Heading to Sochi

On March 3rd I will be off to Sochi to cover my first Paralympic Games, and am looking forward to the new challenge it will all bring to me. I hope to be writing about it while I'm there, my schedule should allow it.

There has been so much negative about the Olympics and about Sochi, I don't expect that it will be anywhere close to what everyone has been saying.

The Stress of photography

I have mentioned on this blog about the friends I have lost to heart attacks in the past short while, and on Tuesday May 21st I myself had one.  I was fortunate to have been close to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, one of the best in the country.  I can write this because I was lucky, it is that simple.

For anyone that reads this, I am physically in better shape than most people even 20 years younger, I have always had a great diet, don't smoke and  have exercised for the past 30 years.  I am a certified personal trainer and understand how my body works, what I didn't deal with was the stress.  As I have mentioned earlier losing friends to heart attacks, losing my mother all in the same year 2012, took it's toll on me, and it ended in a heart attack.

There were warning signs for over a year, but I didn't see them, my shoulder and chest would bother me when I carried my gear around, muscle pain, that's all it was, a tooth ache, no big deal, in hindsight, they were the warning signs.  I was told in hospital that anything between the mouth and the waist, warning signs aren't the same for everyone. 

If it can happen to a healthy, fit, person with no family history of heart problems, just think about the overweight, poor diet smokers that don't believe it will ever happen to them.  A walking time bomb, and they may not be in the right place at the right time to save them.  The signs will be there, listen to them, tell your friends, it may just save their life.

Professional sports photographers associations

I did a web search on sports photographers associations and was surprised that there were so many, what I wasn't surprised about was how bogus most of them were.  Most came across as simple photo web sites where another photographer has decided to become a sports photographer, and has created his own personal association.  I can only assume that it is to give him credibility.

You see the biggest challenge professional photographers face these days is that there is no governing body that can regulate who is a professional and who is not.  Anyone with a camera can claim to be a professional.  We don't see this in any other profession, engineers, lawyers, doctors all have to be members of an association that gives them the professional rights to do what they do.

Photography is still seen as a hobby, it is seen as something that anyone can do, it is sold that way by all the camera producers, Canon and Nikon being the worst offenders.  With Canon you can shoot like a professional sports photographer, just buy this lens.  Nikon uses celebrities to push the fashion and portrait side.

Why do so many head to the sports side, they see the glamour of standing on the sidelines at the Superbowl or Grey Cup, shooting the NBA, NHL,  Hanging out in the pits at an F1 race.  It's far from glamour, it's a very difficlut job to do well, it is spending hours in the rain or cold for one picture.  It's not about going to the post event parties, that's wehn the rest of the work starts.  If the average camera owner had to spend 14-20 hours a day working at their day to day job, for weeks on end, would they stand for it?   Professional photographers do.  It's just that easy.

Canon 5D Mklll

I have recently started using the new 5D Mklll and have to say that Canon seems to have done this one right. First the starting point, it's not the cheapest and not the most expensive, with the 1Dx going for almost double the cost the Mklll.

Now the guts, it is fast enough for those that know how to shoot sports and don't feel they need 10-12 FPS to do the job, at 6FPS that's plenty. The iso capabilities and fast focus system is excellent. With the battery grip, which carries two batteries, the feel is solid and comfortable, without being bulky or too heavy for the average user. While I'm not a mega-pixel guy, using a 22MP camera sure makes for some large files.

I wouldn't waste my money trying to justify a 1Dx at over $7000 when you can have all you'll ever need at half that.

Gerard Chatigneau

Again in 2012 my community has lost a friend, Gerard Chatigneau. Gerard shot figure skating for all the years that I have known him, 21 years. He was a perfectionist with his camera and all the work he did with those images after. For over a decade he self published the Figure Skating calendar, it was a piece of art, the images as good as you would ever see anywhere. He captured the "moment" with every press of the shutter. Gerard was the guy who showed up to the rink before the skaters morning practice, he studied their programs and translated that into the images he wanted during competition. He was the guy who fell asleep in the media room at the end of the day, still going through the images from that day. It was his life and passion and it made a difference to the skaters, he set the height of the bar and we all aspired to reach it at every event. On many occations we just sat and talked about our work, he always had a good word for me, and a suggestion when he knew it would help. He was a kind and gentle soul, with a bit of odd thrown in, the good odd.

He will be missed.

Mike Cassese

I met Mike back in the mid 1980's, he was shooting for the Toronto Sun and I was shooting for Mila Mulroney, the Prime Minister of Canada's wife. It was an event in Toronto, Mike and I ran into each other while walking down the road, we struck up a conversation, a conversation that lasted 27 years.

Mike was one of those guys that would help anyone, a quiet person with a camera that spoke louder than most. He was a great friend, I never met anyone that didn't enjoy being around the guy.

Mike passed away on December 27th of a heart attack, he was just 53 years old, far too young to lose a friend. He left behind a family and friends and so many amazing images that will never be captured.

The world lost a good man that day.

It's not the camera

It has taken me some time to understand a few things about photography, things that I had long since forgotten about cameras.  I have been doing this for a very long time and back in the day of film and cameras it was still about having the latest in technology.  With digital and the constant upgrading of cameras by Canon and Nikon, and well the rest of the makers, haing a camera for more than a couple of years is a strange thing.  I used some of my film cameras for 10-12 years without any problems, shutters didn't fail, there was no software or messages popping up telling me that I had an error, the only error would have been what I didn't do right, and I wouldn't find that out until I saw the film.

I have always had the opportunities of using the best gear, and with great help from my dad over the years it was always possible.  With the changes to my career, and the changes in clients, the money to upgrade to the top of the line gear just won't be happening.  I recently bought an entry level digital camera, a small Canon T2i, I have great Canon glass to use with it.  I have to say that I was somewhat embarassed being seen with this camera, it wasn't what a professional should be using, but what I learned was that, I was producing great images with this camera, it is still better than the high end film cameras that I used to use.  It is better than the high end digital cameras of four years ago.

The point to all this, I know how to use a camera, it doesn't chnage the fact that I can still produce great images with this camera, what it does prove is that regardless of what others may think, I really don't care anymore.  I'm the brains behind the camera, not the other way around.