The Milners

Self Portrait

2011-09-26T14:22:00.000-06:00

Natalie loves the new water park by our house. She also loves to go to the swimming pool and going for walks. We went for a bonfire at Kin Coulee and her cousins had a little lawn chair that just made her day. She sat in it, got up, and sat down again, over and over for most of the night. It was really cute. Natalie also loves to go to her Grandma Jane's house for a visit. She's been walking Like a Boss for the last couple of weeks and has a bunch of teeth coming in. Her helmet is working really well to make her head more round yet spherical in parts.

Here she is taking a self portrait of the two of us.

The Troll Hunter (Trolljegeren)

2011-04-27T01:01:00.002-06:00

Troll

I just finished watching a movie called The Troll Hunter. I give it two thumbs up. It is a documentary about the Government of Norway's attempt to cover up their troll problem.

Getting Older

2011-04-26T22:43:00.002-06:00

There's a sweet spot for playing basketball, where your mind and your body operate at the same speed. In high school, your body works faster than your mind. Most people just can't think fast enough to keep up with themselves. A few years later, and with experience, you start to think a little faster and your body is a little slower and you are in what I call the sweet spot for playing basketball. Your a little stronger and a little smarter and can really play. Then a few years later and a few pounds heavier your mind can think faster than your body can move. You know what you want to do and know when it should be done, but you just can't do it anymore. So you find a game with a few other people your own age and speed and start playing with them. It's fun, every once in a while you make a good play, hit a good shot and head home for the night.

-Gary

Student Loans

2011-03-03T11:05:00.001-07:00

Loans

I finally paid off my student loans this month. Thanks goodness.

Christmas Letter 2010

2011-01-26T21:49:00.001-07:00

Dear Family and Friends,

2010 has been a good year for us. 2009 ended with us getting married on November 7th. We went on our Honeymoon to San Diego. While there, we went to the zoo, the marina, the beach where we tried body boarding and surfing (which is a lot harder than it looks). We went to the temple, to a farmer’s market, little Italy, Disneyland, and to Tijuana. It was very enjoyable.

We decided to have a baby and in early January found out that we were going to have one in September. Later in January, Mel’s job with Dr. King ended, she temped for a week in Calgary then started her job at Redcliff Family Dental Centre working in general dentistry instead of orthodontics, which she had previously been doing.

In March, we had a mini wedding reception for Melanie’s Calgary friends. It was a very nice evening. We splurged when we were in Calgary and got a room with a king size bed and have been wanting one ever since. That month, we also decided that it would be a good idea to buy a house and started looking for our new home. We gave our baby the code name Snuffaluffagus, Snuffie for short. Gary thought the baby was going to be a girl and Melanie thought the baby was a boy. Gary was right. Snuffie was going to be a girl.

In April, we decided to go to the Regina Temple, as neither one of us had really been to Saskabush before. We enjoyed going to the Temple, walking around part of Regina near the legislative assembly building and taking some pictures, and eating some yummy ice cream. On the way home, we stopped in Moose Jaw to take pictures with the moose. We also toured around the city a little bit. We were going to go into Al Capone’s tunnels but it was sold out and a little expensive especially since we didn’t really know what was down there. We saw the Moose Jaw’s wedding cake houses and had a nice visit with the town drunk. In March and April, we looked at a few houses and finally found our house and our offer was accepted. It was in our price range, fairly new (2004), the landscaping was complete and the basement was finished. Two bedrooms up and two down and a nice size yard seemed like the perfect size for us and our growing family.

In May, we moved into the new house and had lots of help, which was very nice. We really needed it.

In June, Gary played in the Ultimate Frisbee league. We also started prenatal classes to prepare for the arrival of Snuffie. Melanie’s sister, Janice, loaned us a pair of baby name books with 49900 made up names and 100 real names to help us name the baby. We made a short list of about 30. The next day we settle on a pair of names and didn’t revisit the subject. Over the summer we really grew to love the names we chose.

In July, we went to the Canada Celebration in Kin Coulee to see the sights and
enjoy the festive community atmosphere. That evening we attended the
fireworks for the second year in a row. Mel went to the VanOrman family
reunion in July and had a nice visit with her family.

In August, we went to the Melanie’s
family reunion in Writing on Stone.
It took us a little longer to get there
as we decided to enjoy the scenic route
of getting to Writing on Stone and visit with each other a bit more (we missed our turnoff). Gary thinks that someone in Foremost should put up an arrow shaped sign with the acronym W.O.S. on it and point it in the direction of writing on stone. We had such a good time visiting, playing in the hoodoos, and floating in the river. Melanie was able to float down the river with her big belly but needed help getting off the air mattress at the end. When the weekend ended, we finished the party at Mel’s parents house and played hide and go seek, which Mel says is quite the experience, with a pregnant belly. I think Jordie out ran Mel. ha ha ha. Mel was able to spend some time with her niece Twyla and sister Leanne. We also spent a day golfing with Leanne, Kurtis, and Mel’s dad. We should of guessed it was going to be a slow golfing day when the first person in the group ahead of us accidentally threw their club into the top of a tree and lost it up there. It was pretty funny to watch it happen, but boy did we wish we were ahead of them. The next week we went to another reunion in Calgary put on by Rob and Janice who both did a spectacular job.The last weekend of August Mel had her 20th high school reunion during cornfest days. She enjoyed the get together even though few of her classmates showed up. She also did enjoy spending time with Carol’s and Gord’s children at cornfest days. Mel also started her Maternity Leave mid August, which allowed her to enjoy the rest of the summer without having to work.

In September, the baby came. September 9th at 7:06pm weighing 8lbs and 8 oz. our baby girl was born. We named her Natalie Jane. We chose Jane for her middle name so she would be named after Gary’s mom and Mel’s aunt. There were mild complications and so she stayed in the NICU for 3 days and then we came home. Mel`s parents came to help during the first week which was a real blessing.

In October, aunt Karen and Jenny Fleming hosted a baby shower for Mel and Nat. We went Halloween trick or treating in Dunmore with Carol, Kenzie, Jordie, and Jaron. It has been one of Mel’s favorite Halloweens. Mel and Nat went to Calgary for their second baby shower, this time with Calgary friends. Needless to say Natalie has lots of clothes that are very cute.

In November, we had Natalie’s baby blessing on our first anniversary and Mel’s mom’s birthday. Mel and Nat went on a scrapbooking retreat in Kelowna. It was Natalie’s first plane ride, which she slept through all but the last 10 minutes of it. For fun we went to an Adult learning Continuing education class to learn how to make crepes in Taber, we had a very enjoyable time. We had crepes with asparagus and ham, chicken and mushrooms, and dessert crepes with lemon and sugar, nutella and bananas, apples and brie cheese, and apricot jam. It was all yummy.

We have enjoyed a lot of our Sundays with Gord, Carol and their family throughout the year. We have enjoyed the meals, the games, and the friendships. We have also enjoyed going to the movies with Quinton, Braedon, Kenzie, and Jordie.

Natalie gets to spend lots of time with Gary’s parents although we’re sure that they would like to see her a little more than they do. We also try to make sure she gets to visit Mel’s parents even though it isn’t as often. As you can see, we are very blessed and have had a very good year.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Love,
Gary and Melanie

New Video of Natalie

2010-12-06T14:41:00.001-07:00

I made a new video of Natalie for everyone to see. She is such a good baby, she sleeps most of the night and is very happy.

Natalie 3 Months from Gary Milner on Vimeo.

-Gary

2010-11-28T22:40:00.000-07:00

Here is a video I made of Natalie.

Natalie from Gary Milner on Vimeo.

First Anniversary

2010-11-08T22:50:00.003-07:00

We just celebrated our first anniversary. This is a slideshow that I made for our party in Calgary. I'm not sure if I showed it to anyone else.

Be prepared, the slides go by about twice as fast as they should, because I packed in too many for the length of the song.

The last year has been fantastic.

