river in South Western Ontario.



I took some shots from the far side on Friday - it was too much of an exercise to get around to there on Thursday. And found that Hyde Park Road stops right at the old dam. And also discovered that if you are the only person walking about on the river bed, people will call you on your cell to ask if it is really you and wave at you from the far side - like Leanne, Chris and Hannah did to me. :)

It was a lot of walking and exploring and was a great deal of fun - well for me - perhaps not everyone.

I topped off the weekend getting together separately with Kelly, and then checking out someone who is going to model for me at the place where she works. More on this later. Suffice it to say not my normal Friday entertainment, but with lots of potential. :)


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 02:10 [+] :: 1 comments
...

Rats n birds
phtoography: I hesitate to think that this blog is winding down, but it seems to be more time between posts. Not the dozen or so a week that used to be the routine in the not so distance past. Seems like photography and not writing is the priority. And I absolutely enjoy photography and the results I am getting. It is another form of creativity. :)

I drove out n about North West of the city on thursday and chased a family or two of Turkey Vultures for more than an hour from Hyde Park road, all the way up through Coldstream to where I got the image above. They were finally staying put riding thermals around some farm silos on Coldstream road. I got some OK shots from the side road but would have been tiny. So I walked into the farm field down a rough hedge line and got closer I was within 100 feet as they took their turns taking off from their high perch on the old stone silo. They were wheeling overhead and moving pretty fast and tough to get a focus lock on to say the least. I moved in closer hoping to get a shot with them flying and the buildings in the background, but I finally spooked them and they flew off East. Was pretty cool to get that close though.

Not much later I was more or less soon to head back and I crossed a small bridge on Nairn Creek. I saw two... something... in the water swimming in tandem so I pulled over and went back. I thought they were otters, but I am originally from Toronto and the only wildlife I saw were squirrils and raccooons. :) They were initially spooked by me and dove underwater and I thought I was out of luck then one or the other would surface and swim around. They would somehow sneak by me and go from one side of the bridge to the other underwater. And I dashed over the road to the otherside back and forth a couple of times. OK about six times over the space of 45 mins.

Eventually I took a rock perch on one side and sat still with the flies. a couple of times one of them got really close, but even the clicking of the shutter would cause them to twitch and dive. In one of the back and forths I got a straight down shot from the lip of the bridge looking down into the shallow murky green brown muddy water.

As one went to the far side I decided I would briefly go over there and sit on the edge and if nothing happened I would leave. I sat watching the animal for about 30 mins. It got braver and braver. Swimming closer to me then away. Closer and away. Diving in the deeper water and surfacing on the otherside and disappearing into a little hole under the reeds on the far side. It was chirping as it made it's approaches. It was on one of the last approaches - as light was failing, my leg was falling asleep and the ants were annoying - where I got this shot. It was about three feet out into the water. After some research, I discovered the animal is a river rat, not an otter, or a regular rat. Pretty cool seeing these guys. And as I stood up to leave I startled a giant crane that took off and swooped very close overhead. It must have been there for some time watching me watching the river rats. A great day all together. :)



Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:14 [+] :: 1 comments
...

so so day
photos: I had not taken a pic for about two weeks. Last week - pretty much all week - I was down with the flu and didn't even pick up my camera. Yesterday I decided I would go out and about and go SE of London. I ended up going through Tillsonberg and Woodstock. Wasn't a great day for pics. Well, the weather was fine. But the area between Tillsonberg and and the 401 is boring. Not much inspiration.

I did find the above bridge which crosses Otter Creek parallel to HWY3 south of Tillsonberg. It is a working rail bridge and quite long. Well over 150m I would estimate. I didn't walk across it as that would have been a little fool hardy. So I ended up going under it and bush crashing till I got to the bottom. I took some pics underneath of the structure and at various points on the way down. I startled some deer too as I was blazing a trail. Was the first time this year I broke a sweat and was warm outside. A pleasant change.

At the bottom, it was not possible to cross Otter Creek and go up the otherside. I had noped to be able to do it before I started down, but there was no way and I had spent better part of an hour at the bridge and hadn't intended to do that. At the bottom I came across two women out with their small babies in chest papoose kinda carriers out for a walk. I figured that if they got down there then there was an easier way out and asked them. Sure enough I could have almost driven down there. :)

It took about 15 mins to hike back to the car and then I headed North through Tillsonberg and ultimately stopped in a Timmies in Woodstock for a coffee. Nice to get outside, but 100km of driving wasn't really worth it this time. I did stop by and see Mandy and Jesse on the way home and we talked a bit about a cowgirl photoshoot we want to do sometime soon. She has a hat now which will work nicely. :)

Rainy today. ah well. 50% good weather is good. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:54 [+] :: 1 comments
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Spring has sprung forward... did you remember to lose an hour's sleep?

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:51 [+] :: 0 comments
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Under the weather
life: Was sick with the flu last week. Pretty much from Saturday till Thursday to varying degrees. Missed a whole lot of work. didn't go out more than twice. slept uncomfortably and watched too much bad TV. I have not taken a pic in like ten days either and have even turned off the computer. Can you beleive it?

Decided to cancel the vacation out West too. With some time on my hands to think, I realized that the trips and toys and such over the last three years need to give way to some fiscal responsibility. Some shorter weekend trips and more paying down bills and putting stuff in things like RRSPs need to happen. I think that the Rockies next year could be an option.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:15 [+] :: 0 comments
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dreary days
life: another drab dreary day. It is tough to get inspired with all this grey about. twigs for trees and damp ground and heavy overcast. Not fun. suits my mood when driving in all of this. Yesterday I spent some time around Thamesford. The image above was shot a couple of concessions to the West. I also climbed to the top of the Cobble Hills ski slopes (which winded me so I am out of shape for sure), found an interesting cemetary, and then headed east towards Woodstock. I had seen the LaFarge cement facility spewing steam from it's huge tower from Cobble Hills and thought to get a closer look.

I went down the side road emmediatly to the east and took a few shots and found a couple of things when sunnier which should look spectacular, but then I left conscious of the 'no trespassing' aspect... Heading on Hwy2 I came up behind a dump truck which had left the facility not five minutes before and all of a sudden there was this brown angular asteroid as big as half my fist heading towards my windshield. I was doing over 80kph so it's closure was probably in the neighbourhood of 100kph. It happened in slow motion tumbling right at me and then Wham! it struck a glancing blow right at eye level on the driver's side - so about 24 inches from my face.

The impact was so loud that my ears were ringing a little. I instinctively ducked a bit and turned my head - which isn't a good idea at 80kph. When I realized that there was no sound of rushing wind or a crack creeping and starring and getting larger, I continued to drive - though at a safer distance from the truck and pumped with adrenaline ready for the next boulder. It really frazzled me. I have had stones n such, but this was pretty big and if the angle had been slightly different, it probably would have done in the window. Funny how I travelled all the way to Newfoundland and on some really bad roads there and nothing. but 25km from home... :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:36 [+] :: 0 comments
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West Wing: where?
entertainment: I PVR'd the third or fourth to last episode of The West Wing and guess what? NBC didn't have it on at the scheduled time. It had Law and Order: CI. While I am sure it is a fine show, I didn't want to watch it after work. Not sure if it was a Rogers Cable TV guide issue or an NBC giving them the wrong data issue. Who knows when I can see it again given there won't be much WW in the near future. Man, I was pissed. I did have that dissapointment abate later in the evening when I watched Finding Forrester starring Sean Connery and Rob Brown, and directed by Gus Van Sant.

In this movie, Sean reminded me of my dad in his look (a little), his apartment (a little more) and in his encouraging attitude towards me as a writer when younger (a lot) . Especially in his ruthless -but helpful- editing style. More young people need to have a Forrester - or someone like my dad - edging them on when they are kids. And in a 'there are no coincidences' sort of way, on Wednesday, my dad would have been 82. :)


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:20 [+] :: 2 comments
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The Lake in Winter
photography: Mandy and I drove out to Lambton County on the shores of Lake Huron on Thursday. We were going to shoot some pics and were looking for Tundra Swans resting on their migration route back North. We found thousands of them. Literally. Unfortunately none too close. More on that in another post...

As you can see, Grand Bend is a different place in winter. Ice covers the beachfront and the winds even on a nice day like yesterday are pretty biting.

In this shot, Mandy is standing defiantly on top of about 15+ vertical feet of solid ice. We walked down the concrete jetty to the channel light, and took in the spectacular seascape in front of us. We then scrambled up higher to the right of the jetty onto the ice wall which had been accumulating all winter .

For those who know the area, she is about 30 feet to the right of the end of the jetty. In the summer, she would be hovering well out over the water in front of the beach. Lake Huron is very shallow here - which makes this small community a summer vacation destination, and you can wade out for several hundred meters in water often less than waist deep. The ice builds up on a similar scale, and while there is no tide, the prevailing winds off Lake Huron do create some huge piles of ice along the shoreline and around features such as the channel marker and extended out of site to the North and South.

In a few weeks it will be all gone again, but for now it looks like the high arctic.

The bigger and better version of this image is on my flickr.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:24 [+] :: 0 comments
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My first Topless photo
photos: It took a long time but I finally did my first topless photo. heheh. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 00:06 [+] :: 0 comments
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Ryan V Dorkman
movies: I have posted this before, but it is such a solid star wars fan vid of a lightsaber battle that I thought it worth posting again. It is big at 5 mins, but worth it.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:59 [+] :: 0 comments
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Six things
blogging: This newer blog has posts divided up into six things. six helpful or interesting things per post. If he/she has more content, it could be worth a visit or two. Most recent post is on photo manipulation.

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:: Mike Wood 11:50 [+] :: 0 comments
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Parenting ideas.
life: For the newer parents out there: Parenting Ideas.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:46 [+] :: 0 comments
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Flash game
games: ok. now while the instructions are in kanjii I think, it is an ok scroll 2d game. just remember that K jumps. germans who have captured druids or something. has music which doesn't seem mutable...

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:37 [+] :: 0 comments
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recycle spam email.
This is just cool. very hypnotic. A great way to get rid of spam. just visit your friendly neighbourhood spam recycler.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:16 [+] :: 0 comments
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So another weekend for me is done. This was was light on laundry and errands and heavy on pictures. Yesterday afternoon, I went back to the same neck of the woods where I was the day before and met up with Mandy and Jesse who were having lunch at Pinecroft near Aylmer - which I was convinced was Winterwheat near Sparta for some reason. I had been there once several years ago and had totally forgotten about it.

We wandered around the frozen pond there for a bit, I got some good shots of Mandy which I will post after she has seen them later in the week, and a couple of bird pics one of which is seen here. These two Canada Geese were not impressed we were following them - down the only path on the West side of the pond, and eventually they went onto the ice and took off back in the other direction. I had the camera set for portraits, so I had barely any time to bring it up to eye level and pan as they went by. ISO 400, 125th second exposure. Not ideal, but the blur behind is good as is the jumble of wings.

We then headed in through Sparta to Winterwheat - another crafty sort of place nestled in a tall grove of trees. Lots to look at here. And a return trip with more daylight is in order. Inside while looking around the store, one of the staff saw my camera and said "oooh, a CSI camera". I smiled and chatted with her for a bit. I said that they used Nikons and not Canons on CSI - and that it was pretty sad I knew that! :)

After a small purchase which Mandy hopes to use as a prop in a winterlike picture later, we headed out into the grounds which were closing soon to get pics there, and then down to Port Stanley. We checked out the trains and as light was fading fast due to the heavy overcast, we had dinner at the "The Roxy" right by the lift bridge. Slow service, but the food was pretty good and I was apparently quite hungry!

On the way back to London, we split up and I ended up stopping in St. Thomas for a coffee and shot some low light night pics of the court house building there. I had taken some on Thursday during the day and since I was there thought it would be interesting to see the lighting. I shot hand held but the efforts show promis and with a tripod, coming back here in the summer would be worth it since there is little traffic around. Maybe with a ghosty model...

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:29 [+] :: 0 comments
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This is how my day started

It was rainy but otherwise nice outside, and so I thought I would go for a spin and eventually ended up around Port Stanley. Five mins into my drive I passed London Health Sciences Centre on Commissioners at Wellington. The Air ambulance was just sitting there on the pad empty. So I crossed my fingers and parked on the SW corner of Wellington and Commissioners and walked back towards the pad. A distance of about 200m. Before I crossed the street I noticed there were people around the helicopter and loading a patient in. At the parking lot entrance, the engines began to spool up and the rotors began to turn. Luckily, it didn't lift off for another 45 seconds and I was right up in front of the pad well before it did. I got some shots on the ground, as it rose up, slowly pivoted towards me, and then went right over my head at abour 15m. Was pretty cool.

I then headed South towards lake Erie. More shots later on Flickr for sure.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 21:50 [+] :: 2 comments
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Embarassing
entertainment: I can't believe that the overweight, sweaty, whiny blimp riding contestant on the Apprentice is Canadian. How embarassing.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 00:18 [+] :: 0 comments
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Bridge history site
history: I mentioned it in the last post, but I spent some time this morning having a coffee and looking at the Historic Bridges of Michigan and Elsewhere site which has a comprehensive listing of bridges in SW Ontario and a page for London and Middlesex county bridges too. I learned a great deal about bridge features and designs, and I didn't realize how relatively unique some of our bridges are. And how old. Some dating back to the 1880s and still carrying traffic. When you think about it, you realize they are old structures, but not when driving over them. If you are curious about the some history, or bridges in general give the site a look. This guy knows his stuff.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:54 [+] :: 0 comments
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Picture weekend

Got some interesting pictures yesterday and today. It was bitterly cold around the Thames river here in London. I started at the
BlackFriars Bridge. The link has a lot of fascinating info on the 131 year old bowstring truss bridge. It's closed to vehicle traffic currently - a side from the odd cyclist apparently. I then headed over to the Forks of the Thames thinking some pics of the old Jail would be cool. Not so much. But then I saw an eagle tormenting some geese and ducks. I heard that commotion at first. I did a "holy crap that's an eagle" and got one pic before it disappeared. A terrible, but neat shot. I went out today and tried to find him again, and did see it far away over the Thames near Wonderland. But I was at the Forks. I walked all the way down as far as the Greenway pollution control facility in sub zero windy conditions before turning around.



