Well that wasn't a lot of fun.

But here I am back and I'm on the correct side of the grass. I don't want to dwell on the procedures, just some stuff that I think you might find interesting.

The whole experience was sprinkled with uncomfortable moments but really no 'scary' ones. I guess that's because this is the third time I've been through it. I had great confidence in the people working on and supporting me, they all knew exactly what they were doing. I lucked out with the surgeon. The originally scheduled one had some medical problems of his own (hope he's OK...) and his replacement, Dr. Chepeha, turned out to be an internationally famous surgeon who specializes in the more difficult procedures like mine. By the way, he's the nicest guy you want to know: listens, understands, and tells you in plain English what's going on.

The one really bad time was waking up in ICU. Apparently I gave them some exciting moments, tearing out my IV among other things, but those moments disappear into foggy memory. I distinctly remember someone telling me I should be tested for sleep apnea and some time later, someone telling me to ignore what I had heard. Still, I'm not sleeping well yet. Better now that I'm in my own bed.

On the Head and Neck Surgery wing in TGH, I saw people far worse off than I. Once I got into an actual room, my roommate had a trach' tube and couldn't speak. I told him he had been an ideal roommate until they took it out and he could talk again! There were others, '...there but for the grace of God...'

So due to the extensiveness of my surgery, my jaw and neck filled with fluid (it's called edema) making me look like a giant chipmunk. Dr. Chepeha told me that's because of a 3-letter word that starts with "F" and rhymes with "Cat". Yeah... but the good news is that it will likely go down but maybe not completely, and because of it, I've lost 12 pounds as of this morning! Why? Well I can't open my mouth all the way and combined with nerve damage, food has lost a lot of appeal for now. If I'm smart, I'll use this experience to change my eating habits. Just eating slowly, as I have to now, gives your stomach time to say "enough!" so you eat less.

a couple of days after surgery. iPhone selfie.

See the resemblance?
(Graphic found online but I couldn't find whom to attribute it to) 

When they let me out, I stayed with a friend, Alison, in Thornhill. I don't know how to put into words how she went out of her way to make sure I was comfortable and catered to. For about a week longer than anticipated. When I protested, or when my family did, about all the things she did and how she opened her home to us, her response was, "don't take the joy out of it for me". I don't know your middle name, Ali, but it's probably "Giving".

I would be remiss in omitting mention to all the friends (you choose your friends!) and relatives (you don't choose them! LOL) who cared and went out of their way to be there for me. My sister, Barbi and her husband who were constantly there and even took me down to the hospital on 'the day' at 5 am; people who visited me who really have an aversion to hospitals, my kids, and my mom, of course, who at 94 kept insisting on being there. Also Dr. Ron who doesn't know how to take "no" for an answer and who dragged me out when I didn't want to but needed to. Love all you guys. Wish I could mention you all.

Oh yeah: "Did they get it all"? No. But they didn't expect to. Metastatic thyroid cancer is different from most of the other varieties, as Dr. Chepeha said, it's guaranteed to spread and rear its ugly head over and over again, which means ugly and complicated treatments, but it's manageable and probably won't kill me in the end. It is what it is.

So here I am. Back home, writing again, soon to be shooting pictures again, annoying everyone with my blathering and images that mean more to me than you. Hope I can keep doing that for a long time to come.

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SPEAKING OF CANCER

On April 16th, I'm participating in the Cops for Cancer event at the Yorkdale Shopping Centre. I've teamed up with my friend Sean Shapiro and will be having my copious curly locks shorn publicly to express my support for cancer research. Not only my support, but YOURS! The whole idea is to raise donations for the Canadian Cancer Society. 

I didn't know what to put down for a goal so I think I set it too low. Don't let that daunt you: please take the opportunity to donate to this critical cause. Here's a link to my personal page on the Cops for Cancer site. Please visit it and make a donation, every dollar counts.

(as I write this, I've reached 86% of my goal. Help me get over the top!)

And yes, I'll post bald pictures after the fact! Come to Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Southwest entrance for Noon on Saturday April 16th and shoot some embarrassing pictures!

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Now about Photography

Many of the people I know in this game have done exceedingly well over time, but it especially came together now. I missed all the fun!

The Richmond Hill Camera Club, my 'alma mater', cleaned up this year. Not only did they win the "Glennie" (nothing to do with me!) international competition this year, they won EVERY CATEGORY. Unbelievable. 