-Gary

September 9th, The Best Day of My Life

2010-09-10T01:17:00.001-06:00

3 minutes

Yesterday was the greatest day of my entire life. This is Natalie. In this picture she is 3 minutes old.

Back to School

2010-08-28T12:02:00.003-06:00

The summer went very well. It was relaxing, but as always it would be nice to have two more weeks of it.

We finished our first school of the season the other day. It went very well, it was probably the smoothest first two days of shooting in the 4 years that I've been doing school photography. It seems crazy that I am starting my 5th year here. It sort of boggles my mind. I'm really enjoying my work. I am very glad to be back in the schools photographing again.

Melanie is doing very well, and the baby is coming along just fine. It is hard to believe that she will be here is about two more weeks. The baby's room is ready. Melanie did a fantastic job decorating it. I have to say that she will have the nicest room in the whole house when she gets here. I'm so excited for her to be here. I've been waiting 10 years for this day to finally arrive and while I know that the last two weeks will go by extremely fast, I can't help feeling that time is going by very slowly.

As I wrote in my last post, my istock photos are doing very well. This year I'm averaging $540 a month on it, and the summer is traditionally the slowest part of the year so things will probably be getting better for the last few months of the year. By the end of September I will probably have eclipsed my total from last year. I didn't get as much shooting in as I would have liked to over the summer, but I'm sure that I'll figure something out this fall. I imagine that I will be taking lots of pictures of the new baby.

-Gary

10000 Reasons to Kiss a Moose

2010-06-28T16:21:00.002-06:00

Kiss the Moose

Today I finally hit 10,000 downloads on istockphoto.com. I've been a member since March 2006 and let me tell you that 10,000 came a lot quicker than I would have guessed.

With those downloads comes my gold canister on istock which means that I will be getting a larger commission on my photo sales now and that I will be able to upload more photos at a time. Of the two, the money is the important one, I haven't been able to upload my limit since I hit silver and now there is practically no chance of doing it now that I'm a gold.

When I started uploading, the top levels seemed so far away, it didn't really seem possible that I could do it this quickly. Now it seems that I will make it to diamond in not much longer, with some work I'll be at the top level very quickly and with no more work, it is only a matter of time.

I'm still only making about a tenth of what I would like to be making, or maybe I should say a tenth of the amount I would feel comfortable quitting my day job with. I guess I should look at it from the perspective of that I'm making enough to take 2 months off next summer. Although I'll probably do neither of those two things even if I do make enough money to do that.

The reality of it is though, that a few times in the past, money I've made from istock has kept me out of trouble. When I got my appendix out, for example, I wouldn't have been able to pay my rent or eat because of the time I had to take off work. But with those handy istock payments coming in I was just fine. There have been other moments, but that was the biggest one for me.

I'm really happy with how it is working out so far.

-Gary

Family Update

2010-05-21T21:55:00.003-06:00

We bought a house. We took possession of it May 14th and had most of our stuff moved in on the 15th. It is a beautiful little house. We both love it a lot. Slowly but surely over the last week, we have been getting our stuff sorted out. It is slow going, I don't remember having this much stuff in our old place but I guess it was all stored nicely. We still have a lot of miscellaneous stuff at the old place still. Mel's scrapbook room is still full and my computer room still has tons of random junk that seems to collect around computers, semi important stuff that is only important every 3-5 years but really great to have when you need it.

I spent 3 hours digging out the dandy lions on my new front lawn. I thought I had them all, but the next morning some new flowers had opened up letting me know that I had missed them the day before. Looking at the lawn, I wouldn't have expected it to take so long to dig them all up. I had figured an hour tops but boy was I way off.

I left gas in my lawn mower over the winter and that is super bad for small engines, so now I'm planning on taking out the carburetor and cleaning it out with dad's help although it seems like it might be a little beyond us both. I really don't want to buy a new lawn mower, but I might not have much choice. I wouldn't mind a lawn mower with a bag on the back of it, but still, I would rather have the money.

Work is going well, we'd love to have more grad formals than we do, but other than that it seems that people have ordered sooner this year than they did last year and on top of that we're getting the orders back to people faster than we did last year too. The pictures are looking better than ever, after a couple of grad seasons taking the photos goes more quickly and I felt a lot more confident in the studio. We have this information that we collect from the grads, basically to be able to connect them to their photos. One piece of information that we have is an email address. Unfortunately we told them that all we would use it for is to email them proofing information and then later to let them know that their order is ready. I really would like to use it for a third time to follow up with people that haven't ordered by the end of July. The boss really doesn't want to use the email addresses for a follow up because it isn't one of the things we said we would do. I remain tempted. The boss says that six or more years ago, they would phone all the people who hadn't ordered by the end of the summer to warn them that he was updating the price list at the end of August. I argued that a phone call is much more annoying than an email. Next year I'm changing the policy up front.

Last week, there were 7 streakers from one of the local high schools. The ran through the lobby of a hotel here in Medicine Hat and then through some portion of the mall. The local cops decided that it would be a matter best left to the school admins. I can't say that I disagree. In any case how it gets handled would vary wildly from school to school, on vice principal said at his school they would be out no questions asked. As it stands after a little community service and extra hours at the school the offenders still got to participate in their convocation ceremony. I didn't really understand the full impact of the situation until today I was photographing a kid from the same school and had to ask if he was one of the streakers. He said that no he wasn't and that everyone he meets asks him if he was one of the streakers. Every guy from the entire grad class must be getting bugged about that and I can only imagine how long it will continue.

Anyway, I guess that's my update for now.

-Gary Milner

My First Photobook Sample

2010-04-29T22:22:00.001-06:00

Teepee-04

So I've been wanting to make a photo book in Indesign for the last little while. This is a sample from my first foray into actually making something with Indesign and learning a few of the tools and shortcut keys. Along with Indesign, I'm slowly learning a little more about Adobe Bridge, which seems more and more useful the more I use it.

Indesign makes doing the layout for a book so much more intuitive. As a photographer the two main design tools I use are Photoshop and a hammer, because if you can't photoshop it, smash it! Indesign is the right tool for doing layout. Period. You can do stuff like this in Photoshop and you can even get good and relatively fast at it, but it is nothing like doing the design with the proper tool.

Photoshop is for editing photos and Indesign is for making layouts. Even with a template, these 10 spreads would have taken a super long time. I'm pleased with them as a start into my life as a photo book designer.

Driving Range

2010-04-26T15:36:00.002-06:00

putting

Melanie and I went to the driving range the other day. We had a pretty good time. Things are going along pretty well. We'll be moving into our new house in mid-May.

All the cap and gown photos went very well and we are starting up with grad formal photos right away. I'm enjoying my work. The other photographer is moving back east at the end of the month and so I'll be shooting alone for a few months, which will be nice.

My istock photos are doing pretty well, although for the next month or so I hope to sell a larger quantity of small photos rather than equivalent dollar value of large photos so that I can get my gold cannister and royalty bump that comes along with it.

I've been percolating ideas for shoots and models in my head for the last little while and I hope to get a few shoots in this summer. I'm told that it's pretty average to make a dollar a shot per month on istock and so I really need to get out and shoot so that I can build my portfolio faster. It feels like I have been stuck where I am for ages even after adding a bunch of photos last month and in January.

Anyway, things are going well.

Gary and Melanie

2010-03-15T00:09:00.001-06:00

Gary and Melanie

Things are going great. We're planning on buying a house soonish. We've been out to see six or so houses already, but finding something nice in our price range is turning out to be a little harder than we thought. I guess we are having a hard time finding something nice for only a little more than we are paying in rent is the hard thing. We could afford a semi-nice place with a mortgage that is a couple of hundred more than our rent.

My parents were honoured with a Metronome award for donating their musical talents in the community. The were the guests of honour at a award banquet and over 150 people turned up to help them celebrate. Jeff me and Melanie were the the three youngest people at the banquet followed by my uncle and parents. When they were calling tables to the buffet, the had the head table go then the friends and family of the head table. Then any diabetics. I wasn't sure if that was a joke or not, but apparently it wasn't.