Heading back, I heard sirens up on Springbank and could see a London Fire platoon command vehicle. Eastbound by the bridge near Greenside Ave. there was an interesting collision. Not sure how the Honda Civic ended up at 60 degrees and on the back end of a pick up truck. But the truck had no damage, and the Civic was fairly OK. No injuries it turns out. I watched them lower it to the ground and headed back to the CRV which was still a 15 min walk away.


I drove down York and found the traffic was solid on York Street at Rideout. More police and I could see caution tape. So I pulled into a parking lot and grabbed the camera and headed out. The driver of an Abouttown taxi lost control (smaller cones on the right indicate the path the cab took), bounced over the curb and slammed into a grandmother and a 5 year old girl before crashing into this tree at the South East corner Talbot and York at the Tim Horton's parking lot exit. The victims are in serious condition in hospital.



I was well and truelly cold by now after walking for about two hours outside. But inches from Sammy's Slouvaki at York. So I went down and got a Gyros and fries. I showed the guy in the Sammy's some shots of the crash before heading back to the CRV and then home to warm up.

You never know what to expect when travelling with W4B Photography. I sure don't. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:44 [+] :: 0 comments
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Self portrait of needing to shave.


When you are home and you have a tooth ache, why not do a self portrait. Feb, 2006. Makes for a good IM icon too.

:: Mike Wood 11:42 [+] :: 0 comments
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New TV.
entertainment: New TV. Finally. The Olympics are over. And two weeks of it is a bit much. Canada did awesome in the medal count and such, but time to move on. Watched the first episode of Amazing Race 9 which started in Colorado and ended in Brazil. The loud women who scream at everything have to go. No firm favourites, though the two beach jocks who got to the pit stop first yesterday seem OK. and the cute pink girls won't last but are OK too. ;) The San Fran hippies are entertaining, but that will be their downfall. Lots of Southern US couples with perhaps typical cliche male female relationships from that region to come... No one else really stands out - well the older couple. But I sense the same as the couple from Amazing race 7...

Apprentice started too. Synergy and Gold Rush are the teams. Sweating overweight guy is entertaining. And will go soon. The first few cuts don't really have any emotional impact for me as I have not formed any attachments (or disgust?) for the teams or individuals. I thought this one was West Coast based, but the next one is. I am not going to do any analysis of episodes here. I will leave that up to people who have more time on their hands, though I might make the odd comment now and then. Perhaps Nicole will do some regular Amazing Race blogging? :)

But one last thought. By the time the shows wrap up, we will all be able to walk around outside in tee shirts without getting frost bite from the nipply weather. ;) That is something to look forward to. No matter who wins at the end.

Welcome to March '06 !

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:52 [+] :: 0 comments
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small laptop search
tech stuff: I am looking to find a small laptop. Sony Vaio sized. For travelling. I want a machine that had a CD burner / DVD player, couple of USB2 ports, either built in wifi or a pcmcia card wifi. At least a 40GB drive and 1.5gz. small screen like 12 inches minimum. I want to be able to take camera gear and a laptop in one camera bag so I don't have to check anything. Can be gently used. and preferably purchased from somewhere here in Canada. I don't want to deal with customs $$.

If anyone finds anything, let me know the usual ways. I'd like to have one in place before I go to the Rockies on vacation in the end of May.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:33 [+] :: 0 comments
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Watching commentaryless Nascar
sports: for some reasons Foxsports commentator audio feed channel is not balanced with the in car and track audio. You can not hear more than every tenth word as the cars go around. I first throught it was the PVR not getting in the audio properly but the commericals - boring Canadian local ones are crystal clear. So it is either the feed that SportsNet picked up and botched or originating with FoxSports. 41 laps in the bag now and only when they do recorded interviews you can year everything.And even that is muted. Not so hot. I can't imagine having all these Nascar fans calling into FoxSports for 50 laps complaining. If I was watching this live I would have emailed em a few times by now. I don't think I will record off SportsNet next time. I miss the commercials too.

On a positive, while watching the race I am in the initial planning stages of a vacation. Going West. Thinking BC and Alberta in the end of May / beginning of June. The rockies are where it is at for scenery. Driving the TCH from Vancouver to Calgary via places like Banff and Jasper... Could be sweet. And when I mentioned it to Mandy she came through with a crap load of guides and pamphlets and material she collected when she was there in '98. A ton of stuff. And a ton of pics too. In the first five mins of reading I found several things that tweaked my interest. Thanks Mandy. U rock. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:54 [+] :: 0 comments
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The simpsonmaker me. I made it after Lauralei posted one of herself on flickr. The hair isn't quite right, but I couldn't get back to the blank slate for the hair choice thingy. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:21 [+] :: 0 comments
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a study in contrasts
life: so yesterday was interesting in terms of it's extremes. I woke up and checked the email and the comments on Flickr, and then in MSN I found that there was someone who wanted to add me to their MSN chat list. I agreed and then there was this woman in Asia trying her best to communicate with me in broken English. She had found my email 'on the net' and couldn't be more specific. She wanted to know what I looked like so I pointed to a pic of me on Flickr. She had a web cam icon so I asked her to turn it on and she thought that meant the video conferencing. So here I was in London, listening to a woman named Li in the PRC on a video conference with the usual lip synching lag. She looked like she was in a school or office. No cybersex here, so no worries.

With Norton running the video and audio has never worked on MSN without fiddling so I didn't bother to launch it. she would say something (once I taught her not to put the headset microphone down around her clavicle so it would pick up what she was saying) and I would type my answers back.

She started to do the "I must be a rich man" and stuff and wanted me to sponsor her to come to Canada. Tried to explain that it wasn't going to happen. Then she tried to sell me shoes! Her company's web site is here. I tried to tell her I didn't need any shoes - I have quite a few pairs - which made me wealthy I guess. I asked about a random pairand showed them to Renée (whom I was giving a running commentary to while this was going on). She thought the site was quite... interesting. :) So Li was indicating that I could get a good price. I am assuming they are knock offs given there are quite a few brands there and no company like Nike or Addidas would want their products represented that way if they knew about it. Renée and I tried to guess prices -which if you factored in shipping from China would be silly. Turns out that the price for the shoes including UPS would be only $37 USD! No I didn't buy any shoes. Like I am going to give a credit card to someone in asia for some shoes that may or may not exist. I am sure Visa would like that. I am sure I would like it less. :)

I should have got a screen shot of her, but given the headset and the persistence of the selling, I think I was telemarketed by IM from Asia! Small world. How much things have changed from being interupted during dinner on a phone without caller ID.

So in a complete turn about from this 21st Century experience, I decided to go for a hike. I was determined to get a better geese shots than the one from Thursday. So I headed back to Dorchester in the CRV - catching up on more Daily Source Code on the Zen Micro. I decided to perhaps blend in better I would wear my tan coloured jeans and my Swiss camouflage jacket over my parka - in a fairly tight fit. Figured it would break up my outline a bit and might get me a little closer before being seen.

I had the camera in the bag and headed out down the East side of the Mill Pond down the narrow foot path. Mud, water, bits of ice, the occasionaly somewhat rickety wooden bridge section were the norm for about 1.5 km or so till I got don to the South end. I took out the camera before heading on the walkway across the pond and creeped up step by step. Each step was creaking on the wooden bridge. Damp wood and ice and nails make for some ship like creaking. No sneaking now. And no geese. Not one at all. A couple of ducks but that was it. A little disappointed, but not completely as it was a good day for a hike.

On the West side, I decided to go off the main path and found another path - little used and not obvious if you are not looking. It went South into the swamp area and I thought I might be able to find an area to hide out and set up and wait for geese. I did some bush crashing - though I was trying to be quiet - and I found a couple of good spots. But no birds. So I started to move slower and wander around more quietly. I put the hood of the camo jacket up over my hat and it came back to me that the last time I was even remotely dressed like this in an isolated area was on a recce patrol in the Army about 13 years ago.

We used to go out a lot and essentially do map and compass 'orienteering' work. Armed to the teeth and moving with stealth and purpose through woods and forests in and around Canadian Forces Bases like Borden and Meaford - and much earlier Petawawa - in all different types of weather including winter. Wasn't the first time I had gone for a hike, but it did feel wierd to not have a rifle in my hands. It was just instinctive I suppose. You get used to something. A muscle memory. I settled for the camera at the ready even though there was nothing except for bare dry brush around.

I turned around and having a fairly good sense of direction and orientation on a simple excercise like this, I headed back following the rough path to the main one. At one point I heard at least one person, possibly two or three not too far off. I stopped moving and listened. I moved about more quietly. Conscious that if these were some kids out to get stoned or something and they wanted my camera I would have a problem. They were probably 100m away and on top of the ridge line on that ran around the East edge of the swamp. They eventually moved off and I don't think they heard or saw me after I froze.

Back on the main path, there was no one. and it was an easy 2km hike back to the CRV parked at the mill. The East side is a more interesting walk. And while the marked trail is 3.5km, I imagine with my detours I did over 4km. Good solid walk and doing it at different times of the year could be interesting. Some good locations for photos. As long as mosquitos are not too bad!

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:40 [+] :: 0 comments
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missing out on snapshots
photography: Ever read something that makes you think? I was reading the December issue of the great British mag Photography Monthly, and there was an article by Will Rolls who is the marketing manager for Fujifilm UK. He was talking about the decline of the snapshot. He recounted a scene when he was in Marrakesh (yes please!) where he saw a tourist couple taking pics in a local market. The guy with a DSLR had his wife move out of the frame and worked on composing the shot and the image probably looked pro when he was done. But there wasn't a record of her in the shot. Not a snapshot. Sure he would be having a pic which could hang on his wall one day, but not one with him or his wife to laugh at and recall later.

I am in that position to a great extent. I have taken some pretty good images now and then, and when I go somewhere I look at the scene like a pro - let's call me an enthusiast - and not with the intent of having me in the shot or my friends. I compose the image, shift about to get the best angle, check the sun, wait for the car to go by etc. Being single, I have to go to great lengths to get myself in a shot and I certainly wouldn't hand my Canon over to a stranger to take my pic while standing on a rocking boat whale watching in the Atlantic. And that is part of the issue I think. Photography enthusiasts usually have better gear than their friends which often impresses, but their portfolio of pics is often missing what others have: silly pictures of their friends and themselves in the "snapshot."

I have taken tens of thousands of pictures since Newfoundland in May last year and I think that I am in maybe a dozen. And they are self portraits. I thought about what I wanted to do and then composed the shot and then took it, reviewed it, tried again, etc. Not just grabbed the point and shoot and pressed the button with no thought. As Will Rolls said, snapshots "wouldn't win any critical acclaim but these are the images that make photography magic. They represent reality captured, not contrived."

Until I read the article, I too dismissed snapshots out of hand. You won't find one on my Flickr. Everyone is used to a little pocket camera or even cameraphone. But if you have never had a big ass black Canon DSLR camera with a lens as wide as a donut in your face, it tends to take a little out of the moment. People stare at the camera and stop what they are doing. Even freeze up in some cases. I encountered this first taking pics of Kelly and Mandy. And you can't lug a big camera everywhere - I have tried... :)

Will Rolls mentioned that we need to "break out of the 'equipment and technique' mentality once in a while, downsize to a little camera and just see what happens". He concluded that an enthusiast is capable of taking some pretty good snapshots. They just have to do it. For some reason that really struck a chord with me. I took hardly any photos for ten or more years and I don't really know why. I have very very few images from when I was married - snapshot or otherwise - and now I have a kajillion images taking up space on my hard drives and decorating my walls. But I need more snapshots of my life in my life. So if you see me with my old school Olympus...

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:49 [+] :: 0 comments
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canals with roots
life: I put it off and off, psyched myself up to go in December and then when it didn't happen then, I had to get back in the game again. I read most of Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now which Morgan recommended, and tried to get over my fear and anticipation of the future "what might happens" tainted by past dental experiences.

To paint broad brush strokes, I hate dentists (sorry folks). But really I hate the pain they inflict. I have never met one who actually got pleasure out of it, but you have to imagine that doing this everyday can't be the job of someone who doesn't have some midly sadistic or dominating tendencies...

My opinion of this changed yesterday. I had root canal surgery. Mandy took me and patiently waited and studied two hours at Dr. Carr's office in the Oxford Medical Centre here in London. Dr. Carr had a general practice, but only does root canals now. And is one of the only dentists other than the InterFace folks who can administer IV anesthetics. The guy is great, not just in his work but also in his bedside manner. He - and his staff - puts you really at ease. And getting work done in a brightly daylight lit room is much different than in a cube somewhere under flourescent lights.

We arrived early and waited only a couple of minutes before I was in the procedure room and I was hooked up to the 'machine that goes ping' (watched some Monty Python last night) and was told my BP was quite good at 120/70 for someone who was nervous : I figure telling people I am nervous helps sometimes. The IV was inserted and it was the only thing I really felt. I hate needles too and getting a large gauge one inserted in the top of your hand and taped down is not fun (nor is the ECG leads being taped to a hairy chest). However, the technician doing it was a pro and got it done first time.