Next was the GTCCC 2016 Inter-Club challenge. Here's a summary of the results:

Prints: First place, Richmond Hill Camera Club.
Digital Pictorial: First place, Richmond Hill Camera Club.
Natural Things: First place, Richmond Hill Camera Club.
Nature: First place, Richmond Hill Camera Club.
Stu Freedman Trophy for best camera club in the GTCCC: Richmond Hill Camera Club.

In case you're wondering, I didn't skip any categories. RHCC swept the whole thing.

As a side note, Stu Freedman died in September and a moving tribute to him was presented at the awards ceremony by Ron Goodlin. Stu essentially founded GTCCC and mentored many photographers through his 75-odd years in photography (I knew Stu and in fact was related to him through marriage, but because I grew up in Montreal not Toronto, I didn't have the pleasure of being taught by him).

But that's not all, folks. Dr. Ron Goodlin took the honours as "Photographer of the Year" in the GTCCC, beating out fellow RHCC member Rob Kline by one single point!

Ron will be up here in Haliburton in May, to talk to us about wildlife photography – make it a point to come up if you can.

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Haliburton Highlands Camera Club

I'm no longer the President of the club: now I'm the "Past President". I stepped down to allow other people to leave their fingerprints on the club (and do the work!). I'll still be active, but I'll get to pick and choose the projects in which I participate.

Competitions have always been near and dear to my heart. I believe that they represent the strongest tool for improvement because they take you out of your comfort zone and open your eyes to imperfections in your work, so you can strive to improve them. That's not to say that I want to stick my nose into the operation of the process, just that I want to change the mindset of the club members, to get them to participate more.

It will be tough to beat the RHCC powerhouse in open competition. But there are some strengths up here, especially in the Nature classifications and we should give them a run for their money!

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The GALES go marching on!

At this writing, there are only half-a-dozen slots open for the Gales of November workshops. It's the best opportunity some of us will have to spend time in a premier photography location, sharing experiences with top photographers, without spending thousands of dollars. Book now to reserve your space. Here's the link to the dedicated web page where you can check out the details!

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Parting Shot

Have you ever known me to post a blog without a photo for you to look at? 

While I was recuperating, my camera was too. I took it in to Sun Camera Service for a cleaning and a tuneup, all ready for the season to come. I highly recommend them, by the way: pricing is reasonable, quality of work is awesome and their customer service and turnaround time beats the manufacturers' sites hands-down. If you're no longer in warranty, why send your equipment in to Nikon or Canon, when you can get a better job in half the time and for a lower price? Here's the link. Tell Nick I sent you.

Here's the story. While sitting on the couch in Alison's living room at 6am one day, unable to sleep, I saw the staircase in the hall, illuminated by light from the skylight up above. I took a couple of shots with my trusty iPhone and then did some work on this one in Photoshop.

One key thing I did was to use Perspective Cropping to square it up. Then retouch some small stuff, tweak the colours, apply Topaz Impression and Texture Effects and there you have it. I envision the same shot with a dancer, perhaps in ballet gear or maybe a brightly coloured skirt, coming down from top right. I may try to add that in at another time.

— 30 —

Lake Superior Trip, Day 1

Before I do anything else, I want to post this image for my friend George, who's going through some tough times right now, but we know he's going to come out the other end just fine! Cancer is a son-of-a-bitch but you're going to defeat it, my friend. Stay positive!

Public Domain license
If you know George, you know why I chose this image.

...and some more bad news.

I learned last night that Stu Freedman has passed away at the age of 92. Stu was a lifelong photographer, mentor to some very fine people like Ron Goodlin and Lance Gitter, founder of the Toronto Guild. The top award in the GTCCC is named the "Stu Freedman Award".

I only met Stu about 5 years ago, through Ron (I grew up in Montreal, not Toronto!). Then I discovered that Stu's wife Renalee is my mother's cousin, so we're related! I was amazed to watch him getting around with his walker, outfitted with a camera case on top, and up until a couple of months ago, he was sending me pictures of birds-on-the-wing taken hand-held with his 500mm lens, something very few people could do (especially not me!).

Rest in Peace, Stu. As Ron put it, "you had a good run!"

Lake Superior Trip

This will be an ongoing trip report. I'll combine a couple of days together before posting.