Work is going well. We've finished three of the high schools and are about a third of the way through the last one.

-Gary

Drive to Work

2010-02-02T00:12:00.001-07:00

This is a time lapse video of my drive to work. Unfortunately my laptop ran out of batteries before I got all the way there.

Camera Control Pro 2.3

2010-01-31T21:29:00.001-07:00

Nikon D70s

I recently got Nikon's Camera Control Pro 2.3 and after installing it kept getting the error "No camera was detected" even thought my Nikon d70s was connected and the folder structure was both visible and navigable. It turns out the the problem was that my camera's usb mode was set to mass storage rather than PTP mode.

The D70 connects to a computer via a USB port, as either a Mass Storage or PTP device. The PTP protocol allows Mac OS X and Windows to recognize the D70 as a camera, so it can launch camera-specific operating system software. Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) is an image data transfer protocol (like the TCP/IP protocol for the Internet) that is intended to do away with the need for special digital camera drivers.

The Mass Storage option lets the camera appear as a standard removable disk device. The Mass Storage option is almost always more convenient, since it doesn't force you through clunky downloading software, and is reportedly faster. You just have to remember to switch it when you want to shoot tethered to your computer.

Alka-Seltzer in Space

2010-01-10T18:05:00.001-07:00

Wedding

2010-01-08T00:47:00.001-07:00

img_0380

It was my two month anniversary yesterday. I've been thinking about what I want to write about it for a while now. It seems that I'm never going to be able to put my feelings into words.

Last year was a great year for me. I met Melanie, I had fun all summer long dating her and getting to know her. It was a summer of accelerated emotional healing for me. Melanie had a huge hand in that and then in the fall when I had life saving surgery Melanie spent hours in the hospital by my side, because she loves me.

She has turned the house into a home. She worked so hard to get all of her stuff set up and put away. She painted her scrapbook room. She's training me to keep the house clean. I love her. I hug her when she's standing still long enough for me to get close to her. She made a little scrap book for me as a wedding gift.

My heart aches from the moment she leaves for work in the morning until the moment I get home from work to see her in the evening.

I love her.

2009-10-18T23:04:00.002-06:00

Lots of men think that they have the best fiancée. They are wrong. I have photographic proof.

Only a truly great woman would help you do this to your hair.

-Gary Milner

Watching the Fight

2009-10-05T17:23:00.001-06:00

watching the fight

I'm not really watching the fight. The blue colour cast was created in photoshop. In fact, the tv wasn't even on when I took this photo. It was just an experiment for a series of couch potatoe photos that I want to do soon. Maybe even a slumber party series.

My stomach is healing nicely. I don't miss my appendix, I should have gotten rid of it years ago. I got the stitches (actually staples) out of my stomach last week and now I just have non-Band-Aid brand band-aids on my stomach to hold my guts in. The nurse let me keep the staple remover she used on me. That was really nice of her and now after future surgeries, I can remove my own staples. I suppose now that I have the proper tool for the job they will be using regular stitches on me.

I'm slowly gaining back the weight of my appendix. I get the feeling that appendi's (appendixuses?) don't weight very much and that most of the 10 lbs that I lost were actually from not eating anything for 2.5 days. I was hoping that I could use this to spark some more weight loss. Keep the ball rolling and all that.

Everyday my stomach feels a lot better than the day before. I think that I am healing very well.

Take Better Self Portraits

2009-09-23T23:27:00.001-06:00

Everyone wants to take better self portraits. Here's how.

Appendix

2009-09-23T18:19:00.003-06:00

Friday night my stomach started aching. It ached all day Saturday. Saturday night, I was on the phone with Melanie and she suggested that I probably shouldn't take chances with appendicitis and that I should probably go to the hospital. I told her that I thought I would be fine. I googled "appendicitis symptoms" there are only 3 or so symptoms. One of the symptoms is that your stomach aches from your bellybutton to the right. Other symptoms include loss of appetite which I had and nausea, which upon reflection I sort of had.

About a hour and a half later, at midnight or so I decided I would go to the hospital and see what they had to say. I figured I would get there be in a huge line of people waiting in the ER, I would get a chance to think it over and change my mind and come home. The worst case scenario would be getting in and being told it was just gas. Well, there was only one guy in the waiting room and he was waiting for someone who had already gone in.

(The American media are liars when it comes to talking about Canadian health care. We get all your channels up here and I don't think I've seen one true thing about how health care works up here. I know they are liars and even I was fooled. I honestly thought I would be waiting in the ER and have a chance to change my mind and go home.)

I didn't even have a chance to sit down before the admitting nurse started getting me booked in. I showed the other nurse my health card and she updated my address from my parent's house.

Another ER nurse took me to a room and got me ready she did some routine stuff, left and then after a short while a doctor came in. He did a similar exam, but I guess he knew where to jab and on one poke it really hurt. I think that spooked him into thinking appendicitis and he left for a little while. The nurse came back and took a blood sample and hooked me up to an IV. The doctor came back and said he was going to have me go for some x-rays. As he was leaving he asked what side the appendix was on and I told him, that yes I had googled it and it was on the right side between the belly button and right hip bone.

I had the x-rays at about 1:00am and then at 1:30am he said that he thought it might be appendicitis. He said that he wanted to keep me overnight and do a ct scan in the morning but that he would try one more thing that might work and I might be able to come home. The other thing didn't work and so I stayed the night. I woke up pretty early after sleeping a lot better than I thought I would without my CPAP machine. It was about 7:00am or so and soon my surgeon came in he took one poke in my stomach and I jumped. He said that's appendicitis alright. He hemmed and hawed about whether I needed the ct scan or not but in the end he just went ahead with it. After the CT scan, he came back and said that with the blood tests, x-rays, and CT scan, I 100% had appendicitis and that I would be getting it out that day.

I figured that it was probably time that I call someone to tell them that I was in the hospital. I ended up calling my parents I asked for my dad because I figured it would be less stressful for my mom to hear it from him rather than from me on the phone, but she stayed on the other line and listened in. They got there by about 10:30 and shortly after the nurse took me up to my room on the 5th floor. They told me that they don't make appointments on Sundays for surgeries but that I would probably be going in at about 3:00 unless I got bumped by someone with a more serious condition. My parents left to go visit other friends in the hospital and came back just before they took me to the OR.

The operating room has a lot more lights than ORs do on television. I told them it would be a lot more realistic as an OR if they would shut off the lights like on TV. Real operating rooms are also a lot bigger than on TV. The operating table is very narrow. My arms would stay on the table by themselves. The table has adjustable arm rests that they pulled out so that my body made a big 'T' shape and they used Velcro straps to fasten my arms to the arm rests. As they were doing my right arm the anesthetist told me he was starting. I was asleep before they finished putting the strap on my other arm.

Being under anesthetic is a lot different than sleeping. Time passes quickly when you are asleep, but for me it felt like I woke up instantly and two hours had passed. I was rolling back into my room on the 5th floor and Melanie was there along with my parents. I was extremely groggy for the next few hours. Even after everyone left at 8:00 or so I was still pretty out of it.

I stayed for two more nights in the hospital and it was a lot better than I thought it would be. The nurses were all very nice. But it was also very easy for them to get along with me and the other guy in my room. I think it makes it a lot nicer for the nurses when the patients are nice.

Anyway, my appendix is out and I have a huge cut on my belly. I lost about 10 pounds over the 3 days I was in the hospital. I'm pretty tired but sleeping well.

-Gary

Oops

2009-09-16T22:42:00.001-06:00

Have a peek at the president's face when he realizes what he just said.

No Biting

2009-09-03T15:12:00.001-06:00

nobiting

When I was in Argentina, I knew a young woman that had the tip of her ear bitten off in a dispute. Some little kids were playing soccer in the front yard and the ball went over the wall into the neighbour's yard. She went next door to retrieve it. Unkind words were exchanged and as she was walking home, wham! She was knocked to the ground. The next thing she saw was a gaping mouth approaching her and chomp! The tip of her ear bitten off.