Dr. Carr came in the room from behind the chair and put a calming hand on my shoulder. I asked a couple of questions about how long it would be for the drug to take effect and then when it was put into the IV stream the next thing I remember was a couple of hours later. As I was coming out of it, I felt the weight of the lead vest on my chest and lap and the gagging plate thing they insert in your mouth to get the above X-ray image. I also remember them talking about a vacation to the Bahamas and wanted to comment that I had been there. And one of the female assistants saying it was neat that even unconscious that the body knows to swallow.

It started around 10 am and I was awake and moving about at noon. And in the car a few minutes later. I felt kinda wobbly, 3-4 beers like for me, the right side of my face and lips was numb from I assume local needles (shudder!), and I was a little puffy as well. I spent the afternoon napping and watching the Canadians lose the men's hockey quarter finals in Torino.

No pain, no real discomfort. I don't remember the procedure at all. Though I am sort of curious as to whether I was aware of it while it was going on.

If you have an issue with pain, dentists and the like, and have to get a root canal done, go to someone like Dr Carr. It was well worth the extra coin for the anesthetic. He will even email you images to post on your blog. :)

It is pleasant to have your opinion changed for the better on something. Thanks Dr. Carr.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:12 [+] :: 1 comments
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List of windows commands
geek stuff: Here is a partial though detailed list of commands that can be used in the XP/2000 environment. Some are quite interesting.

OK. Off to work now!

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:12 [+] :: 0 comments
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German coastguard video
video: This short video show a rookie taking over a monitoring desk at the German Coastguard. Plays in line in der browser, ya? :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:06 [+] :: 0 comments
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Starbucks does hot cereal
life: I was reading Heather's Marketing at Microsoft Blog - which I have neglected to keep up on lately, and she posted about Starbucks new low fat granola and steamed milk thing you can buy. But you know, I don't think I am prepared to pay $20 bucks or whatever it would cost to get a Venti hot steamed granola. but I bet lots of people will go for it.

She has some other cool stuff that I want to look at and post about later. Nice.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:48 [+] :: 0 comments
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TBS Humor
humour: TBS has a series of commercials fronted by John Cleese, well Steph (welcome back to London!) sent me a link to the TBS Humor Study website which has lots of funny bits. Worth checking out the videos and so on. I liked the one about sofa placement in sitcoms. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:39 [+] :: 0 comments
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funny Shirt
humour: I was reading the Google Blogoscoped blog and came across a post that referred to this teeshirt available on CafePress. I want one.

On a side note, for those with more time on your hands, find me a site that has shirts for photographers: ones that say "photographer" on it or some sort of humour related to being a lens carrier. They seem tough to isolate if they exist...

And in a related Google note I read that Google seems to have listened to those damn annoying pop ups they added recently when you hovered over someone's name in Gmail to select whether you want to chat or email the person. They really were pissing me off. Glad they are gone.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:27 [+] :: 2 comments
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Banana Art
art?: This blog is devoted to pictures and some descriptions of various banana art related projects. Most involve inking up the banana - which really isn't an euphemism for anything though it could be. First person at work that says that phrase to me gets to choose a pic from my Flickr and I will print it 5x7. :)


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:19 [+] :: 1 comments
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garbage cubes
misc: My birthday is coming up, but for those of you in New York, you don't have to send me any of these borg like cubes of New York City Garbage. It is insane that these things have been bought and mailed everywhere. Proof that some people will buy anything.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:14 [+] :: 0 comments
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Holy Adhesive LED graffiti balls
gadgets: No it is not some sort of curse Robon would make - well perhaps - but these things are really clever. And if you had a neighbour you didn't particularly like... or just wanted to put up some Christmas decorations these might be for you...

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:12 [+] :: 0 comments
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A Vegan sues McDonalds. Come on.
legal sillyness: I just heard on the CBC news that a vegan in LA is suing McDonalds because there were some animal proteins (milk related) in their stick like french fries.

"Nadia Sugich of Los Angeles sued Wednesday, saying she eats no animal products and would not have eaten the fries had she known they contained dairy ingredients."

from CNN.

Why is a vegan eating at McDonalds is the real question.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:05 [+] :: 0 comments
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Can't help but be proud.
life: I had a brief email conversation with my brother on Friday. It's funny. He has been a cop for three years now, and I have been proud of the service and sacrifice to the members of the public he protects. And I have heard stories about some of the calls he has been on, but it was when he told me he caught a bank robber that I guess it drove it home that he was a cop. I mean, I *knew* he was a cop. But only cops catch bank robbers. And my brother did that this week, arresting a robber shortly after a bank was held up. No one harmed and all the money recovered. The grin I had was a big one when I heard that. Right on. Way to go little brother! :D

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:36 [+] :: 0 comments
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Around Lucan

Photos: This former school house is located at the NE corner of Neil Rd and Maple Lodge Drive, South West of Lucan Ontario. It is on a section of Neil Rd running parallel to Hwy 20 ( Denfield Rd.) North of HWY 7 (Elgenfield Rd.)

I was very cold outside and I was driving around for stuff to see (and keeping out of ditches this time) and headed fairly arbitrarily North on Hwy 4 up towards Lucan. My first turn off was a right on Coursey Line where about a click down the ice covered road I found the log cabin pictured below. It wasn't an original one, but I think it said a lot about a Canadian Winter. The drifts right up the front porch illustrate a little about how much snow we get even this far South in Canada in a mid winter. I backtracked a bit - since I have no idea where my map of this part of the province is and had no GPS gear - and crossed over Hwy 4 to the other side of Coursey Line heading South towards Hwy 7. Coursey is pretty much the continuation of Hyde Park Rd at the top end if you are trying to picture roughly where I am.

A third picture of a barn in brilliant sun was taken a bit further down at the corner of Coursey and William St. I had hopes for brilliant colours and such but it was washed out from shooting directly into the sun and I think I had the shutter too slow. I flipped it to BW, and messed with the levels and I ended up with a pic that reminded me slightly of a grainy IR image. Not the original outcome but OK never the less. No ND filter or polarizer is a bitch in winter I am finding!

I went down Hwy7 West and then went back up North on Neil Rd to where I found what I first thought was a small old abandoned church. I pulled over - OK, I stopped a little off centre - on the completely ice covered sideroad and put the hazards on. I was hoping for a break in the cloud so I could get some sun to illuminate the yellow brick. No luck after about ten mins. So I drove closer, parked on Maple Lodge Rd - once again fairly in the middle (afraid of false soft shoulders) - and got out into the biting wind that was turning me more than rosy. After about ten minutes or so, a car came down the road parked beside mine in the opposite direction and an older guy got out. I went up to him at first I thought I was going to be told I was parking in the middle of the road etc... He introduced himself as Dough Ovens and said that he lived just down the road and had seen me poking about. He wondered what I was doing as the building had recently been broken into and the OPP have been there (the door was now barricaded). Once I explained what I was doing - and gave him a card, which comes in handy I find - he told me a bit about the building said that he was one of the last students to go to this school before it closed in 1959.

I beleive Doug said he was part of the Lucan Historical society and we chatted a bit about the history of the area. He said the the building dated back to about 1900, and had been used more recently as a woodworking shop. And at one point there had been a small Presbyterian church on the other corner which he had moved some time ago, used as a shop and since torn down. He promised to give me a call later in the year as he had some old steam powered wood working equipment he shows off in the summer and we thought it would be good material to shoot pics of. It dawned on me at that point that the Cookstown steam show in the summer would be cool too. My family used to go for several summers in a row in the early to mid 1970s and this was as far as a family vacation or road trip got for us. I think it would be interesting to see this now - a few years on - and take some pics there. Anyone up for a trip when it is warmer?

I always find it interesting doing this photography thing meeting the people I meet, hearing stories and seeing things that are essentially in a backyard that very few venture and poke about in these days.

I also got to try out Mandy's new little Sony Vaio laptop later in the evening - and have some chocolate cake. I think you could get high off that cake! :0 That would be a great little machine to use as a backup or road machine instead of this wee beastie.




Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:43 [+] :: 0 comments
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Back is so sore
life: My back has been bothering me for the past few days. Have not wanted to sit with laptop and edit pics or blog or surf or anything. Lower back. Like when I was much heavier and carrying lot more weight around. I lknow I should work out, but right now I would like it to not be hurting early in the morning when I get up. :(

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:17 [+] :: 1 comments
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Sona si Latine loqueris.
humour: Found this student site at MIT which reminded me of a blog that is on hiatus. Since I wasn't sure I would get a response from the blogger I thought I would share it with everyone -well the remaining everyones who read this blog. :) And torment people at work. Though some of you might read it and then figure out what the sign means on the desk at that point.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:02 [+] :: 2 comments
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Sleeping Sins


photos: As I mentioned the other day, last weekend I did a promotional photoshoot with The Scarlet Sins in Toronto. It was cold and damp and shivering for them for the first part of the shoot. I am posting a few shots in my Sins set on Flickr and will post more, but here is the best one so far. This one was taken inside lying on the carpeted floor of a billiards room in a condo building on bloor near Mt. Pleasant. To get the angle I was up on a two step folding step ladder. I wasn't sure if I could get the height to do this shot, but it - and the other variations of eyes open and closed - worked well. And setting up the adhoc worklights made some difference in the room lighting. Everytime I try something new it is a challenge requiring planning and execution. But it is a challenge that I would gladly take on again. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:10 [+] :: 0 comments
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It was a photographic weekend. As I mentioned I had it off and I Saturday was gorgeous for weather. light jacket weather. in january. while it is bad for farmers and snow plow operators, I am all for this global warming thing. I drove and wandered around an industrial section of London on Saturday. In an area bounded by on the West by Quebec/Egerton and East by Highbury and the rail line north of Dundas, and Trafalgar to the South, I found lots of interesting things, such as on the left.

This building is located north of Kelloggs on the rail spur that you cross on Dundas East. It's official address is 471 Nightingale and is a warehouse built in 1917. Completely closed off, surrounded by razor wire, the structure looks sound but is full of pigeons roosting on at least the top two floors. Think of the bird crap in there!

On the rail line at the top end of McCormick near Princess, I started to think trains. There was a long freight train on the spur there with no fence so I went for a look see. Nice pleasing curve of cars and I got a couple of close ups in the sun. I was thinking to myself as I walked away from the train that if the thing had started to move while I was inches from it taking pics I would crap my pants. And then all of a sudden, the rippling bang-bang-bang-bang of the cars tugging on each other started as some far away engine pulled them to life. :)

Now being in a train mode, I recce'd the rail yard that you cross on Egerton. I parked at the Western fair ice rink and wandered over. This was after Western Fair security asked me what I was doing in the closed off harness racing prep area before that... :). I was shooting pics of the lone engine from the crossing area there when someone from CN rail came up to me. With 9-11 not too far in the past, he said security is on everyone's mind. We chatted for a bit and when he found I was no harm to anyone, he told me the best location to watch some movement of engines and cars would be down at the East end near Highbury in about 20 mins. He offered to give me a lift down there, but since I had the CRV, I declined the cool offer. Nice of him to provide the info though.

I grabbed a Timmies and headed over to the south section of Oakland ave. I waited for a bit, watched a Via Rail train blur by ( when I had the wrong ISO setting on the camera...) and then a lone yard engine came by and was taking some shots for a bout 45mins. First time I had watched the, I was going to say ballet, but that is cliche and not completely right. The coordinated movement of engine and car over a dozen branching lines, grabbing and releasing single cars or a half dozen at a time was fun to watch from different angles.

On Sunday, I headed to Toronto in a heavy driving rain. I stopped in Brantford to get some pics of St Andrew's Church which burned the other week. I Googlemapped it and found it without issue. It was raining hard so some of the shots were spotty. I wanted to get a couple of different angles, and I asked the police officer on point duty in his car if I could get closer. He initially said no that I had to stay in front of the line. Then he waved me over again and told me that if I went down an alley that paralleled the back of the church between Market and George I could get some shots there. I crossed the police barricades at that point and grabbed the through the window and collapsed wall shots posted on flickr. I know it isn't something really special, but I am amazed the places I get to go now and then.

Later in Toronto, I met up with the Scarlet Sins at Stephanie's place. They were already looking awesome in their Victorian dresses and pretty much good to go. They had just come back from hair and makeup and we headed out to the location. Despite the rain and poor light, we made it work. It was a lot colder for them than me, and I was reminded of a ANTM shoot on a roof top in bikini's in winter. In both cases, the photographer was warm enough... :) We did some cool group shots and some individual portraits as well before heading over to a second location that had promise but was not what I had in mind. I have barely started to go through the 200 odd shots and will post some in a few days, but this was certainly a fun experience. And spending time with the girls over dinner after was good. More when I post some pics...

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:42 [+] :: 0 comments
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"Roger, go at throttle up."
history: Those were the last words spoken by Commander Francis R.Scobee spoken at T+ 1:10 into the flight. The last words in the official Challenger voice recorder transcript are from Pilot Michael J. Smith three seconds later. A simple "Uhoh."

It is difficult to think that it was twenty years ago today that the shuttle Challenger roared from the pad at KSC, and minutes later it exploded off the Florida coast destroying the ship and dooming the crew. I was in highschool getting ready for a history class where we were going to watch the launch because of the tie in to having the first teacher, Christa McAuliffe, go into space. It was a staggering thing to see that white puff of smoke and the SRBs careen off slowly and wildly. That, the WTC, and the Columbia breaking up over Texas in 2003, I all saw live. They were a few of my "where were you when?" moments.

President Reagan, in a nation wide address from the White House said the following which sums it up nicely:

"The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them."

More from CNN, and some links from the official Challenger page at NASA are here.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:30 [+] :: 0 comments
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"If you saw a man drowning and you could either save him or photograph the event...what kind of film would you use?" -Anonymous

From photoQuotes.com

I had fun planning some of the shots I would like to do of the Scarlet Sins in Toronto on Sunday. I am excited to try out some stuff. I never rented some proper lights, but the work lights I have throw 1000w of light on twin heads so I think that will be sufficient.