I decided I needed a "Road Trip" to get away from the frenetic pace of life in the Haliburton Highlands! So I left this morning (Thursday, September 17) for Lake Superior. I booked the Agawa Canyon Train Tour on Saturday, and a couple of days at Rock Island Lodge in Wawa after that, the rest is unscheduled.

My goal is to walk where some of the Group of Seven did. I even brought my easel and oil paints and if weather permits, I'll paint where AY Jackson stood when he painted "Shoreline". Stay tuned!

Day 1: my intention was to stay somewhere along the North Shore of Lake Huron that night. That gave me tons of time to get there, I could have made the Soo if I had wanted to, but I didn't want any excuses not to stop to take pictures. It didn't work out that way.

I don't know about you, but it takes my mind some time to switch modes. Even knowing that I had all the time I wanted, I was still in "Gotta-get-there" mode most of the day. So I didn't get a lot of great photos, and I drove past a few. That said, I didn't get to a motel until after 8pm, already dark!

I wanted to go to Elliot Lake. I've never been there, I heard that it's a thriving retirement community, wanted to see what it's about. There are over 11,000 people in Elliot Lake: but there's only one hotel/motel. It's a Hilton at $150/night. I turned around and found something at half that price in Blind River. That said, an endless freight train rumbled past my room about 50' away at the stroke of midnight! Hope there isn't another one at 6am!

The only real enroute glitch was that Rte 141 was closed at Lake Rosseau. A one-hour detour through Port Carling. It was upsetting because although there was a big sign advising about the closure as you came out of Bracebridge, it seemed that they'd point you at a detour as you got closer. No such luck.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from Day 1: note that they've been roughly edited on my Laptop without the benefit of a calibrated monitor. I probably have to go back and fix them later.

This was about 25 km from home, on Highway 118. Just a hint of fall colours but as you drive North it sort of sneaks up on you. We'll see what the colours are like up around Sault Ste. Marie tomorrow. 

This was just South of Sudbury. It's a panorama merge of four shots (taken with the camera orientation vertically), so it's about a 180° view: that foreground embankment is straight!). I modified a Van Gogh preset in Impression, it's as close as I can get to a Group of Seven look.

This is Lake Huron's North Channel taken from behind my motel in Blind River, just after I got there around 8pm. 

It's almost 1 am. Time for bed. more to come...

OK, I decided to add a couple of shots from this morning and post the blog.

I discovered that there's actually a beach behind the motel. I went out at dawn this morning and got a few shots:

Again, it's hard to see what the exposure and edit looks like until I get back to a calibrated monitor. This laptop screen sucks. Maybe I will have to give in and get a Mac... 

More to come!

— 30 —

And the beat goes on...

Did you notice the new banner up top? Every now and then I feel the need to change it up. And when I do, I post the previous banner in the body of the blog because otherwise it disappears completely! So...

I chose the new image because (a) I had to find something that would fit in the footprint, an extremely wide pano, and (b) I like the smooth tonality and colour blend of this image. It is a picture taken from my dock on 12 Mile Lake. I've taken hundreds of pictures from the same spot but occasionally one stands out. I like how the shape of the shoreline and its reflection on the left creates a virtual arrowhead that causes the viewer's eye to move from left to right across the image and back again to pick out the structures and detail.

For those who care, it's an HDR merged in Nik HDR Efex Pro 2 from 3 exposures, shot with the 17-35mm lens at 17mm and f/8 on the full-frame D600. For what it's worth, here's the original image (well, the merge!) minus a few pixels for better framing.

I will make this available as a fine art print. I think it would look outstanding on a matte art paper. Check out the gallery link at right to find it and email me to order a print. It also makes a fine wallpaper image for your computer. Two sizes, one for normal and one for wide screens. This wallpaper image is FREE for subscribers to my newsletter, so click here or on the link at upper right to subscribe.

I'm going to start today by nagging you.

Backups

Some of my readers are diligent about doing their backups. Some are not. Some people need a subtle reminder to do it. This is intended for you!

Do your backups. My backup strategy isn't perfect but at least I do them. Today I sync'd my two external drives so I have two up-to-date copies of my photo archives. I also copied my Outlook data files to an external drive. Don't forget those, they're in a weird location (on a PC) and you don't want to go through what I did when the original got corrupted...