I just wonder if the biters in both these stories use the teeth whitening stuff advertised at the bottem of this photo.

The Summertime

2009-08-12T01:33:00.001-06:00

Self Portrait

I have been having a fantastic summer.

Playing ultimate, mountain biking, walking, running, swimming, water fights, Writing on Stone, Cardston, cooking, and photographing half naked firemen for a calendar (really), the list goes on and on.

I've had a few chances to practise cooking roast beef, my Thai stir fry concoction is fantastic. I'm planning on enrolling in a cooking course or two this fall.

I've read a few books this summer and it looks like it is a trend that will continue, I'm excited about it. I'm not sure what I'm going to read next.

I went mountain biking in Elkwater on Monday and had a pretty good time. I wish I could have stayed longer, or that I would have someone to drive me to the top of the hill rather than having to ride up myself. Downhill riding is where it's at let me tell you. If I get into it enough next summer, maybe I'll break down and get a new bike. I could probably justify it to myself if I started riding my bike to work, something that I haven't done yet this year but have been meaning to do for a while now. Hopefully tomorrow.

Gary and Melanie

2009-08-08T19:38:00.001-06:00

Gary and Melanie

This is a picture of me falling in love.

My aunt Celanie introduced me to Melanie a few months ago. We have been dating ever since. I have such a good time with her. We go together really well. Everything she does makes me laugh.

I'd write more, but we are going golfing pretty soon.

Aliens

2009-07-20T10:12:00.001-06:00

Arches National Park

2009-06-11T23:26:00.001-06:00

Mom

Today we drove down to Moab to see Arches national park. It is spectacular. I wish I had been down to see it years ago. I hope to be able to make it down to go mountain biking later this summer.

We stopped a bunch of times to take photos and see the sights. It was our best day of sight seeing yet.

I recommend going to see Arches National Park.

-Gary

Machine Gun

2009-06-11T00:19:00.001-06:00

Fully Auto

I shot a machine gun today. It was one of the awesomest things I have ever done. It seemed surprisingly easy too. I had no trouble hitting the human sized target at 75 feet. You do have to be careful of course, and shoot as few bullets as possible at a time. Unloading the clip would take less than a second and you would be all over the place, but I found that if you try to do very small bursts you can hold it steady enough that they all his within a small area.

They give surprisingly little instruction about how to go about working the thing, maybe it is as easy as they think, I didn't have any trouble.

This is what they told me.

This button releases the clip. This switch is the safety, it also changes from semi-automatic to burst. Burst actually is fully automatic. We would appreciate it if you would do small bursts and not just empty the clip. You put push the bullets into the clip like this, you don't have to slide them in like a hand gun you just push them in. The clip goes in like this, make sure it is fully seated then pull this lever back to load a shell into the chamber. Press this button down to adjust the length of the stock. Try and go easy until you get the feel for it.

It's not like I have never shot a gun before, but it seems that a person who walks in off the street would need a little more instruction about how to shoot a machine gun.

All that being said, it was really cool. One of the funnest things ever. I think that everyone should shoot a gun sometime in their life. I will probably stop in there the next time I am near Provo.

-Gary

Utah Trip

2009-06-09T22:10:00.001-06:00

In My Hotel

I started off my trip to Utah with a fun weekend in Calgary at a Mid-Singles Conference. This photo is from my hotel room. I liked the faux wood paneling so much that I had to use it as a background.

I attended the speed dating and the seminars as well as the dance. Melanie invited me to go to her friend's wedding and so I missed the supper and dance instruction at the mid singles, but we got there in time for the start of the real dance.

We stayed for the whole thing and I danced to every song with Melanie, except for a water break and to reply to a text from my parents. I figured it was pretty important because my mom has never texted me before.

Monday morning we got up early and headed to the states. We got stopped at the border because their x-ray machines picked up my firewood in the trunk of the car. We had to visit the agriculture officer and luckily she decided to let us keep our firewood and apples.

On the way I just about lost control of the car twice, and by that I mean I lost control of the car twice and was able to regain control before it was too late. Before I got to Helena the was a pretty bad rain and snow storm and I hydroplaned across a bridge. Let me tell that my mother is a lot calmer and more helpful in a real emergency than when the emergency is all in her head. We started hydroplaning again in the Salt Lake valley as well. My rear tires are pretty bald and I should get them replaced.

2009-05-28T09:02:00.002-06:00

I've been dating a really great girl. She's a lot like me. I always have fun when we do stuff together. Her sense of humour is just like mine. She thinks it is super funny to get a rise out of me, and she gets me every time for a few seconds every single time, then I realize what she's doing and I can't help but laugh.

In other news, I want to grow a moustache. Watch this video to find out why.

Ultimate

2009-05-07T22:33:00.001-06:00

Layout

Today was the first night of the Medicine Hat ultimate Frisbee league. I had a really good time playing but I am really out of shape. I'm hoping that this will give me the incentive I need to hit the bricks and start building up my endurance a little bit more.

It was a little cold tonight but it was fine as long as you didn't have to sit off for too long.

This photo isn't me it's just a random photo from flickr.

-Gary

I Really Like Squirrels

2009-04-27T23:53:00.000-06:00

Elkwater

2009-04-21T00:23:00.003-06:00

I went to Elkwater on a date today. We walked around the park and chatted the whole time. I really enjoyed it a lot even though I got a sunburn on my arms and head. The walk was a little long, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I can't wait for my next date, but I don't have anything planned yet.

-Gary

Tough Guy

2009-04-07T00:15:00.001-06:00

Tough Guy

I've pretty much always been a tough guy. You can see proof of that in this photo. The ladies love that about me.

I went on my date on Friday night. We both had a really great time. First we went to dinner, then a little drive around town that included a stop at the tepee and to top it all off we went to see Monsters Vs. Aliens in 3D. I had fun the entire time.

On Sunday I sat with her at church and afterwords we visited for about two hours afterwards. We mostly traded mission stories, which is always fun. She served in Guatemala, it sounds like things there were a lot rougher than in Argentina.

I can't wait to go out with her again.

night at the drive-in

2009-03-30T22:38:00.001-06:00

night at the drive-in

I was thinking that we should go to a drive in movie, but they tore it down a couple of years ago.

Friday Night

2009-03-30T22:37:00.001-06:00

handsome

My beautiful Aunt Celanie introduced me to a nice girl on Sunday. Celanie had given me her number a week or two ago, but I wanted to meet her in person rather than just call up a complete stranger. I talked to her tonight, she seems very nice, and we have a date on Friday.

She seems very familiar to me, I think I probably have met her before, sometime in my teens when I would go to dances in Taber, and I could swear that I at least saw her in Calgary last year at the mid-singles conference.

I guess I'm going to need to get all spiffied up for my date on Friday.

-Gary

Breaking Bad

2009-03-24T23:35:00.002-06:00

Breaking Bad is hands down the best show on tv right now. 10 episodes in and I am completely hooked.

Walter White, the anti-hero of the new AMC series "Breaking Bad," is a chemist, and always defines himself as such. Twenty years earlier, he was part of a Nobel Prize-winning research team, and though he's down on his luck now and teaches science to bored high-schoolers, his voice still breaks a little as he describes the wonders of chemistry, how it features "growth, then decay, then transformation." And when he discovers he has inoperable lung cancer, he decides the only way to care for his wife and disabled son after he's gone is to put his lab skills to use cooking crystal meth. "Breaking Bad" is itself a chemistry experiment, an attempt to combine several unstable compounds - one part "Weeds," one part "The Bucket List," one part "Falling Down" and 12 parts Coen Brothers - to see whether they lead to synthesis or combustion.

I can't wait for the next episode to air.