On the way down to the tee Dot, I am going to swing through Brantford. A church burned down there the other day and is likely to be demolished for safety reasons and I would like to get some shots of it. It might be rainy on Sunday so it could be a really moody series of BW shots.

I really need to find some studio space. Really itching to do some more pics in a controlled setting. Want to play with lights and shadows. And shoot some models who have less inhibitions too - of course. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 00:52 [+] :: 0 comments
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Nigerian Spam!
internet lore: It took more than 12 years of being online, but I actually got the infamous Nigerian banking spam email to my myspace account. I thought this was pretty cool. Never received one before. I guess this means I have arrived. ;)

From:.Dr.Sola Williams,
Manager Union Bank,
of Nigeria.

Dear Friend,
My name is Dr.Sola Williams, I am the regional manager of the Union Bank lagos branch Nigeria. I got your information during my search through the Internet...

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 23:51 [+] :: 0 comments
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End of trek again
entertainment: Watched the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise again last night on Space. I thought it was as sad seeing the finale the second time around as it was the first. The series, which I felt had come into it's own, ended prematurely. I know it was a vehicle to give some back story to the Trek universe, but there were some good stories and good character growth. Stories that I know I can watch again. I hope they do movies with this cast. Until then, I suppose I will fork over some money for some DVDs.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 21:14 [+] :: 0 comments
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conservative Cabinet revealed
misc: Rick Mercer has discovered what the new conservative cabinet will look like. Yikes.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:12 [+] :: 0 comments
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West Wing is done.
TV: NBC announced yesterday that The West Wing has been cancelled. While not having the worst ratings, it is done at the end of the season when the new President is inaugerated. No word on what is going to happen to John Spencer's character. When he died, the producers found there was no provision in the US constitution to deal with how a VP nominee death would be addressed so close to the election. More from CNN.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:41 [+] :: 1 comments
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MSN Block Checker is spyware
Instant Messaging: If you use IM - and who doesn't - there is a thing going around which I encountered for the first time on MSN tonite. It is the MSN block checker. I messaged someone and got an autoresponder message "Did they block you too? Download a free MSN Block Checker http://]www.block-checker.com ". Given everyone loves me, and no one would block me ( heheh), I Googled the message. I didn't intially come up with any hits that made me suspicious, but on the second page of the results ( I do 50 a page), I came up with a Symantec hit. Yeah. It's adware/spyware. Don't download it when a friend sends it to you. Systems affected: Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP. It is a low risk, mainly I assume because you have to manually install it. So don't install it.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:36 [+] :: 0 comments
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Complicated subway
Maps: I was checking out Scott 5x5 who is a photog from Toronto currently working in Tokyo. He posted a pic of the Toyko subway system. Man that is a big subway.

Been working on my photoshoot for the Scarlet Sins in Toronto next weekend. I have enjoyed planning this. Got lots of ideas. Then I picked up a copy of Rolling Stone and saw some real photogs seasoned pro's work. I am like Damn! I have lots to grow still. :) I am not minimizing how much I have developed in the last year though...

***(developed? Is that a photography pun?)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 01:54 [+] :: 0 comments
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Timeless
photography: After completing this pic, I thought that if you saw it in an archive, you could say that it was a contemporary shot sometime around it's construction. The shot is of workers on top of an early 20th Century building in Toronto. I took the pic from my room at the Sheraton in December. It was very cold and windy at ground level on this Saturday morning. I can only imagine what it was like on top of a elevator machine room of this building.

Taking and tweaking the pic was one thing. It was much harder to identify it. I knew the room I had faced South and emmediately below me was Richmond St, and to my right York St. The building was a hard left out my window. It was a really tough angle, but where was it?

Well, I went to Google maps first to get the lay of the land. I used the towers at night shot to narrow my arc of research to ESE (East South East) on the compass rose from my building as the bank towers were out of the view to the right. I assumed that the building was pretty close by, no more than a couple of blocks and likely on Bay near Richmond. Not very tall. Perhaps 20-30 stories though I couldn't tell exactly as it's base was blocked in the shot.

I started to type in searches in Google. Came across a couple of hits but nothing too specific. Then I remembered I had used a semi public search service called Emporis which has a fantastic catalog of buildings in Toronto ( and around the world). Dates of contruction/ demolition, factoids, and most importantly locations and photos. I narrowed it down to the core of the city, and then started to check the older ones. I figured the building - from it's stone work, style and ornamentation - was likely late 1920s or early 1930. After three or four false positives I had it. The address was 372 Bay Street and the building was the Sterling Tower.

I used the same sort of research with GoogleMaps and Emporis to identify the Commerce Court North tower in this picture. And learned some fascinating facts as well. At 34 stories, upon it's completion in 1931, the Commerce Court North Tower was the tallest building in the British Empire and remained that way till 1962. It is located at King and Jordan St (between Bay St and Yonge St), Toronto.

And if you want something cool, click again on the Google Maps link for the 372 Bay St, and zoom out about 50 percent. Using the hybrid map/satellite view, you can see most of the Great Lakes. Never seen that particular view and all the green was quite cool.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:45 [+] :: 0 comments
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Been under the wx again
life: got socked by another bad cold - perhaps the flu? - this week. Tried to go to work twice and in total missed I think two full days and a bit more. I hate being sick. And I don't like using sick days at work. Ever. So I slept a lot and watch too much in the way of crappy TV. The PVR should have anticipated my needs and recorded a few movies in advance. I did get to watch some of the Australian Open tennis. Maria Sarapova. What can you say. And she is a spokesperson (spokesmodel?) for Canon. Makes me want to shoot tennis. Of course the Canadian pro women's tennis this year is in Montreal. Go figure... It alternates between there and Toronto's Rexall Centre at York U - where I went to school. And Martina Hingis is back too after a couple of years off. If you have to be sick, recording some tennis is a good thing.

I put up a couple of pics today as well. Urban stuff. The above one, was taken in Toronto in mid December. It is the Lifeguard station at Cherry Beach. This beach is outside the confines of the Inner Harbour near the Eastern Gap entrance - and at the foot of Cherry Street. I think the beach actually has a different name now, but growing up, it was always Cherry Beach to our family. On weekends we would occasionally go for a drive and explore the city and now and then ended up driving through the docklands. At the time, the docks were more vibrant and alive than today. Well, there was container ship traffic and it was all industrial. Not the in flux, driving ranges, big open bars and sound stages with hopes of housing down the road.

And each time we would go over the green lift bridge half way down Cherry St from Lakeshore Blvd., it would be a cool thing because car tires crossing the open grid of the draw bridge made a sound which is why the bridge became known to us as the "orrrrrrr bridge". I think this was the first time I had driven down there in the CRV and the sound was exactly the same. And still cool. I need to take some pics around there this summer when it is not so freakin' cold.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 19:46 [+] :: 0 comments
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Routing problems with Flickr
tech: seems like San Jose Ca is not the place to be when it comes to having reliable internet connections over the past couple of days. Especially if you are Flickr. I have been sick since Sunday evening with some bug or other so when not dozing and drinking lots of liquids etc, I thought it would be a good idea to drag the laptop to bed and go through some Flickr sites and check out more than just the few favourites i normally scope out.

Well, it was sluggish so I thought I would run a tracert as part of the throughput troubleshooting. Was only a few routers in the Palo Alto node of teleglobe.net that were a problem and then the Yahoo routers themselves. It is rare you see 1200ms results in a tracert regularly:

C:\tracert www.flickr.com

Tracing route to www.flickr.vip.mud.yahoo.com [68.142.214.24]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 60 ms 59 ms 55 ms 64.230.197.53
2 54 ms 55 ms 55 ms 64.230.238.221
3 59 ms 59 ms 55 ms 64.230.240.177
4 64 ms 59 ms 63 ms 64.230.242.189
5 57 ms 62 ms 59 ms 64.230.242.197
6 61 ms 63 ms 63 ms bx3-toronto12-pos5-0.in.bellnexxia.net [206.108.
107.234]
7 57 ms 59 ms 63 ms if-7-0.core1.TTT-Scarborough.teleglobe.net [209.
58.25.69]
8 151 ms 155 ms 151 ms if-3-3.mcore3.NJY-Newark.teleglobe.net [216.6.57
.33]
9 154 ms 151 ms 151 ms if-5-0.mcore4.NQT-NewYork.teleglobe.net [216.6.5
7.14]
10 154 ms 155 ms 175 ms if-4-0.mcore4.PDI-PaloAlto.teleglobe.net [216.6.
86.13]
11 153 ms 151 ms 151 ms if-5-0.core2.PDI-PaloAlto.teleglobe.net [216.6.8
6.6]
12 1258 ms 1244 ms 1159 ms ix-1-0.core2.PDI-PaloAlto.Teleglobe.net [64.86.8
4.146]
13 1167 ms 1200 ms 1208 ms so-1-0-0.pat1.dax.yahoo.com [216.115.101.133]
14 1225 ms 1204 ms 1220 ms UNKNOWN-216-115-104-101.yahoo.com [216.115.104.1
01]
15 1194 ms * 1191 ms v203.bas3.mud.yahoo.com [68.142.209.5]
16 1167 ms 1152 ms 1168 ms www.flickr.vip.mud.yahoo.com [68.142.214.24]

Trace complete.

It was like that most of the day and only settled down to normal-ish results late into the evening. And now it is back up to being crap again. So of course I emailed the teleglobe.net folks and included part of my tracert results. :)

I figure if their boxes are on a path to Flickr for most - if not all- people, then they have a million customer base group from around the world that are being affected. And I am sure they know about it, but if not, they do now.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:21 [+] :: 0 comments
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Camera equipment rentals?
photography: You would think that finding a listing for camera equipment rentals here in London would be easy. Apparently I am losing my touch when it comes to Googling. Forest City Imaging has some but no prices. There has to be someone. I think after experimenting with indoor portraits this weekend I need some. And when I shoot the Sins at the end of the month for their promo stuff I might need some if it is inside. soft boxes mainly, a synch unit with remote flashheads. Anyone? Beuler?

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:35 [+] :: 0 comments
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Ambiguous turn down
photos: I recently applied to be a member of sportsshooter.com. It's a site where photo pros who mainly shoot sports can meet, network and such. Well turns out they don't like my pics and not specifically one or the other. The response was:

Technical Quality Of Images
Quality reasons include: Images are overly compressed; images are improperly
toned (too flat, too contrasty, have color balance problems, etc); images
are too dark/light. This also includes images that have been noticeably
retouched in Photoshop (backgrounds removed, the scene changed, 'special
effects' added, etc.)

The email said that I could resubmit within 48hrs. After that, my initial request would be deleted and I would have to start from scratch again and get someone to sponsor me again - the latter not being an issue luckily.

Since I don't know which image or images of the nine I submitted was at issue, or was done up too much, too little, cropped, retouched or too contrasty, I have no where to start. It is like The Price is Right. You want all the grocery items to add up to $8.67 or less. You can add and remove all the items you want, but there are only so many combinations that will work. And until get that combination right you can't win. In fact, since I know nothing about what they nitpicked over, it is tougher. I can guess what a can of soup costs... but this? M'eh. It's winter and there are no sports to shoot right now. And heck I prefer models anyway. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 01:15 [+] :: 0 comments
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Scarlet Sins


Nice eh? The Scarlet Sins are using my group shot in their promo for some upcoming shows this month. Saw it first on their Myspace.com site a few mins ago. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 02:32 [+] :: 0 comments
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Myspace. the new crack
blogging: Myspace, the friends and networking community online seems to have sucked me in. It is primarily aimed at teens and 20somethings, but it is a great location to do some informal networking. It is fairly arts oriented - lots of indie and mainstream bands have presences on myspace for instance. As I mentioned on the 30th of December, I created a site there and Myspace is a closed community when it comes to commenting on content, viewing some content, and posting messages. The owner of the site has to "Add" you before you can interact with the site other than just read. cuts down on comment spam.

It reminds me of the early days of the web in some respects, because you can edit your site template and make some gawd awful designs and garish colours and backgrounds and multiple fonts and clashing elements and streaming video and audio on by default ( till I found the option to turn it off in my profile, well I could go on. Some people seem interesting, but their sites are just too damn painful to read and look through. When the web was new this was commonplace. Going from text only to graphics made people OD. This has a similar feel. I might be making it out to be a hellish place, but it isn't really. It is low rent for sure and that is probably why I like it. :)

I only had a couple of people in my group initially, then started to search around and found that there were a few people at work, and then some photographers, and the Scarlet Sins, and Repair, and so on. I feel fake just sending 'Add requests' to people 'just because'. I am sure that there is already too much of that crap going on, but I did do it to a few people whom I found interesting and they added me. I even struck up an MSN conversation or two with someone who seems pretty cool and lives in the London area. And found someone else in London that Steph knows. Small world.

And then I discovered they have groups similar to newsgroups. So I subscribed to a few photography ones and started reading and posting to them. Then found there was one for photographers and models to let the world know they were there and looking for work. And I am the only one in Ontario in it - or will be when I finish crafting my calling card message. And curiously there is only one woman listed as a model in Ontario (Ottawa). And then I found a modelling site called one model place where photographers and models can list and locate each other.

Needless to say I have been completely sucked in by all of this over the last couple of days. I thought of posting about the Microsoft virus and then subsequent patch but that is now history. Or Gates doing his keynote at CES about Windows Vista. Or that I found this LED light that would be retarded to wear in the day but would kick ass if camping or needing light at night - say for fixing a flat tire.