On a personal note, I have to sit down and create a new Lightroom catalog that contains all my "Keeper" images, then copy the whole shebang to another drive. Reason is, my external drives are getting very full and I'd really like to have a third copy of the important images, at least. 

Update: I just did that. It took about 8 hours for Lightroom to percolate and copy a little over 500Gb of data. FWIW, I have over 15,000 keeper images (ones which I had flagged earlier as 'not unacceptable')! I should have sent it directly to the external drive because now it wants another 7 hours to do that. I feel better, though. Now I have a third copy of my "keeper" files and it's going to be stored off-site.  

Anyway, do it today. I don't know what your backup strategy is, but do it. Just imagine your house burning down to the ground and in addition to everything else, losing all the images you've ever shot.

Emergency Medical Card

If for some reason you have a medical emergency, the important information about you should be available if you end up in an ER and can't tell them everything, or can't remember. You should also have contact information, a list of meds, all that stuff in your purse or wallet JUST IN CASE.

Years ago, I created a .pdf document that you could fill out (on your own computer, you don't send that out anywhere) and put it up as a public service. At one point I had a hit counter on that page and recorded over 50,000 hits: I lost it, so I'm going to start it over again.

Anyway, go to this page: http://www.faczen.com/medcard.htm and fill out the form. You simply type your info into the page, print it out, then run over to Staples and get it laminated if you want, and carry it in your wallet or purse or camera bag...

Note that this is absolutely FREE and we don't record any information about you including the fact that you downloaded the document or visited the page (except that we count how many people have done that). No worries.

You may be one of the rare people who don't have any medical issues or take any prescription drugs or have any allergies, but at least you should carry your doctor's name and contact info and who to call in case of emergency. Please do it now. And if you think it's a good idea, please tell your friends and loved ones.

OK, finished nagging...

Heads Up!

I'm going to be announcing an Algonquin Park Fall Colours PhotoWalk in the next week or so. My initial concept is that there will be no charge for my students and subscribers to my newsletter, just trying to put it together. Watch for the announcement on the Newsletter.

SmugMug has a new look

There are lots of places you can put your photos up on the web for free. Everyone's doing the "cloud" thing now, but most of the free sites have some down sides. Every day, I read about how someone's pictures were stolen on FlickR or on 500px... I've been a SmugMug subscriber for years and because that's the only thing they do and because it's not totally free, they care about you.

I had a "Professional" account there because I wanted to be able to sell images through them with a markup. They had links to a couple of really great labs, like Bay Photo in San Francisco, and you could easily order directly. I stopped doing that because, well, it wasn't a good way for me to market my images (that said, I haven't found one yet!). Anyway, I downgraded my account to something called a "Power" account which costs me $60/year. If you're interested, here's the comparison between the different accounts they offer.

A couple of weeks ago, they totally revised their interface and look-and-feel. It's really, really slick now, IMHO. Check out my site at faczen.smugmug.com. Go ahead, I'll wait right here...

If you clicked on "Browse", you would have seen some other galleries that I've put in place (works in progress...) but what I like is they are for special purposes and the casual visitor doesn't have to be distracted by them.

So one of the other things I like about SmugMug is that when you send an email to their helpdesk, a real live human being responds in short order. And it's someone who actually knows about things, not some CSR in a foreign call center (Hi, I'm Rajesh, and I can certainly help you with that problem...).

One more thing: Lightroom has a plug-in where you can sync with SmugMug. Just drag photos into it and click "Publish" and you're done. Nice. I just added the image at the top of this post to both my "New and Featured Images" and my "Fine Art Prints" galleries with a couple of clicks.

Anyway, I'm happy to recommend them to all my readers. Go to www.smugmug.com. You can play with it for free for 14 days, then sign up. If you mention me in the referral box when you sign up. Two ways of doing that: put in my email address (glenn dot springer at faczen dot com. You know what to do with that, right?) or just cut and paste in this code:  16NrueyZ8KPmc. You'll save $5 on your first year subscription.

Speaking of new looks...
Business Printing

Tell me how this strikes you:

■ 1000 double sided business cards, printed on both sides in full colour, full bleed, on heavy (16.5 point) card stock with an aqueous coating, all for $20 or so.

This is the front of the business card I printed for myself (no black border. It bleeds right off the edges of the card). By the way, shot from the same dock as the banner up above!.