Basketball Shoot

2009-03-14T00:50:00.001-06:00

DSC_2343

I made a couple hundred photos of a basketball tonight. Tomorrow I'll narrow it down to 20, then edit five of them to upload to istock. Hopefully one or two of them will sell 10 or 15 times a month over the next year or two. I'm sure that I have five that I really like a lot. Which is good for me. Generally from 200 I have 10 that are nice and one that I really like a lot.

My new lights, the alien bees are great. I find them a lot easier to use than my Nikon speed lights. Maybe I just like the manual-ness of them, it is what I am used to working with everyday. Turn a dial, adjust the power and go. Not to mention having a trigger mechanism that doesn't rely on some sort of hard to figure line of sight.

I would like to find more projects to do with them. I have a few ideas lined up. Some need to wait for spring to be fully sprung. Some need to wait for models to be old enough to sign releases. Some need models. At least one needs a robot costume.

I'm particularly interested in the robot.

-Gary

Kite Aerial Photography

2009-03-10T16:49:00.001-06:00

I really want to try this.

Unicorns and Rainbows

2009-03-06T01:02:00.003-07:00

Unicorn

I listen to a radio show called, "This American Life". In one episode a woman is telling a story about a party she was at. Everyone was discussing endangered species and she said to the group, "Are unicorns endangered or extinct?" After a awkward silence, she realized unicorns aren't real. It is so easy to believe they are though, they just live in Africa, like zebras. After all aren't dinosaurs real? How much easier is it to believe in a horse with a horn than a giant lizard?

Anyway, I've been shooting grad photos. Photos of kids graduating from high school. I chat with the kids. Did you get your prom dress? What are you doing next year? Do you play sports or have a job? Where do you work?

There is one question that I stopped asking. Can you settle a bet between me and my assistant? I think that unicorns are extinct and she thinks they are only endangered, what do you think?

Now, obviously the correct answer is: Unicorns aren't real.

Too many kids don't know that I'm joking when I ask that. They are easily fooled by the way the question is formed, the way it assumes unicorns are real. The kids say unicorns are extinct in front of their parents.

I truly hope the kids aren't actually listening, just responding to my questions. Flipping a coin in their heads, extinct on one side and endangered on the other.

I'm sure very few kids are actually paying attention to anything I say, because when one is paying attention, when there is one that gets that I'm joking we can tell. The kid is having fun and playing along with the game.

-Gary

Talia and Scott

2009-03-01T00:26:00.001-07:00

Talia and Scott

I did a basketball photo shoot with Scott this evening. I'm pretty sure that I got a ton of really great shots of him. His girlfriend came along to watch. I had a shoot with her and two friends right around this time last year.

They were both really great to work with and I had a ton of fun.

-Gary

Alien Bees Test

2009-02-27T23:10:00.001-07:00

Gary_1868

I ordered a pair of Alien Bees Flashes a week ago and they turned up on my doorstep yesterday. I'm pretty excited about having some studio lights now. I have a photo shoot set up tomorrow evening.

In other news, Heidi broke up with me on the weekend. It's too bad, but realistically we are better as friends than as a couple. I could feel a lot worse about it, but at least I'm sure that Heidi put a lot more thought and consideration into it than Tracie did.

-Gary

Go Ahead, Judge a Book By it's Cover

2009-02-10T00:37:00.002-07:00

I always thought that you actually could judge a book by it's cover and now I have proof. This book about human resources.
This book is available on Amazon and has the greatest book cover ever created. You will notice how the photo on the cover of this wonderful book fantastically illustrates the topic of the book. You will also notice that although the book sells for a staggering $152.99 + GST + Shipping, it is temporarily sold out from Amazon. There are two used copies available for $155.23 which means that the book actually increases in value after you buy it!

Wilson and the Cockroach

2009-02-09T22:22:00.002-07:00

This is one of my favourite photos from my entire mission. My description is in this journal entry. Keep in mind by this point I had been in Argentina for a year and eight months.

Aug. 5, 1998

Today was P day. We did our laundry. I did all of mine. I have enough socks to wear a different pair everyday and still only have to wash them once a month.

I wrote a letter to Mom and Dad and one to Jeff.

I took a picture of my companion to finish off the roll and we got them developed, he noticed that there was a huge cockroach on the wall behind him and I didn't even see it!

Well while the clothes were washing, we went to get money at Coto and we came back to dry the clothes. When my clothes were dry I got my haircut. You know, it pains my soul to pay ten dollars to wash my clothes and then ten dollars more to cut my hair. At least she cut a lot off. I really needed a haircut bad.

We went to our Auchan to buy groceries, develop film and eat. We ate McDonald's. I love McDonald's. It's so good.

Anyway, like always P day was really fast. Elder Peterson told me that we were having the district meeting in Wilde, so we went on down there and waited half an hour, but nobody showed, so we left. I imagine that Peterson had barely got back with his nuevito and that Bates and Lawrence went to the chapel in Avellaneda.

My Aunt Alice

2009-02-02T01:25:00.001-07:00

1 July 2002

My aunt Alice passed away on Sunday.

This picture is from the first of July 2002.

Heidi

2009-01-23T21:31:00.001-07:00

Heidi

I like hanging out with Heidi a lot. Living in different cities is brutal. Having days off that don't match up is even more brutal. It is hard getting to know someone when you only get to be together for a day or two per week.

It has been really fun so far.

We went to see the Broadway show Stomp last week, and had a great time both at the show and visiting in the car during our road trip.

-Gary

Christmas and New Years

2009-01-04T00:02:00.001-07:00

F07U8920

For Christmas I bought myself a GPS and I am enjoying using it. I haven't really had a good chance to explore places where I don't know where I'm going except for on my New Years trip to Calgary.

I picked Heidi up in Lethbridge and we went to Calgary for a New Years Eve party. I had a really good time. We went to dinner and then to her sister's house. We baby sat their kids for an hour or so while they went to their own party and then at 10:30 we went to the Dance.

Things in the studio have been pretty slow the last two days. I guess that is to be expected. The school photos are all done, everyone is broke from Christmas and the next major shooting we are doing is in four more weeks.

I'm really looking forward to starting the graduation cap and gown photos. It would be nice if they had already started because I really like to be busy.

This photo is a test of a style I want to try for the college sports teams. I think that it is a way of shooting that would really stand out from the way that most of the athlete portraits in the league are done. It seems like the type of photo that they could take a chance instead of going with the same old boring head shots.

In the Mood for Blogging

2008-12-27T18:57:00.002-07:00

I've really been in the mood for blogging lately. I think it is because I've been feeling fantastic since I finally cut the last string holding me to Tracie when we went down to the provincial registry to take her name off my car registration. Maybe it's just Christmas.

I had a really great boxing day yesterday. We went to London Drugs and got there right before they opened the doors and were able to get two 4gig compact flash cards and then we went to the Future Shop. I got a 8gig thumb drive and gps unit. I think I got a pretty good deal on both and the crowds weren't nearly as bad as I thought they would be. Then at about 10:30 or so I went to Lethbridge to see Heidi and her family. Heidi's whole family came down to her parent's house for a visit and Christmas dinner.

-Gary

I'm A Model

2008-12-24T21:14:00.002-07:00

F07U8519

My good friend and assistant Christine did a practise series of photos of me today. They all turned out very well. I'm very pleased with them. We were able to go over the things that she did well and the things that needed a little improvement. There were only a few that would have needed to be deleted if they were for a real sitting, and almost all of them looked fantastic once they were cropped.

I may even print a few for my wall at home. I guess I'm sort of weird among photographers in that I generally really like having my picture taken. I think that these ones turned out particularly well. Now if I could just lose some weight.

-Gary

Students Loans

2008-12-23T19:02:00.001-07:00

2007-03-31 Canadian Money

I finished paying off one of my student loans today. That leaves only one. It is very nice to be getting them paid.

I really wish it hadn't taken so long but I guess you do what you can. The other one is going to take a while to get through.

Things are going really well. I'm feeling fantastic and enjoying myself a lot. Heidi came to visit me for the weekend and we had a chance to exchange our gifts. We spent a lot of time visiting my family and we had a nice time. I'm glad that Heidi got a chance to meet Jackie and her boys.