I completed the editing of the pics for JJ and Sarah which they want to use as an insert in their wedding invites and mailed them off too. Took a few hours as I was distracted by the 5-0 drubbing we gave the Russians in the hockey on Thursday. I'll post a couple in the next while. And since I have not had any other modelling opportunities recently, I decided to post a retrospective of sorts. One pic each of Mandy, Amanda, Kelly and Dawn from their sessions in the late summer and fall. Going through the shots in their folders looking for new ones, I realized how much I have changed in terms of my eye for detail. Things in the images I didn't pic up on before are now catching my interest. And good pics are not so good as I see subtle flaws to be corrected or disgarded.

And for those keeping score, Mandy wins the views tally. Her 15 pics have been viewed over 5700 times since they were first posted in November! The Scarlet Sins come next with about 4500 hits in December alone. Not bad, eh? :)

And this blog has still to hit 30,000 hits. Flickr keeps chugging along at nearly 34,500 as of a little while ago. When they hit 50,000 each that will be cool. :)

I might set up my own photo site before the winter is out. Not abandon Flickr, just have a more pro presence on the internet. I might get someone to code it for me in exchange for some portraits. Soon I need to set up a set on Flickr of the best of the best. It is getting too big to just sift through. Use it as a starting point for sorting pics as well. I can certainly do it by views or favourites. And my personal favs too. Might take some time to build that set.

During the week, I managed to get a cold, and beat a cold, and move on from that. Mind over matter. Just a simple little Jedi mind trick and two days later it was done - "these are not the cold viruses I am looking for..." :)

Watched Ali with Wil Smith the other night as well. Good show that. Interesting biopic. Not sure how much is accurate, but I began to beleive he was Ali. And to give him credit, I never once thought of the Fresh Prince during the show. Not till writing this anyway. :)

Later everyone. Going to catch up on some of Carmi's blog which I have been neglecting for the past few weeks.


** excuse any spelling and inconsistencies. It's late. I might clean them up tomorrow depending how much I groan when I see them.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 02:02 [+] :: 0 comments
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179 till the TdF
cycling: Yeah. As I get pudgy while winter wears on, I realized via my Konfabulator countdown timer that it is exactly 179 days till the Tour de France begins. At this point, as the above poster indicates clearly, it's a Post Lance tour despite his maybe/maybe not comments in the fall. Will Jan win? Will Basso?



Following the progress around the map counter clock around France from July 1st to July 23rd will tell. And on July 18th they will be racing up L'Alpe d'Huez! Awesome.

Here are some details from the Official TdF site:

A prologue and 20 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,600 kilometres.

These 20 stages have the following profiles:
* 9 flat stages,
* 4 medium mountain stages,
* 5 mountain stages,
* 2 individual time-trial stages,

Distinctive aspects of the race
* 3 mountain finishes,
* 2 rest days,
* 116 kilometres of individual time-trials (including the prologue)
* 22 Category 1, Category 2 and highest level passes will be climbed

I watched last year's Tour de Flanders - a one day race held in April and nothing to do with Homer's neighbour - that I saved on the PVR for mid winter motivation. I also have 5 or 6 of the more exciting 2005 Tour stages. At 3 hours a piece, I figure by mid March I will be done with them and hopefully outside and riding again. Kelly and I talked about that the other day. First good (dry and roads free of snow) day we have off together we are going to go riding.

Nothing like watching Discovery, T-Mobile, CSC, FDJ, and the others go at it on European country roads and cobblestones and 15% hills while there is snow outside here. It motivates you to build a time travel machine. And get back to the gym. When this cold - which I have aquired yesterday - is out of my system, I am there.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:13 [+] :: 1 comments
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Russian urban Climbing
video: this guy is completely nuts. But it certainly a product of the former Soviet Union's passion for gymnastics. He is beyond impressive in his stunts. This 8 min video is worth the watch . Takes the term 'no fear' to new heights. Pun intended.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:47 [+] :: 1 comments
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New years fill of TV.
life: Decided to stay in despite having a couple of offers to go out. And I thought it might be interesting to go to Victoria Park and take some pics there of the live music and such. I had gone by during the day and it was cold and damp at that point. I took some disappointing shots of the Holy Roller Sherman tank with the Olympus point n shoot and came home before dark. Once in and full of dinner and nice n warm, staying in seemed to be the better option instead of going stag to a party or going to the Salt Lounge and lining up and paying some stupid cover which was plan B.

As I had promised someone that I would not spend the evening editing pictures so I decided to catch up on some TV and podcasts. Seeing the Sherman, I decided to watch Hart's War that I had PVR'd last week from the History Channel. It's set in a German Luftstallag around the time of the Battle of the Ardennes. Not a bad movie and apparently technically accurate in terms of the prison details.

I watched all of the episodes of the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series on TeleToon from like 8-12pm. And interspersed in there was some OCC bike building, and UFC. And while doing that I framed some pics to swap out some of what I have on my walls, and on my desk at work. I had printed out a few shots of the Scarlet Sins and my neice too and they turned out pretty OK.

One pain in the ass is some Ikea frames matt sizes. They are wierd. Not 8x10. 8x 10 1/4. Which means none fit. I might get a couple retrofitted at some point since I like the frame thickness.

I also listened to about 10 episodes of the Adam Curry's Daily Source Code. I seem to listen to them in batches. And am still behind: I am still at the end of October for the shows!

With four days off, I cleaned up the apartment this weekend and sorted and tossed a fair bit of stuff - I better not miss the recycling this week. And will bring in some magazines and stuff to work for the lunch room.

At the laundromat at one point on Friday afternoon when transferring the contents from washers to heavy dryers - nice and clean comforter covers and linen's y'all - I couldn't figure out what the nasty smell was. There was no one around me and I had showered - ;) - so I know it wasn't me. It was the unmistakable smell of massive B.O and stale cigarettes and Nicotine that you normally associate with homeless people. I came across a few instances of this doing security on the central Toronto harbourfront in the late 80s and early 90s when the place was a lot more industrial than it is now. Then I located the source when he and his associate came in to swap their stuff over. This guy reeked.

The clothes he was wearing had that through and through absorbed look of someone who worn the same dress shirt for weeks on end. Not the dirtiest clothes, but in a laundromat where normally wash soap and Bounce anti fabric sheets - and great toasted sandwiches - permeate the air it stood out. And he was obviously jumped up on something from his agitated state and scrawny, sallow appearance. His friend was probably taking him to do the laundry and keeping an eye on him during the process, but he was making people a little uncomfortable and furtive glances were made towards him as he kept going outside for smokes. One of the joys of doing laundry non-ensuite style.

While having lunch at the Market Grill on the 30th, I was told - albeit indirectly - that I am too old to date someone in their mid to late 20s! It was the first time in my life that I had been told that I was too old for something or someone. I know it was only one woman's opinion and stemmed out of their frustration of being messaged constantly on LavaLife by older men (read: My Age) and no it wasn't me... I dunno. While it was unintentional, it was a little unsettling and initially affected me more than I would have thought. I guess it was something I didn't really need to hear. I know age, and age difference, is in the eye of the beholder's, and it's how you feel and all that. But it was a first.

Grumpy ol' man indeed. :)

But that was last year. On with 2k6.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 19:43 [+] :: 3 comments
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Have a safe and happy New Year everyone!

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 17:41 [+] :: 0 comments
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Myspace site
blogging: OK, like I need another site. I already have this one, Flickr, a lame one on MSN spaces, and now one on myspace.com. I created the Myspace so I can interact with bands and musicians. Myspace is a closed community when it comes to commenting on content and posting messages. The owner of the site has to "Add" you before you can interact with the site other than just read. A good deal of bands have a presence on Myspace (as well as their own websites) and since I am making a go of doing some band photography it was a logical choice. Now if I can only figure out how to edit the colour and background of the lame default page without doing so much HTML. I can change the blog portion, but not the main part with my profile. and Sherry, you thought I was talking about the MSN spaces site, right? :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:39 [+] :: 2 comments
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If you want to make an apple pie from scratch... you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:58 [+] :: 0 comments
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does it come in a giant egg?
cool stuff: I read this post over at the Official Google Blog about one of the Googlers who ordered some Silly Putty. A whole lot of silly putty. Imagine having 250lbs of it sitting on your desk? :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 13:41 [+] :: 0 comments
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I know a whole week.
blogging: I know it has been a whole week since I posted. my bad. But in fairness I have been working the whole time with the exception of Christmas Eve.

I drove to Toronto on the 24th in the afternoon and had dinner with my brother's family. First time in a while I have had a family Christmas dinner. And first time ever with two children under the age of 4. I found it entertaining being the uncle and such and visiting for the day. I had wanted to take some pics of my neice and nephew, but only Jillian, pictured above, was in a cooperative mood. I was showing my brother how my camera works, and turns out he has a Canon Powershot, 3.2MP I think. I was explaining how you can change ISO, and shutter speeds and so on and my brother was clicking and pressing buttons on his camera and taking test pics. And when it came to us taking a pic of the kids under the tree the Powershot wouldn't take pics anymore. :) I reset it as much as I could, but didn't see a restore to factory defaults button. It took pics after that, but I thought I was in the dog house for encouraging him to do that. heheh.

After the kids were finally in bed - that part I recall from Morgan's kids on Christmas eve - we were able to chat and such without constant interuptions of one sort or another. Murray's long time friend Dave and his girlfriend were over at that point and we chatted and snacked on some excellent President's Choice hors d'oeuvres until around 1130 or so. Most of that time me in an Ikea chair with a cat named Ohio on my lap.

Driving home there were no weather issues. But on the QEW near Missisauga line, I saw two cars and then a third shoot past me in the outside lane and then weave in and out of the traffic across three or four lanes easily doing 160. Flow of traffic was the usual 120 or so and they were out of sight in seconds. I called 911 and spoke to the OPP dispatch and told them what I had observed. I doubt they were caught as they could have been off any one of a half dozen exits even before I gave the description. There is speeding and then there is speeding. And this would have been like one of those Worst Police Chases videos you see on tv for all of it's danger. And none had a red nose and none were sleighs. :)

I was still on the 403 when it turned into Christmas morning and I said a brief 'hey' to my mom who passed away Christmas morning of '98. This time of year I think of her and my dad frequently. Now they are not around, and not having a family I prefer to not do the Christmas thing. I went into the whole thing last year in depth and so I won't do it again, but Christmas is just another day to work for me.

I spent some non work time time editing pictures of the Scarlet Sins and the whole lot are on Flickr now. Over the two shows, I have 26 good pics. And finally some really good ones of Karli - the drummer.

I also watched a couple of really good CBC News programs. The Queen's Castle - about Winsdor Castle - which I had seen parts of before. I could spend days there shooting pics when there are events on, or even when there are not. And a Passionate Eye on war/combat phototographers which was intense. It was interviews with at least a dozen photogs from Reuters, AP, VII and a bunch of others who have seen some of the worst humality has to offer and lived (sometimes only just) to tell about it. Some of the photos were insane in their power to move. I am pretty sure I wouldn't want to go to Chechnia and be shot at by direct Russian tank fire, or watch rebels in central Africa use a prisoner's decapitated head as a soccer ball, or see babies mutated by agent orange usage in south East Asia, but the images they pass on to us and the stories they tell are important ones.

Louise at work brought in for me a coffee table book called John Lennon: The New York Years by photog John Gruen. It is made up of shots of John and Yoko taken in their New York neighbourhood in the 1970s. Incredible access. There are some awesome photos in this book. Even if you just want to learn how to photograph couples and just people casually doing their thing, this is a good study book. And the fact that it has an interesting subject matter makes it all the better. I might pick it up one of these days.

Lastly, I have been trying to figure out how I can get to do some more band photography. Access is the key and I am hoping I can get a breakthrough. Snowball's chance stuff, but who knows. I have found that 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained' is as good a saying as Carpe Diem. And the photos of the Scarlet Sins sure make nice calling cards.

Edit: Oh and one last thing. Turns out I have New Year's day off as well and NY Eve. I didn't recall booking it off, so now I have four in a row. Longest time off since my Newfoundland trip. And since I didn't recall that, I have no plans. Could have done something with it, but a little last minute and no one to do it with either. ah well. Time off is still time off. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:27 [+] :: 0 comments
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Sins city.

Photos: I started to look at the images I shot in Cambridge on Thursday. Some good ones and some better ones. This is an early image of Karli playing behind her drum kit. It is cluttered with the tools of the trade. Not a clear image of her for sure, but I really like it. I'll post some more to flickr over the next couple of days.

Fiddler's Green is a big bar in a small town. One of the places where everyone hangs it seems. The stage was in the back overlooking the river and a much better set up. And the crowd was different than in Toronto. Where there they were crowding the stage at the Bovine, in Cambridge they were spaced at least ten or more feet from it across the dance floor. I had lots of room to work from both sides of the stage. And also from the wings on stage left which was where their gear was. In retrospect I knew this was going to happen and there is only so much post production you can do to counter it, but I need a flash diffuser. I will have to order one as they don't seem to be available around here. Some of the shots were blown out. I did shoot at at ISO 800 which made for grainy shots and they worked best in black and white for the most part.

I also found that the 420EX eats batteries. I had 4 fresh Duracells in there. I took well over 100 images spaced out over however long they were on stage, and with a few exceptions they all used the flash. When they were done their set, and while debating whether I would stay for the next band (I didn't), I thought I would change batteries for fresh ones as the recycle lag was increasing a little bit. I popped the batteries out and they were hot. Not warm from being in a pocket sort of temp, but really hot. I wasn't going to burn the fingers on them but I knew they had been put through a serious workout so they had to go. Insane. I am going to get a recharger. Even Costco bulk batteries wouldn't be cheap at this rate. :)

Cris let me know of a photo shoot concept they are working on for the end of January that they would like me to do. Too damn cold outside for this so they are going to have to procure a location. While talking about this I found myself passing on photo advice to someone who was also shooting pics and had seen my shots from the Bovine, and also impressed someone else who was jealous of my access. I gave him a card and he was blown away that he could see some of the pics I shot. Told his friend excitedly as he showed him the card. :)

I also found that while I was waiting and chatting with Cris as they signed CDs that I had struck a pose that I saw Karl Grobl (a photojournalist) doing in a Sandisk ad seen currently in a few photo mags. I was doing it unconsciously and I think that it was pretty funny. But that is how you naturally hold a camera with arm crossed when you are leaning on something. And yeah I use the same Sandisk UltraII cards and Canon gear. Though 350D Canon isn't like his pro one. :)

Heading to Toronto tomorrow. Have a Merry Christmas everyone!