■ 1000 postcards, similar to the above, 4x6 size, both sides full colour for about $50. All superb quality. That's ONE THOUSAND CARDS, folks!

Here's how it works: the supplier I deal with gangs up print jobs so he prints hundreds of cards at a time and trims them out of a big sheet. So each individual card is inexpensive and the printer is happy because he's making money. As long as everyone uses the same inks (4-colour process) and paper, he's laughing.

If you're interested, I'll send you a template. You fit your art in the template and send it back. We print it. Or you can use, for example, my photos for the background. If you want me to do layout and design work, I can, very inexpensively. Starting to sound interesting?

Have you ever seen prices like that for full colour high quality printing? This is a no-brainer, folks. contact me...

Don't say I didn't warn you!

I shot this a couple of days ago. It is coming... 

On to some images!

Kind of an unusual casual portrait... this was a mistake. For some reason I had a HUGE exposure compensation set: more than +3 stops. I think I turned the dial the wrong way. But when I saw the image onscreen, I liked it! I had to do a little work on the faces to bring them back, and it's at ISO 6400 (the D600 is amazing!). I need to try more of these high key images! Rita and Ray Felson are relatives, visiting my mother. 

Internationally renowned photographer Stu Freedman, visiting with the Felsons at my mother's. Stu's wife and my mother are related, haven't seen each other in 80 years or more. Stu is 90, he founded the Toronto Guild about a million years ago, and is still shooting pictures! Don't criticize my background, OK? It was a casual shot while chatting. At least I got the lighting right! (North-facing window, behind the Felsons above, if anybody cares). 

I know, it's just a seagull (Herring Gull, larus argentatus, if anybody cares!). But the 400mm Sigma lens can be really sharp when it wants to. And it's on the cropped sensor D5100 too, so effectively 600mm! I did some birds-in-flight too, that day. I practice on them sometimes when I'm at the dump. 

While riding my ATV on the trail near my house, I came across these giant fungi on a fallen tree stump. I didn't have anything with me to give it a sense of scale, so I put my Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 in it. If you're not a photographer, that's about 9" long... if you are one, it's still 9" long but you know that!  

I went back yesterday to try again, this time I brought a tripod. Now do you see how big they are? It's weird because (a) I've never seen one that big outside of a rain forest and (b) there are no other ones around anywhere. Aliens, I tell you... 

Until next time! TTFN

— 30 —

For the Birds!

I had the privilege of shooting with legendary bird photographer Stu Freedman and with Ron Goodlin yesterday. I was invited along because Lance couldn't make it (thanks, Lance!) and had a chance to meet the man who founded the GTCCC and who's been shooting pictures since before I was born. Stu is 86 years old and going strong! I was tired out from the morning shoot, and I'm a mere child at 63!

You know you have to be secure in your abilities to post a blurry, out of focus shot and not worry about it. 1/3 second, handheld. What do you want at 6:00 am?

Stu showed us some bird photos he's taken. He shoots with a 400mm zoom, and hand-holds most of the time. So I snapped on my 2x extender and my 70-200mm f/2.8 and figured if he could do it, I could too. WRONG.

After 300 exposures, the best in-flight shot I could manage was this one:

and it absolutely SUCKS. I had to enhance it in Photoshop to see any detail at all. This is HARD!

I did manage to get this image, of a gull from close up.

On a tripod, without the telextender, at f/2.8, ISO 800.

Ron sent me an email a few minutes ago, bemoaning the fact that he too was unable to get any good in-flight shots, despite the fact that he was using substantially better lenses than I was:

Here's Ron with his little 600mm f/4.

My favourite image of the morning was this one:

Again without the telextender. 1/60 sec handheld at 200mm, f/8. "VR" does work! (vibration compensation in the lens).

or this one:

I call it "The Choir". They sure made a lot of noise! On the tripod, with the 400mm wide open.

I'm sensing a pattern here. I was able to get some fairly good shots of birds sitting still, reasonably close, but nothing moving and far away (the flock of geese was a lucky accident). Maybe long lenses are not for reaching out and touching from a distance, maybe they're about filling the frame from closer up...

I put a couple of dozen shots up on my Smugmug page (click here). Some of them were Richard Martin-type shots of thistles and flowers, which I do better than birds! That's all I got out of 300 exposures...