-Gary

Heidi

2008-12-07T21:55:00.002-07:00

Heidi came to visit again and I had a fantastic time. We went to see Twilight, which I liked quite a bit, it followed the book pretty well. I always like the book a little bit better. I think it is because it is easier to interpret books in a way that is meaningful than it is to interpret meaning into movies.

It starting snowing really hard at supper time and so Heidi decided it would be better to leave a little sooner rather than take a chance later in the evening.

I have to replace my tires tomorrow. The treads are really worn. I can't decide if I should buy winter tires or if I should just get all season and not worry about it until the time comes to get new, new tires.

-Gary

Why do Foreigners Love Michael Jackson So Much?

2008-12-01T11:43:00.002-07:00

From the video info:

Here is a remake of the "Thriller" song that I've entirely recorded with my own voice, using 64 A'cappella tracks. There is therefore no instrument, synthetizer, beatbox, or even to sampler, but only the sound of my voice livened up with Reverb and slight Chorus on certain tracks. Regarding looping parts, I've simply used the "looping" technique. Moreover, in the whole piece (which contains several thousand notes), I transposed 8 notes, which were impossible for me to sing in high-pitched. Because of my tessiture, I also must have resigned myself to sing certain parts in head voice, more particularly on the track corresponding to Michael Jackson's solo vocal.

I've accomplished this non-commercial project at home, only with a mobile PC, microphone, headphones and webcam - in nearly 350 hours. It's just an artistic challenge, accomplished during my hours of free time, whose purpose is to make smile my close circle and net surfers. Nonetheless, I'll be happy to record in professional studio, original songs with this technique, if a label was interested to work with me on a SP or LP entirely based on this innovative concept of "Massively Multitracks A'cappella".

Jon asks...

2008-11-29T18:07:00.002-07:00

"What sort of photo editing occurs for school photos? I never imagined that was part of the process."

I guess it sort of varies depending on what's wrong with the kid's face. We do a lot more editing than the big school photo companies.

We crop and straighten all the photos. We pop a few zits and fix stray hairs. People can pay for heavier zit popping. The biggest difference between us and the big guys is that we get rid of the glare from the flashes on glasses. Glare on glasses takes the most time of anything we do, and is fairly difficult. I'm getting pretty good at it and having a tablet/pen input device makes it a lot easier. The big companies specifically say on their order forms that they do not retouch glare on glasses. Another thing we do is colour balancing. We colour balance the photos from each photographer's setup for each day so that pictures of siblings will match even if they go to different schools or are photographed by different photographers.

The colour and light levels change dramatically based on where you are shooting. For example if you are in a school gym that is home of the "Red Devils" and there is a huge red logo behind you on the wall, some of the light from the flashes will bounce off of the logo onto the kid making them more red than usual. If the photographer beside you doesn't have the logo behind them, the pictures will have a different colour cast. Then if the younger sibling is goes to school at the home of the "Blue Devils" they will have a different colour cast as well. Shooting in a drama room looks different than shooting in the gym, art room, or cafeteria. Even though the pictures are mostly the same.

We try to control all the variables. It seems to be working for us.

-Gary

School Photo Printing Done

2008-11-29T00:07:00.005-07:00

We finished printing the school photos today. Some of the ladies at work were discussing the last time we were done before December and it has been over 5 years at least.

The new printer coming late put us four weeks behind on the printing before we even started, so it was great that we were able to get it done. Next year, we are going to be sitting around waiting for the cheques to clear.

Apart from the speed of the printer itself, several other factors sped up printing and packaging.

For example

Photo editors don't have to split their time between editing and printing the photos. Now the editors only edit the photos, which lowers the switchover time between editing and printing.

The person operating the printer works independently of the editors. This means that anything that needs to be reprinted can just be reprinted. This reduces interruptions to the photo editors, and there is less waiting around for reprints.

The new printer is can have a much longer print queue. The machine can print unsupervised once the jobs are entered, allowing the operator to do other things while waiting for the queue to finish.

We don't laminate the photos anymore and cutting the prints to separate them has been mostly eliminated by the new printer. We will likely be able to eliminate all the cutting once we have more time to make templates and tweak the printer a little more.

There are a few more things that we could do to improve, but for the most part, many of the bottle necks have been removed.

KFC Police

2008-11-17T21:43:00.001-07:00

I met a guy about 12 years ago that that raises fighting cocks. At the time, he had about 40!

He kept the big ones all together, it is safe to do that because although they naturally fight each other, if the pecking order is already established they don't fight. He said that if he separated one out and the put it back after a week or so the rest would have forgotten their friend and kill it fast.

He took out 2 little ones to show us a fight. They started fighting right away.
Trying to peck and scratch each other with their spurs. Luckily they were too little to harm each other. It was very interesting.

He let them all out and they all went looking for food. After little while later, one of the younger cocks started fighting with one of the hens. The owner whistled for his #1 fighter (mainly to draw attention that there was a fight going on) and it came over and broke the fight up and it let the hen know that it wasn’t allowed to fight by pecking her.

The hen got one last peck in after the fight was over. The guy laughed and said, "Just like a woman, she just had to get that last peck in."

That guy was very interesting. He knew the pecking order of his birds. He knew which rooster was the toughest. He told us that the #1 bird in the pecking order was actually the 3rd toughest rooster, #2 and #3 were both tougher, but because they were younger they could still remember when the #1 was stronger. I guess the top cock maintained his position through roughing up the younger birds and then continually intimidating them as they got bigger and older.

So it seems that chickens just don't like fighting if the pecking order is set in their minds.

-Gary

Heidi

2008-11-16T00:46:00.001-07:00

Heidi

So instead of sleeping right now I am going through the photos on my computer. I have this one saved in the folder called, "BEST WEEKEND EVER".

Time Change

2008-11-03T17:54:00.001-07:00

Medicine Hat, Alberta

With the removal of Daylight savings time, it gets dark a lot sooner than usual. About an hour actually. I really like having a little daylight left after work. I much prefer that to having a little more light in the morning.

Things are going well. I've finished going out to the schools and now we are focused on printing all the pictures as well as studio work.

I have about half the airmiles I need to get an xbox 360, but the good news is that Safeway has introduced a new card that gives you 50 bonus airmiles when you spend $40. Which is actually pretty easy. I spent $70 today. I guess I should pay attention to how much everything costs and spread my purchases out to maximize airmile potential.

Obama-McCain Dance Off

2008-10-30T16:20:00.000-06:00

The Internet

2008-10-29T21:52:00.001-06:00

Todos

I don't know if this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing, but I finally broke down and got an internet connection into my house. Actually, I'm posting this from my own home.

That sound you just heard... it was the sound of my Mom's heart breaking because now I probably won't need to come over an hang out for three or four hours every day to use their computer.

I'll have to think of something to do that involves humans at least a couple of times a week.

The photo to the right is supposed to represent the internet.

-Gary

Golf

2008-10-22T20:25:00.002-06:00

Morning Stretch

My brother in law has once again returned to the world long drive championships of the world. I think he qualified at the world long drive championships of Canada. His groups starts to wack'em at 10:30am on Friday the 24th. Here is a link to the results page. They are posting the results live and so the page will refresh itself every two minutes. The auto refresh will be totally worth it if even one person is so interested that he can't wait until the very end to see the results.

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your economic situation) I have to/ get to work during the event and so the automatically refreshing website will be of no use to me.

Stupid retakes.

-Gary

Eclectic Sound

2008-10-21T20:14:00.001-06:00

Eclectic Sound

People really love lists. I don't know what it is about them. Much More Music has a show called Listed. Basically it is the show that counts down the best of the best in Music and Entertainment. Something about this show really speaks to me. I really enjoy watching it whether it is counting down the 20 groups that rock our world or 20 biggest celebrity meltdowns.

Put anything in a list and people will be interested.