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 23:42 [+] :: 0 comments
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Leanne and Hannah
photos: I put up on Flickr a couple of BW shots from Leanne's family portrait session. Turned out OK I think. One of my tests appear to be whether a pic turns up as an MSN icon. Passed that test. :)

For some reason, I had no Leanne set, so there is one now.

Thanks for the Christmas present too, Leanne! :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 13:25 [+] :: 0 comments
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Off for three days
life: I am off for three days and go back to work on Christmas morning. I didn't request it off. Wouldn't have been doing anything anyways. No big deal. Better I don't take up a time off slot of someone who has a family and doesn't get to visit with them if that is important to them. Anyhow. Going to shoot some pics of Leanne today and then going down to Cambridge for the Scarlet Sins show. Have not really explored Cambridge before so I think it could be good to go in the afternoon when it is light and then go to the show around 930 at the Fiddler's Green at 12 1/2 Water Street.

Not much planned for Friday - though checking out the 24 hour Walmart sounds interesting. Mandy did that last night after seeing it on the news. Good idea. Though I can see the staff not liking it. Saturday, I am going up to Toronto to have Christmas eve dinner with my brother's family. So expect all sorts of pics in the next few days.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:58 [+] :: 0 comments
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The Apprentice: L.A.?
entertainment: The next season of The Apprentice will be set in LA. while this is better than a spin off ( a la Martha) I wonder if this is the death knell of the series. The formula and New York scenery works well. And Trump is New York. He is a New York realestate tycoon (do people still use 'tycoon'?) and not an LA one. Though I know he has properties there as well. Not quite a jump the shark moment. Yet. Apply here.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:42 [+] :: 0 comments
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John Spencer died last week
entertainment: John Spencer, one of the anchors of the ensemble cast of The West Wing died of a heart attack on the 16th of December. I didn't even know. Shows how much I have detached myself from keeping up with current events.

He was on The West Wing from the first day as the fictional President's tough as nails chief of staff Leo McGarry and played that role though the better part of six seasons. More recently, in a strange parallel to his actual life, his character suffered a heart attack and had to scale back his work. His role was downgraded to occasional appearances and then built back up. He returned as a central character towards the end of last season as the democratic party's vice presidential candidate (opposite Jimmy Smits). He portrayed a really intense, believable character and was a passionate actor.

It should be interesting to see what the writers do to turn this around. But regardless, I am sure he will be missed. And when the characters look pained the next time when this is woven into the plot, they won't be acting.

That really sucks.


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:11 [+] :: 0 comments
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Narnia Rap
video: This hilarious video was on SNL on the weekend. This was probably the funniest thing the SNL thing they have done in years. Two white guys rapping about The Chronicles of Narnia. Excellent.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:44 [+] :: 0 comments
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1 Billion customers served
net life: The internet has over 1 billion users. 1 Billion. That is a crazy amount. 1/6th of the world's population uses the internet. Not bad growth for something that didn't exist outside of the military/ ivory towers in a mainstream way 12 years ago.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:41 [+] :: 0 comments
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Yahoo! podcasts
podcasting: Yahoo! recently introduced a podcasting page. Check it out here.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:27 [+] :: 0 comments
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extreme egg peeling
video: hate peeling hard boiled eggs? Check out this video. What I would like to know is how he came up with the idea?

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:22 [+] :: 0 comments
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Detroit Funk
photoblog: The Detroit Funk photoblog has some interesting shots of abandoned buildings and decay in the Detroit area along with some other cool shots and descriptions of the city. The only time decay and destruction and abandonement is cool is in photos I think.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:43 [+] :: 0 comments
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the balance tipped
Blogging: Sometime yesterday afternoon, the number of stream views on Flickr crossed 29500. And that meant that it had exceeded the number of views on my blog here which at that point was at 29419. It took Blogger 33 months to get to the point that Flickr took ten months. Perhaps it is Flickr's ability to cross post images to other photo groups and is an easier means of exposure of my work - no pun really intended. I am by no means one of the big posters with huge traffic on Flickr, but it is not unusual to have 100 views a day or more depending on what I post. And sometimes many more hits on the individual pictures.

Been a fun ride so far and I am certainly liking both, though as anyone can tell that my output here has diminished due to the photography. I am trying to balance both, as I started this blog out of the frustration of not being able to be a published writer in other media. But of course now I can punctuate my words with great pictures - now and then. Which is a perfect way to illustrate a story.

Keep warm everyone. Especially if taking photos like the one above. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:44 [+] :: 0 comments
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Ted Rogers: Unwitting accompice to terrorism.
tech: Ted Rogers, the CEO of the Rogers cable/cellular/internet etc company, has apparently had his cell phone cloned by middle eastern terrorists and used to make tens of thousands dollars worth of call. It wasn't stopped by Rogers' security because they were reluctant to turn off his or any of the senior VP's numbers due to inconvenience factors. More from this Globe and Mail piece.

*** I published this earlier today by mistake to my Blogger test blog I created a long time ago to experiment with other templates. ooops. sorted it out now... :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 23:12 [+] :: 0 comments
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No CRV group on Flickr. till now
photography: I was quite surprised there was no Honda CRV group on flickr. Lots of groups that have Honda in the description but not one for the CRV. So I created the Honda CRV group. I did a bit of advertizing and searched the tags on Flickr for "CRV" and commented on a few pics of CRVs people had posted and suggested they join the group. Right now it's just me, one other member and eight photos (all mine), but you have to start somewhere. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 18:59 [+] :: 0 comments
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ditched
misc: So I went for a drive and ended up in a ditch. How you ask? Well, I went north on Adelaide out of the city looking for a spot where I could take pictures. I had a location in mind in the fall and wanted to see how it looked with snow. It was pretty windy out, and some of snow sculpted mounds on the side of the road and fields were having fine mists of snow coming off them horizontally. I thought it would be cool to take a couple of pics of one particular snow feature. With the intention of turning around to go back to one, I made a right off Adelaide St. North onto eight Mile Road. It was slippy going into the intersection and I took the turn wide on the empty country road.

I went down about 50m looking for a good spot to turn around and do a three point turn. Well, as I slowed to make the turn, I really didn't slow and went into wheel well deep snow. It looked solid but I was right over the edge of the drainage ditch on the south side of the road. I tried to rock back and forth out and only had the front left wheel with any purchase. I was bottomed out. I had a sip of my still hot Tim Horton's coffee, and went out to survey the scene.

The CRV had a good roll angle to it - too much to keep the driver's door open Rear right was in the deepest snow. I got my shovel out of the cargo area and dug out all around the deepest side and as much of what I could front and back, but I was pretty bottomed out.

I got back in and my maneuvering only buried myself deeper in the ditch - illustrated above. I was now at least two feet further off the road sideways and the front right was deepest in. I gave up. I went around and took a few pictures - of course. If I had gone much further it was mid thigh deep judging from my walkabout shooting pics. I sat inside for a few minutes drinking my coffee and mulled my options. CAA could show but it could also be hours. I thought I would call Leanne and hope Chris and his Jeep were still at home. They were.

Several SUVs and pick ups turned off Adelaide and came to see if I was OK. And - much to my chagrin when I told them I was fine ,they made perfect 3 point turns and left without incident!

Chris had already pulled one person out today and I was his second. He showed up in his Jeep about 20 mins after I called Leanne initially. He pulled me out with no problem what-so-ever. Much appreciative. This was the first time in the nearly 5 years I have driven CRVs that I managed to ditch myself. I don't think any damage was done. Lots of snow on the undercarriage and wheel wells. But that should be melted off tomorrow after I park in the underground at work all day.

Not how I intended to spend my afternoon. But what the hey. It's all good when you have friends with big ass jeeps. Thanks Chris!

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 17:58 [+] :: 1 comments
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sportsshooter.com submissions
photos: I spent part of the evening working on the photographs I wanted to use for the sports shooter.com submission. I have to select five or more images that are representative of what a sports photographer would shoot. I have some good shots from UWO, from the Boler Mountain cycling, Delaware Speedway, and a few others. Dave Chidley made some suggestions on my portfolio images as I mentioned last week, and I tried to incorporate some of this into my selections. Some members of the site don't have purely sports images so I might include a couple of portraits too.

SportsShooter.com is an online community and resource for sports photographers and other working photojournalists. - from the sportsshooter.com site description. And every aspiring photog or aspiring sports journalist, seems to know about this site and use it as a club or community, and peer information exchange venue. There are some fantastic folks on the site - some who are college sports photographers like Kirk Irwin.

Just need to hear back from them so I can get in and pick the brains and get the critiques and tips and well you get the idea.


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:51 [+] :: 0 comments
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old school.
Photos: this is me when I was a Trooper in 1 Troop, B Squadron, of the Queen's York Rangers. The reserve armoured reconaissance regiment was and is based out of Ft. York Armouries on the Toronto waterfront near the Canadian National Exhibition grounds. With A Squadron based out of the Aurora Armouries north of Toronto.

At the time this image was taken in August of 1992 or 1993, we were doing annual summer training excercises near Meaford and Owen Sound in Central Ontario. I think we were doing roadblock duty on a rural road waiting to stop vehicles who were potentially OpFor (opposition forces). Wasn't much of that going on so it was good opportunity to brew up some tea and snap some pics.

I always had my camera with me. At the time it was a black Olympus stylus point and shoot 35mm camera. It fit perfectly in the chest pocket of my combats and took a lot of abuse.

*** If you have any film that you don't want to spend a fortune on converting to digital, go to Walmart and get it put on to CD. I had 100+pics done for under $5 CDN. And in an hour. Which is about a 1/10th Henry's would have charged. And Henry's will only put 20 pics on each CD and charge steep for the media. Now, if were talking quality super high res film scans with multi MB file sizes, then sure go to a pro, but to put some old pics up on the net that was a super bargain. Expect more pics sometime soon. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 18:08 [+] :: 1 comments
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New Asimo
tech: check out these videos of the new Asimo robot from Honda. The way Honda geeks are going, this thing will be supersized and wearing missiles and chain guns and battle armour in a few years. Requires Flash plugin player for your browser, but it's worth it.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 13:02 [+] :: 0 comments
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Is it a bad sign when...
life: you are asleep and dreaming about being in the America's Top Model house during a photoshoot?Of course my 'house' was a fairly large Victorian mansion and not a loft. For me, dreams are influenced a lot by what is on my mind right before bed. Since someone mentioned I watch it on their blog... I stay up late usually and ANTM is on the Life channel or something right before I crash. In one episode of cycle 5 (yeah I know too much about this show now) Tyra herself took some black and white portrait shots of the girls and they were very good. They were intense and the tinting and post production was awesome. I would like to try that, I thought. So of course I emailed Tyra at her bankable productions web site and asked her/them for info on those shots. I figure I have no statistical likleyhood of hearing back from her/them, but what the heck. I was curious. And I can also find no copies of those particular pics online anywhere on that series' site. And what is with UPN using Realplayer for its videos? Who uses that anymore?

Oh, I also got word from two of the members of the Pariahs that they liked the shots I posted and they would likely include them on their site when a redesign was done, and said I could get comp'd in if I want to shoot them again. Nice.

Just got to get the ugly rockers off my front page and get some more pretty girls to model for me. :)

Damn I hate winter.


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:04 [+] :: 0 comments
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Last of the Sins show posted
photos: I put up the last of the Scarlet Sins show pics in their own set on Flickr. And the Sins are using the group shot currently on their Myspace.com site.

I think that these were the best of the lot. I chose the sepia tone colouring for most of them because I tend to like the effect for portraits. It adds something. And some of the backdrop and such was washed out or kinda crap looking and I wanted to make sure the girls really stood out. Which they do anyway. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 02:41 [+] :: 0 comments
...

Back from Toronto
photos: I got back from Toronto late this evening (Saturday night). It was a successful trip. Got to see Darren; and my brother Murray, my sis-in-law Nancy and my cool niece and nephew; Steph & Luke; Dawn; Mandy (she is everywhere!); and of course the Scarlet Sins.

I drove down mid day on Friday and checked into the hotel. I was supposed to meet Darren for dinner but he was under the weather (I met him for a coffee Saturday afternoon instead). I had a couple of drinks in The Traders bar and watched some flat screen before changing to go to the Bovine. I showed up around ten PM after cab-ing it. Sound checks were done and only a few folks were inside. Small venue, long narrow and rectangular with the stage up front and the bar running down one side (from directly infront of stage right. Front of the stage was a narrow space about six feet wide, and blocked with speakers and steps. Steph and Luke were already there and she intro'd me to the girls. I wanted to get some shots as a group before they went on, and I liked the above one taken near the patio doors in the back. Nice colour shifted sepia toned one.

Going Left to Right in the above image is Yvonne (Bass, Back up vocals), Karli (Drums, Back up vocals), Cris (Guitar, Back up vocals), and Sylvia (vocals). They are very cool and really rock. The location wasn't the best for a shot like this, but I made do. And later on Saturday while driving around, I found a great area to shoot more pics of them and or Repair at another time.

There were two other bands on before them, Hostile Takeover, The Pariahs. I wasn't set up for the first group, but I asked Loaf - the guitarist of The Pariahs, if I could shoot some shots- and he was cool with that.

I used the time to get used to the venue but there was a drawback to this which I will explain shortly. The Pariahs lead singer Mikey was a really animated guy who vaguely reminded me of a guy I knew in the army way back when. And he punctuated the end of some of his songs by dropping vertically a semi full beer into the steps gap between the floor speakers and the monitors. Nice.

When The Scarlet Sins were up, I tried a couple of stage right (crowd left) shots but there was a pole in the way. So I ended up (it was really packed in the Bovine by this point) going into the aforementioned steps area in front of the speakers. The crowd behind. I felt privileged, but it was ballsy. And I knew I was blocking the other point and shooters now and then despite being crouched down. So I had a good view. Though it was restrictive in it's own way. Sylvia is tall ( in a very attractive sort of way), but with me below stage level, I ended up getting some shots like this which only accentuated her long lines. I was effectively trapped in an envyous location and wasn't going to give up my primo spot to maybe get an angle elsewhere.

Back to the drawback. Shooting The Pariahs, I used up some battery power for the 420EX flash. It was taking longer than I would have liked to cycle and get ready when shooting the Sins. This was the longest repeated flash use I had put it through, and with cheap WalMart bought Rayovak batteries, they were toast in no time. And my bag with the replacements was tucked away no where near me. I have Energizers in the flash now, and I also have some Duracells to try out. But this was annoying ( and totally my fault). I won't make this oversite again. End result was I probably only got half as many pics of the girls I would have liked when they were performing. And no matter where I was up front, I couldn't get any good unobstructed shots of Karli - who I found quite photogenic and would definitely try to get some shots of again performing or otherwise.

And was it loud? Yes. Good loud, but loud. You try being between speakers for about 30+ mins (with or without earplugs)... ringing ears.

I had the Sins sign one of their EP CDs they were releasing (one of only 500). When I got back to London, I gave it to Nadine who couldn't go to the show. I told her when I dropped it off that the only catch was that she couldn't play the five tracks on it in a continuous loop when her mom was around. :)

The Sins are playing again in Cambridge on the 22nd and I have that as one of my normal days off. Not sure if I will go again, but hey I might.

Only three Sins pics posted so far, and none of The Pariahs. Yet.

Later.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 01:03 [+] :: 0 comments
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Interesting conversation
photos: This evening, I met up with Dave Chidley, the Staff Photographer for the London Free Press. We had a coffee and talked shop. He offered me some good advice on the business, and gave me some solid feedback on the photos in my portfolio. It was interesting seeing what the trained eye comes up with that my amateur one didn't even after looking at several images dozens and dozens of times. While his opinion of the shots were only one opinion, I tend to agree that they could be improved even still. Cropping and composition. Need to work on that. Shooting the not so obvious. He was very forthcoming and let me know I could pick his brains. I like that. Seems like a good solid guy. I look forward to meeting up with him again.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 23:54 [+] :: 0 comments
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OK. enough for now.
blogging: OK. I thought I had a few more posts in me, but I have finished watching the ATM: where are they now show, the news, the Victoria Secret behind the scenes show, and an episode of Over There.

I love the PVR.

Later today is my Friday. And then three days off. Can't wait.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 02:03 [+] :: 0 comments
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London Ontario Flickr Group
photos: Did I ever mention that there is a London, Ontario Flickr Group? I created it in the beginning of August and since then it has expanded to 20 members (which ain't much. where are all you Londoners with digicams?)

After a while, I found that the group was a little restrictive in it's geography (mainly I wanted to post pics from outside the city) so I expanded it to allow pics from anywhere in South West Ontario that doesn't already have a group. There is an Ontario: your's to Discover group, and a small rural Ontario group, but nothing for down this way that seems to capture what the area has to offer. I seem to post the most, but it is interesting how others capture the city and region that I now call home.

And in a side note, I belong to a rediculous 206 groups on Flickr. Which means I can post relevent images to those groups I choose to share my work with. Initially I didn't do that and didn't cross post or anything, so the older images didn't get too many views. I have gone back and posted older images to groups and got some nice comments. I have found I seem to really get a kick out of the comments. It is encouraging and so far relatively positive. I have met online some really good photographers, and I know my friends that model for me enjoy the feedback too. Luckily I have only deleted a couple of instances of spam and nonsense.

And in a second side note, sometime this month - perhaps in the next ten days or so, the stream views (which are separate from individual image views) on my Flickr will surpass the hits on this blog. It took two years and nine months to get to nearly 30,000 hits here, and since February of this year, my Flickr has had nearly 27,000 views. And recently it has been averaging about 1000 views every 10 days or less. Small on some people's scales, but I like those numbers. :)

Thanks to everyone who has come by and visited one, or the other, or both! :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 01:29 [+] :: 0 comments
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Naked Conversations
blogging: Robert Scoble's book is out in Jan of 06 and it is called Naked Conversations. It is about blogging. A good and positive review is over at Guerrilla Consulting:

The book itself is like a blog on steroids, but with a natural thread through the topics that leads the reader easily from one subject to the next. It’s more of a conversation than a traditional book.

I look forward to having a read when it is out.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 00:32 [+] :: 0 comments
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TK421
sci fi: tk421 was the 'trooper in star wars with the radio problem on the Death Star's hangar bay. But you knew that didn't you? Well over at tk421.net you can find out what sci fi character you would be.

Apparently I am... James Freaking Tiberius Kirk! How cool is that!

From the description of Kirk on the site: "An impassioned commander with more respect for individuals than for authority, you have a no-holds-barred approach to life and its obstacles." and his quote: " I don't believe in the no-win scenario."

The Kobayashi Maru, indeed.

Who are you?

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 00:12 [+] :: 1 comments
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Brit Museum online.
History:Check this out. I found it on Wil in Exile. It is a series of excerpts of ancient books in the collection of the British Museum in London, England. I went there once about 18 years ago and the place is staggering. This online version has cool stuff with narration as well. I spent some time looking through The First Atlas of Europe drawn by Mercator. They open via javascript popups and require Flash. But it is worth it if you are into cool historical things.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 00:05 [+] :: 0 comments
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WWdN fubar'd
blogging: OK. As an illustration in how much I have simply been sucked into Flickr and not going to check out other people's blogs, I just noticed that Wil Wheaton's WWdN site has been on hold due to technical problems since Sept 29! He created a site called WWdN: In Exile in typepad instead for the past two months. I guess I didn't get the memo or it didn't have the TPS cover sheets on it. :)

Updating the links on the left for the new Wil. And in case anyone noticed, I went through the links and deleted some and added others. I am going to put more photography related stuff on there at some point. Perhaps this weekend.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:25 [+] :: 0 comments
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Going to Toronto Friday
photos: It's confirmed. I am heading up the 401 to Toronto on Friday at some point and shooting pics of the Reborn CD release show that the Scarlet Sins are having at the Bovine at 542 Queen Street West. Needless to say that conflicts with the xmas party at work, but this could be fun. Work-like, but fun. From what I have heard and what Steph has told me, these girls rock out.

Steph facilitated it and I am appreciative. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 22:45 [+] :: 0 comments
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Repair
music: Went to see Dawn and Repair perform on Saturday night at the Alex P Keaton pub here in town. Small venue. It was great to see Dawn and I showed her my book - she hadn't seen her printed pics in it -only on screen to this point. She was quite pleased and liked the pics of Mandy and Kelly too amongst others. I met her brother and his girlfriend too (she is going to Fanshawe next year for photography). I brought the camera and took a couple of pics. Wasn't a huge ton as it would have been annoying to the people watching in the pub and I was self conscious of that. Came up with a couple that were ok. One of which is above.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:38 [+] :: 2 comments
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Christmas program on CBC
seasons: I was listening to the annual Christmas contest program on the Vinyl Cafe on CBC Radio One earlier today. I started to listen to the CBC, and specifically the Sunday noon Vinyl Cafe a lot when I came to live in London in the end of 1998. For those of you who don't know the program, Stewart tells some great stories and has some good musical guests and travels from town to town all over Canada and does the show live in front of an audience. The Christmas contest program has two elements.

First is playing the "Dave cooks the turkey" story from quite a few years ago. I heard this story before and despite knowing the whole thing it is a good listen. And is so funny. For those of you who have not heard it, it involved one of his story characters forgetting to get a turkey for christmas for his family and how he needed to get it cooked before he got in trouble. Twists and turns.

The second part - and is certainly live given the challenges at times, is where he attempts to get in touch with the winner of the postcard mail in where the mother corp will fly the winner from their home town to one of the live Christmas shows they put on. In the past it has been tough and no one is home, gets voicemail and so on. This time, the winner was a guy who used to live in Canada and now teaches on Hainan island in the South China Sea. The communications via the satellite bounce was crystal clear and flawless. Better than some phone calls across the city on a cell phone. And the winner was blown away. He could come home for Christmas and make it easier to bring presents to his friends and family. Pretty cool. Kind of a tradition for me this time of year. Don't have many - and that's fine with me - as I usually skip most of the xmas stuff.

Anyhow. I had today off. I thought it might be the work Christmas party and booked it off well in advance of knowing the specific date, but it is on another day instead of Sunday. And it turns out I might not go anyway as I might be in Toronto.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:55 [+] :: 0 comments
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A quick tale of shopping caution
shopping: Thomas Hawk, who has a blog and is one of the better photogs on Flickr posted about an experience he had trying to purchase a camera body online from an outfit called PriceRitePhoto - which I won't link to. It was pretty bad. Tried to screw him over in a big way. And the camera was an expensive Canon 5D. And when you have a wide readership or viewers word gets around. Within a couple of days it was one of the top stories on /. His two pic posts on Flickr are here and here, and have a read of his Flickrnation blog post too. Might be a story in it for you Carmi.

What it boils down to is that you should do some serious research before doing a big purchase online. And take the reviews with a grain of salt.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:05 [+] :: 0 comments
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the teeth of the matter
stuff: Have an issue with my teeth. One in particular. A rear right lower molar. I mentioned this last Friday. I went and spoke to the DDS who poked and x-ray'd and such and she said that she could extract or possibly do a root canal but it was going to be pretty messy and so she was referring me to an oral surgeon. If the tooth needed extracting, the roots were curled and would be a tough job. And as there was a slice missing from the tooth it was indicative of problems so it could shatter. I did the "stop talking now" gesture and she said she would see what we could do for an appointment. I received a call on Monday saying my appointment would be tomorrow, Dec 2. I thought it was going to be the consult but the surgeon wants to extract it. And I want to be knocked out for it. (I am going to see if they could take a pic of me unconscious as that would be interesting but I don't know if they will go for it).

Anyhow. Long story short. A timeframe for a consult was not a good time frame for a procedure as I had no one available to stay with me and take me home as per their guidelines. I called them back and after a bit of back and forth where they said they don't do afternoon procedures, I found they do in fact do them. And so Tuesday Dec 13th will be the day now. This will mean taking the day off work and likely the day after. No real pain at the moment, just discomfort and gingerly eating of foods. A nuisance too.

Morgan helped me snap out if my fear of dentists while going through this. And has helped me get centred on "Now" instead of obsessing over what could happen and such. And recommended an interesting book called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle which I picked up from Chapters and started to read a couple of days ago. The excercises in the first couple of chapter he describes to block out all the 'noise' and stray thoughts are standard meditation stuff, but he writes very conversationally and it is easy to understand. And not so difficult to put into practice. I look forward to finishing the book over the next while.

I found it curious - there are no coincidences after all - that as I was reading it, my eyes fell on the century old greenish black bronze Buddha that sits prominently on a large side table I have. Not sure how many of these particular figures are out there, but it came from Kobe Japan and was cast from a mold that was destroyed in an early 20th century earthquake there. It is about 16 inches tall, weighs just over 10 lbs, and I belieive it is modelled after the Great Buddha of Kamakura though I am not completly certain. Perhaps taking some pictures of this particular Buddha are in order.

It came into my posession via my mom's side of the family. I had always known this Buddha as one of the objects belonging to my grandmother, and later after she passed away it sat rather dusty on a shelf in my parents house for years. When I got into my family history a few years back I found out that my grandparents lived in Japan in the interwar period. That was where my mom and two uncles were born. My grandfather worked for the British Steel industry there. And as any good and loyal british subject would do was reporting intelligence on Japanese steel usage and warship building back to MI-6 in the UK.

They evacuated to England before the commencement of hostilities at the end of the 1930s, but took with them a great deal of fine porcelain and other items they had accumulated after living there for many years. Some of these items, "the family china" for instance, I have now. When I began to research the plates and saucers and such at my father's request before he passed away, I realized that some of them were in fact even then close to a century old - some much older. And each piece sometimes worth a considerable amount. We used them on occasion as childen to eat off and I found that staggering. And Cool.

Only once as an adult, at a holiday dinner than Morgan and I hosted, did we use a great deal of the Arita style blue and white china plates (similar to this), and the imari covered bowls (which are I believe are Meiji (1868-1912)period and look similar to this. Every place setting probably had a considerable value of china mixed and matched together. It was very cool to think that these settings had been used in all likelyhood in three distinct centuries - the 19th, 20th and 21st.