American Election

2008-10-19T23:04:00.002-06:00

So, I've finally decided who should win the US election. It is John McClane because I liked the Die Hard movies.

Best Movie of the Year

2008-10-13T02:38:00.002-06:00

Ghost Town staring Ricky Gervais is the best movie of the year. I laughed throughout the entire movie. I give it two thumbs up. It is fine holiday fun.

Happy Thanksgiving.

-Gary

Inspired by Jeff

2008-09-28T15:51:00.001-06:00

wordle word cloud

I made a word cloud, it's from the last 4 or 5 months of this blog. The size of a word in the visualization is proportional to the number of times the word appears in the input text.

I guess you can draw conclusions about what is on my mind based on the size of the words in this image. But beware, not everything that is on my mind is in this image because I don't really post everything that I think here.

-Gary

September

2008-09-23T18:27:00.002-06:00

We've hit our stride at the schools, two weeks in and we're going strong. I'm really enjoying it a lot even though it is a lot more tiring than the last two years. Luckily we are done photographing a the four local high schools. We only have a few more really big schools left.

I went to visit Heidi on the weekend, she's a really great girl. I really like her. She's nice, caring and very appreciative of the things I do for her. I always have a good time when we get to visit. It makes me sad that we live in different cities. I just want to spend all my time with her. I wish I had met her 11 years ago. It just takes too long to get to know someone properly, to develop a history with someone.

Over all things are going very well for me. The CPAP machine is just great. I have become accustomed to wearing it at night. I don't think I'll be sleeping without it unless I can lose a bunch of weight, which often helps reduce sleep apnea.

I've been uploading more photos istock over the last few months and have recently cracked 400 uploads. I hope to find people to act as models I would really like to get 30 or 40 uploaded a month. My spread sheet predicts that with 30 uploads a month I could be making as much as $1000 a month by May. It just seems so hard to come up with enough ideas and models to make 30 photos a month. I guess I could break it down a bit and do 3 themes a month with 10 photos from each theme. Even that is a little daunting.

-Gary

Haircut by Heidi

2008-09-12T17:17:00.001-06:00

Haircut by Heidi

I've been wanting to grow my hair a little longer on top for a while now, but I don't think I would do a good job cutting only the sides by myself. Luckily Heidi saved the day by volunteering to trim the sides for me.

The though of just letting it all grow evenly just didn't appeal to me and neither did paying $15 to have it done at the mall.

Things are going really well. Heidi has been to visit a couple of times and I am looking forward to heading out to Lethbridge in a week to see her. I always have a lot of fun hanging out with her.

-Gary Milner

Guess What Bill, You're a Ten.

2008-09-05T19:27:00.000-06:00

How could I not post this? It's one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Another Visit

2008-08-25T01:17:00.003-06:00

Heidi came to visit for the weekend again. I had such a good time with her. She is so nice, I'm very lucky to have met her.

We went to see, "The Rocker" and it was a very fun movie. We both laughed the entire time. After that we went and sat in the shade in a park. We chatted, gossiped and otherwise got to know each other a little better. I barbecued for her yesterday and today after church I made spaghetti.

She made the cupcake mix that I had bought for my birthday back in May. The cupcakes turned out very well.

She's only been gone for a couple of hours and I already miss her. It makes me want to move to Lethbridge. I just love my job so much and I don't know what I would do for work there. Convincing her to move here is an option, but she loves her job so much too. I guess I should be working on my stock photos harder than ever.

Right now I am saving my istock money to buy a video camera to shoot stock videos with. The site experiences a summer slowdown, but it seems to be ending. As it picks up again, the istock money will be a big help. It would be nice to be making enough money from istock so that even if it wasn't a full time gig, that it would let me take more time off in the summer when we aren't as busy in the studio.

-Gary

I Went to The Lake

2008-08-21T22:18:00.001-06:00

Big Fork Trip

Heidi's parents have a cabin on the shore of a lake in Montana and they were kind enough to invite me to come down for a few days with Heidi. I had an incredible time. It was a nice chance to relax before the school photo season starts again. I also really enjoyed getting to know her parents and littlest brother better.
We did a little boating, jet skiing, swimming and canoing. It was a really fun long weekend for the two of us. Heidi was excited to give me a taste of what is was like to grow up in her family.
I got a text message from Tracie yesterday, because today would have been our wedding anniversary. I called her and we had a little chat.
This whole thing is getting better bit by bit all the time. It was a kind of difficult talking to her, but I am feeling significantly improved because of it, so I'm glad I called.

Fixing Electronics

2008-08-13T23:57:00.001-06:00

Gary fixes his flash

Does being able to fix a broken LCD screen on your camera's flash make you more Manly or more Nerdy. For my money it makes you more manly.

A month or two ago I was doing some photos of my parents using my SB-800 speedlights off camera on stands with umbrella diffusers. A small breeze tipped one of the flashes over and cracked the LCD screen. I figured that it would be pretty easy to replace myself, so I looked it up on the internet.

Here is a link to the instructions (or possibly destructions) How to fix a Nikon SB-800 Flash. It is pretty straight forward and pretty easy if you are careful. I recommend being very gentle, if you feel you need to add much force at all as you are doing this project, there is probably a wire caught somewhere so that should be a signal to examine things more closely.

Important info:

Nikon Parts phone number: (310) 414-8107. This number is in California. They won't ship to Canada.
The Canadian Number is (905) 625-9910.

Apparently in the USA it costs $37.50 + shipping (about $10)
It cost me $57.45 in Canadian Funds + $5 for shipping

part description: SB-800 LCD (The parts people can figure out the part number pretty easily)

the part # is : SS523-55

I admit I risked wasting a $65, on this little repair job, but it would have cost at least double that to have it fixed, not to mention what the shipping would have cost. The replacement cost would have been around $350 so I figure it was a risk worth taking.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

-Gary

Lots of Good Stuff

2008-07-31T23:42:00.002-06:00

So it seems with so much to write about, I've been procrastinating. On the weekend, I made a quick trip to Lethbridge to see Heidi and meet her parents. We went to her parents house and I got to meet them along with her sister and brother in law and their kids. We had a great visit with her Dad and Mom. Apparently, her Dad googled me, and as I have gone to great lengths to be findable, it was pretty easy for him. I guess Heidi thought it was sort of weird, but it seems like a pretty smart thing to do in my opinion.

The next day we went to Waterton, we gave a friend of Heidi's a ride and spent the day in the park. I didn't bring my camera, which was a foolish thing for me to do considering the fact that I am a photographer. Anyway, we had a really good time. I love to walk and talk and all the stuff that goes along with that, tripping, stubbing your toe things like that.

I had a really great time and I wish I could see her again this weekend. Stupid living in different cities. That's the worst.

Anyway on Tuesday, I had my sleep study done. It involved sticking some short tubes into my nostrils, taping a microphone to my neck, and putting some sort of heart rate monitor thing on my finger. So it was pretty much a normal night. It went well, but about halfway through the night the finger thing really started to bug me so I put it on a different finger. Well it stopped recording after that and I had to do the test again last night.

As I was clicking the buttons on the machine I noticed that my heart was beating at 68 BPM and I thought to myself, "Boy I'm sure relaxed". As I lay there I imagined a nice flat graph of my heart rate and the idea soothed me. Just as I was falling asleep and very relaxed, !!!Ding!!! a text message startled me, then I saw it was from Heidi. And at once I knew that the flat graph showing my heart rate had been ruined. First from the scare, then finding out the message was from Heidi! I imagined a huge spike on the graph and started laughing. I can only imagine what the doctor will think. I texted her back and she got me going twice more with messages before I fell asleep.

In the morning I woke up and saw on the machine's screen, not recording, device unplugged. I must have turned during the night, and the finger thing had come unplugged from the machine. I plugged it back in, but it was too late, I was already awake for the day. I removed my finger from the device, to ease unhooking the other monitoring devices and it started beeping right away! Boy, I thought, why couldn't it make that beeping when your unplugged? I would have gotten it plugged back in right away.