OK. Enough history for now. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:49 [+] :: 3 comments
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test drive the mustang
video: What some people might want to do when test driving a powerful car. Of course, you have to question what the salesperson was thinking when he let someone who said they had no licence test drive.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 13:04 [+] :: 0 comments
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Singularity
geek stuff: Singularity is an OS being worked on over at MSR (Microsoft Research). the kernel is being written in c#. check out the video on Channel Nine from a few months back.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:58 [+] :: 0 comments
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Arguing with people on the internet.
humour: Scott Adams has an interesting post on his blog from a couple of days ago about arguing with people on the internet. And more importantly how to 'win' those arguements. Or at the very least throw a curve ball. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:19 [+] :: 0 comments
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Upgrading iTunes software caution...
tech music: Jeremy Zawodny's blog has a cautionary tale about upgrading iTunes from version 4.9 to version 6.0. I had heard Adam Curry talk about this a while ago when it messed with his 1200 song music library and cloaked it. Songs were still there, but they were not accessible. As Jeremy says, it's a rant, but if you use iTunes and have not upgraded yet, check it out.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 12:02 [+] :: 0 comments
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Dentist
life: I have to go to the dentist later. Dreading it. Cracked a tooth eating pizza the other day. Pizza? yeah. hate dentists. Nothing personal. just avoiding pain is good. Of course avoiding pain is going to cause me some this afternoon. So if you see me drooling later it isn't sars or bird flu. ok? :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:59 [+] :: 1 comments
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Sony rootkit mayhem
spyware: Sony has included, according to this post on eclecticism and the related Wired News article, spyware with some of it's music that installs an app on Windows PCs that sends info back to Sony but leave computers wide open. And the removal of the 'rootkit' causes huge damage to the PC. Before you buy your next Sony labelled CD, think about what it could be doing.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:13 [+] :: 2 comments
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Christmas truce survivor dies
history: Back in WWI, on Christmas Day 1914, the guns fell silent and the British and German troops had an impromptu cease fire all across the Western Front. Christmas truces are not unheard of, but the fact that soldiers climbed out of the trenches and came over to greet each other was out of the ordinary. The opposing armies even played soccer and sang Christmas Carols together. Well, I read on CNN earlier in the week that the last known survivor of that Christmas truce, Alfred Anderson, a soldier in the Black Watch, died Monday at the age of 109 in England. I was quite surprised. It is amazing to think that there was until recently someone still alive who was an adult in that period of time. He was born in the 19th century and died in the 21st century. Think about it.

For those who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, Paul McCartney did a song called Pipes of Peace in 1983 and the video accompanying the song depicted the truce.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:51 [+] :: 1 comments
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Man it snowed.
blogging: It was the first real snowfall of the season last night and I think the white landscape might be around for a bit. There is a nice foamy beer head situation on top of the CRV at the moment and my snowbrush/scraper is no where to be found. I have everything else handy - but not the one thing that would be useful... Got some new snow boots which I will christen this afternoon when I go out too. And remember the cracked fog light that I found when I was in Strathroy a couple of weeks ago? Well to get it replaced means about 400 bucks since Honda only sells them in sets of two. They are the integrated in bumper style. Mor is trying to source just a lense, but I imagine that with the snow and ice in there now I am going to have some damage to the reflector too. sigh.

Picked up some business cards for the photography thing Wednesday from Staples. Would have come in handy Tuesday when I ran into someone who used to work with me and we briefly talked photography and neither of us had pen/paper for contact info. I think I got word to her through a friend, but not sure yet. That situation won't happen again.

In January, I am tentatively shooting a couple of Toronto bands Exit to Nowhere and possibly The Scarlet Sins too. I just need to find a location. I was thinking of going on a recce next week to see what I can find and get more details.

I imagine I will blog more later as it is pretty crappy outside.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:53 [+] :: 2 comments
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this time Last year
misc: One year and a couple of days ago, though it seems much more recently, I was standing in the Grand Canyon in Arizona and taking pictures like the one above and marvelling at the staggering beauty of tthis huge planet level geological scar. The sheer scale of the place, the colour of the red Earth, the wildlife... To think I captured it even partially on my old Olympus Stylus is surprising at all. I would be very much interested in going back to the GC now that I have some serious gear and I am taking some serious pictures.

I went to Niagara Falls this year in March around my birthday. In our room in the Bed and Breakfast that we stayed at, there was a large picture book of Ansel Adams - the noted black and white landscape photographer. I really like his work and think that I should start to convert some of my landscapes to BW. Including some of the ones that don't quite make it for me in colour. Hence posting this image taken from the South Rim of the GC on November 20th, 2004. I also included an image in my 'book' that I often have with me of the Rose Blanche lighthouse (the one that was at the Western Fair ) that I converted to BW as well. I like it as much as the original.

I was also prompted to go through the GC pictures again because while watching the relatively uninspiring Amazing Race -Family Edition yesterday, they were in Utah and visited Monument Valley Utah and flew over places like John Ford's Point in a Bell Jetranger, and rapelled off of Gemini Bridges in Moab. That looks like some serious countryside. One of the team members mentioned how boring Utah is "100s of thousands of miles of nothing". Yeah LuSeRs.

Utah is on my list for next year I think. Look out Mormons! :P

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:45 [+] :: 0 comments
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Weekend update
misc: I created some business cards for the photo side of things on Thursday and am getting them done at Staples. Should have them next week. W4B Photography is the name I decided to put on them. And I changed the name on Flickr to that as well. Same URL, you will just see W4B Photography instead of Work4bandwidth. It's still me though. :)

I drove to Port Dover via Tillsonberg and Simcoe yesterday. Fine going down there and I got some good pics of the first snowfall I have seen this year around here. I tell ya though, coming back the roads had flash frozen and it was brutal. ABS kicking in more than once and spacing being key. No incidents, though I did see one Jeep Cherokee in the ditch near Simcoe. I think all the road slush added 200 lbs to the underbody - which parking in the underground today should take care of. I was able to get gas at the Husky for 79.9 - with the dashboard light on saying *Get Gas*. Only problem was that the gas cap door cover thing was frozen. the road spray had got in and I had to bang on the door and pry it open despite the mechanism being released.

And I also played around with the new flash head that I bought last month and took some self portraits. Which, while challenging, are not as satisfying to do as shooting models. And not as pleasing to the eye. :)


Had a coffee with Bernie K and his wife at Williams too. Good to see them after so long.

Not much else. Other than it is damn cold in my apt, and I still can't find a loft like place...

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:33 [+] :: 0 comments
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Another Winner!
photos: The above image was selected as the winner of the weekly UWO Photo of the Week Contest for Nov. 8-17. Terry Rice, Associate Director (Creative Services) of Communications and Public Affairs at Western said the following about the above picture:

Sometimes photographers capture great images simply by
looking where no one else is looking. One of my favourite
photographers, David Hume Kennerly has done that countless
times to capture images that are truly unique.

From a football game we would expect a shot of the noisy
fans, the quarterback with his arm cocked, a big tackle, or
an end zone celebration – not a referee measuring for a
first down.

Football can be a punishing game, a chaotic game at times,
but it can also be, as they say, “a game of inches” –
this picture captures that. Like the referee himself, this
image shows something that almost always goes unseen.

Workforbandwidth has given us the pieces and our eye pulls
them together to understand the total. We see part of a
knee but we know those pants and that chain. A hint of
green and white and a little yellow and we know the
context.

I would almost describe this image as peaceful.

The only thing that could have made it even better is to
have shown a little more of the whistle.

I thought this quote from an anonymous referee was
appropriate. He describes officiating as, “Trying to
maintain order during a legalized gang brawl involving 80
toughs with a little whistle, a hanky and a ton of
prayer.”

The pic should be posted on the UWO homepage for about a week, but it's not there yet.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 17:44 [+] :: 1 comments
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awesome shots
photos and weekend stuff: Saturday, which will probably be the last warm sunny day of the year was a great one to shoot some pics. Mandy and I headed to Parkwood and we spent an hour there doing some portraits and we both think we got a superior group of shots.

Later on, I went to Starbucks with the laptop and did some initial post production on them while having a coffee. I had parked on Central and about 90 mins later I headed out to find a parking ticket. WTF?! I thought. Why was I getting a ticket on a Sunday? It was only when I looked at my watch that I clued in that it was Saturday... Yeah. I didn't even put money in the meter. I was so convinced with the mild sunny, lazy weather, and being buoyed by the good session, that some sort of time travel thing happened...

But aside from the 15 buck ticket is was a good day off. See you in six months warm weather! :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 00:54 [+] :: 0 comments
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No pictures in days
photos: I didn't pick up the camera at all yesterday. Didn't even take it with me anywhere. Was more of an experiement and sometimes setting something aside and coming back to it fresh is a good thing. I usually really only shoot serious pics on my weekend and so only really do post production during the week - sorting deleting, cropping, printing etc. - so this wasn't really new but I told myself I wasn't even going to take it out of the bag after seeing if it was off and charged.

I did come across - finally - a listing of photographers in London. The site is really bad in terms of layout, but I did find some price lists on the photographers' own sites and it gave me some starting points. Found a great site by Ewan Phelan as well who shoots fine art BW stuff around here that I like a lot and would like to emulate some day. Sports Shooter is also a great closed community web site for photographers that I spent some time on and would like to get a sponsor to join. Will work on that later...

I also realized that when setting up flickr, I should have made the URL shorter. www.flickr.com/photos/work4bandwidth is too long. www.flickr.com/photos/w4b would have been better and easier to pass on. this realization came from designing business cards and stamps at Staples last night... and that the URL is a lot of characters. Those of you who have tried to remember it and type it correct the first time know this... :)

Lastly, Leanne mentioned that my photos have certainly changed for the better this year, and improved and developed their own style. I agree. What does anyone who has spent time looking at them think?


Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:01 [+] :: 0 comments
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Blue dot complexity
distractions: This is not a game, more of a distraction. And if you stare at it long enough you can certainly find patterns and it is not as seemingly random as at first glance. Takes a moment to load.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 09:57 [+] :: 0 comments
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I was pleased with the pics
photos: I actually was fairly pleased with the football pics that I took on second viewing. I posted a few - OK my usual saturation of football images - over the past couple of days interspersed with other images. Good Cheerleader shots - some of which are now on the UWO Cheerleaders' recent photos page too. I think that 20 of my images are there. I still have a several more UWO shots to post over the next while too.

Crazy windy yesterday here. And I had some annoying water pressure issues as well. Until you are in the shower in the midst of doing some detailed shaving and lose waterpressure to the point it is like cold drinking fountain you have not lived. No pressure and then fooom! too much! too hot!, too cold! ... first time really ever anywhere that I had to deal with this. Not great. I think my cursing caused the whatever to cease downstairs and the water pressure to return to normal. Another nail in the coffin for this place...

Not much else going on. I have another - and probably last for a while - three day weekend this weekend. I booked it in anticipation of UWO winning. I was going to go to the game if it was here in London, but it is at Laurier in Waterloo and don't feel like going there. And besides, access would likely be different. Football is over for me for the year. But I kept the day off and might have one or two or possibly three people that could be modelling for me during the day. Or none. Not sure what is going to happen there. And the weather gods might dictate a different story...

And last, what does anyone think of W4B Photography as a business name? Easier to put on a business card than Work4bandwidth Photography. Potentially a shorter domain to remember down the road than my current blog and flickr site though I don't see them going away any time soon. :)

OK I have to get my day rolling and done.

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 11:12 [+] :: 1 comments
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Weekend Update
life: I had three days off. And curiously one of the anticipated highlights wasn't so much. I emailed back and forth with the coach and he said it would be cool if I followed around the UWO Mustangs cheerleaders for a bit. The weather was overcast and uninspiring, and the crowd was quite similar till late in the game when it was getting dark and about to rain. Made for some so so pictures. The girls and guys from the team were cool, it was just the wrong vibe. The game was good too and I spent some time chatting with a photog from the UWO Gazette named Cole and comparing pictures as we took shots of the plays. If anyone swings through UWO this week, could they score me a copy of the gazette to see what got in there photo wise? I sifted through the pics of the game and the girls (and guys) and have a bunch that will be tweaked and posted later in the week...

Anyhow, that was yesterday afternoon - working backwards here. In the morning I had the re-do's of Amanda's pics for the shots she wants to give to her family for Christmas. This was a much more successful outing than the previous weekend. The light overcast sky helped the images a lot, and this was an easy hour long session which garnered me some good images - such as the one above and the other two on Flickr currently. I found something interesting too. When you think you have only one memory card instead of actually having three, you shoot more intelligently and work harder to compose the shots and to make them work. Since I forgot I tucked my card case in a side pocket of the camera back, we only used one and I had a higher percentage of shots turn out.

Friday was a gorgeous day. Sunny and about 19-20C ( in SW Ontario in November!!) and after doing laundry with Leanne and Hannah, I put the finger on the map and went to Petrolia which is half way between London and Sarnia close to HWY 402. Took a while to get there as it is about 90-100km if you don't take major highways, but it was worth it. A nice little town (with a Tim Hortons) founded in the mid 19th century with the discovery of oil nearby. I have not posted pics yet of the oil pumps and drill rigs, but will as with the UWO stuff later. There are three shots of things around town up though.

Thursday had a cool highlight. I received an email from a department at UWO who want to use the shot I took of the two cheerleaders in flight in some promotional material used to recruit students to Western. Full credit to me etc. Not sure on the timeline and such, but I will let you know what comes of it when I have more info and perhaps samples.

That day I also wandered around the hiking and bike trails on the east section of the Thames around Meadowlilly and took some pics of Morgan and the bright yellow leaves and interesting tree trunks as well. If Morgan likes some of the shots I might post a couple. You can see I am getting backlogged with the pics! :)

Stephanie also asked if I could shoot some pics for her guy Luke's band in Toronto called Exit to Nowhere. They have a location in mind and this will likely happen sometime in December - which isn't too far off.

Not too bad for taking a long weekend. :)

Carpe Diem

:: Mike Wood 10:30 [+] :: 0 comments
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garage traffic jam
life: I am leaving work on time -for me - last night and head over to the north side underground parking garage. I parked in my regular spot near the parking attendant booths, and as I was hitting the remote lock I noticed it was a bit busy. See