The next morning I told the sleep people what had happened. They told me that they would call if I had to do the test again. I guess they need six hours worth of data. I'm getting sick of sleeping connected to that machine but I really want to know if I have trouble breathing while I am asleep.

Anyway, I'm doing well, and my next planned day to visit Heidi is coming again in another seven days if I can keep myself away this weekend.

-Gary Milner

A Really Good Weekend

2008-07-24T01:07:00.001-06:00

Heidi

So my friend Heidi came to visit me from the 12-14th and we had a really good time. Hanging out and watching movies with other people is something that I have really been missing.

We strolled around a few parks and spent most of our time chatting with each other. One thing I really like about her, and may seem silly, is that she can walk in a straight line.

We cooked for each other and my parents invited us over for dinner one night as well.

I was really when she had to go back to Lethbridge.

Then this last weekend, I helped put on an event of istock photographers. We rented a high school and found a bunch of models to shoot. There were 10 photographers and about 28 models over the course of the two days.

I shot about 750 photos and of that I thought that 200 or so were good enough to convert from the RAW format in to JPG. Of those 200 or so, not all of them will be good enough to upload to istock. I didn't look at them all at full size and seeing small copies of photos hides defects. In some of them for example I focused in the wrong spot, or the picture is just plain out of focus, and of course there are blinks and photos that are just too similar to bother uploading both.

I have uploaded 40 already, and I'll probably be uploading about 100 more. Which would be fantastic. It would mean that a quarter of my portfolio was created last weekend. I'd have approximately 500 photos online which is 25% of my new goal of 2000 photos for sale on istock. It seems like it is easily with in my reach now. Finding out how easy it actually is to find people that are willing to model for you just amazes me.

For one of my next shoots, I want to do a track and field theme, and I've already asked one kid if I could do some long jumping photos of him. He's pretty excited to do any sort of modeling for me. When I suggested long jumping he said that that would be perfect because he has perfectly symmetrical and rather large leg muscles.

Now it is just a matter of when I will be able to plan it for. It just feels like I have a lot on my plate lately. I guess anything compared to nothing feels like a lot.

I got a free eye exam the other day from a friend and so I asked him if I could do a portrait of him and his wife. I have 1500 photos to make into a slide show and somehow otherwise organize. I play ultimate on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I want to go to Lethbridge to visit Heidi this weekend (and pretty much every other weekend as well.) On August 8th she we are going to see Spamalot in Calgary. Then on the 16th or 23th we are going to her parent's cabin in Montana. Then the last week of August is here and I'm back photographing kids in schools again and it is the busy season at the studio.

I guess I'm really lucky to have so many plans. This is one of my fullest summers ever, and I just want to pack more and more into it all the time. More photo shoots. More visits with Heidi. More sports. More everything. I'm really very tired.

Oh and I saw Batman on Monday. I give it two thumbs up, it's fine summer fun.

-Gary

Starting The Weekend Off Right

2008-07-13T00:43:00.001-06:00

Photo Booth

There's new news about my new friend. Her name is Heidi and she is from Lethbridge. She's in Medicine Hat for my crazy Sunday Monday weekend.

We went to dinner and a movie, we saw Hancock and had a great time.

I give Hancock two enthusiastic thumbs up. It is fine holiday fun. The movie is very funny and very dramatic. I enjoyed it more than the last 10 movies I have seen combined. (I watch a lot of movies though)

This is turning into the best weekend ever and it hasn't even really started yet!

-Gary

Hotline

2008-06-27T21:27:00.001-06:00

Hotline

I went to Calgary the other day and made a new friend. Now I feel like I'm 16 years old again. Feeling awkward is actually fun in a twisted sort of way.

The problem is that it seems like I am in a rush to end conversations.

"Hey Gary!"
"Hey nameless person!"
"You look great today"
"Thanks, nameless person. Well, see you around."

That conversation would be fine if Gary and nameless person weren't trying to be friends

About 20 minutes ago, I decided to call this new friend of mine. We probably talked for one minute and one second. I know this because all of my phone calls last between 59 seconds and 61 seconds and it seemed like a long conversation.

If it could even be called a conversation.

I don't know what my problem is I called them. I wanted to talk to them. I still want to talk to them. But I ended the conversation before I wanted to. That's messed up.

I talked to them for four hours straight on the weekend. They even commented on how easy it was to talk to me.

It is the stupid phone. I hate phones. Phones are my nemesis. One of the best working moments of my life was being fired, on my birthday, from a job that required copious amounts of phone conversations.

So, back to thinking about my friend. I would rather drive for 2.5 hours to where they live, talk to them and then drive 2.5 hours back to Medicine Hat than have the exact same conversation on the phone.

That's probably weird.

-Gary

2008-06-24T19:04:00.000-06:00

I'm going to try this the next time I'm in a place with an escalator.

All in all it's just another foot in the wall.

2008-06-10T19:45:00.000-06:00

Ordering Stuff on the Internet

2008-06-09T17:31:00.003-06:00

It really feels like I've been ordering a lot of stuff on the internet lately. Late Saturday night I bought season 2 of a television series that I've recently started to enjoy. Today I purchased a light stand, umbrella adapter and umbrella, to mount my speed light on for some hot off camera flash action. Not to mention that Russian mail-order bride. I have now idea how the mailman will fit her in the mailbox, hopefully the shipper will punch a few holes in the box for her.

Everything and everyone should start showing up in the mail tomorrow or so.

-Gary

Photomaton

2008-06-08T10:50:00.001-06:00

In 1926, a Jewish inventor from Siberia named Anatol Josepho opened a photo-booth concession, the first Photomaton in the world.

It makes me want to find one and get some pictures taken.

-Gary

First Outdoor Sitting of the Summer

2008-05-31T23:43:00.002-06:00

Today I had my first outdoor sitting of the summer season. It made me pretty happy. You get a little cabin fever being cooped up in the studio from September to May. You have to think in a totally different manner. You get to do things that you would never do in the studio.

It's nice. I had a really good day at work today. I'm so glad I have such a great job.

Oh and it looks like I have a date lined up for Monday. Life is looking up.

-g

Istockalypse Now

2008-05-26T16:17:00.002-06:00

I am planning an istock minilypse here in Medicine Hat for July 19-20. I'm pretty excited for it. We had our first meeting today and it looks like we are going to get some top selling pictures.

We are planning for 15 photographers to make it manageable for ourselves as first time planners. We hope to rent a good chunk of a local high school and the YMCA.

We are possibly going to have a casting call for models here in town but we think we might know enough people willing to model that we might not even need to do that. Obviously we need school aged kids, teacher types and people that do fitness type things (people in shape and people that need to get into shape).

I'm really excited about getting this event off the ground.

-Gary

Facebook Poker

2008-05-14T23:18:00.004-06:00

I've been playing facebook poker a little more often lately, and doing pretty well. Now, I'm not really that great of a poker player, but I seem to be a lot better than many of the other facebook players. I'm ranked at about 47,000 out of 633,000 daily users which is %7 of the total players. That ranking is probably out of date because I just made a cool 20k in play money and the rankings aren't calculated live.

There only a few secrets that I can see. First is to build your bankroll until you can actually afford to play at the bigger tables, the 100/200 tables. People will go in with a 2000 minimum buy in against people who have 20,000+ chips. It just doesn't make sense. Statistically the randomness of the games is going to put you out when the chip difference is that big.

Second is to play the bigger tables. The people at those tables play a little more consistently, and seem to react to what the other players do with a little bit of sense. I guess it comes from having more chips to lose. At the low stake tables, people will play too randomly and just get lucky on the river card. You can't play with a strategy or figure out what the other people are going to do in certain situations because they are behaving with out rhyme or reason.

-gary

lluvia de Limones

2008-05-11T10:12:00.003-06:00

Next time you are in Buenos Aires, watch out for Lemons falling from the sky!

Ultimate Frisbee

2008-05-08T21:01:00.002-06:00

So the spring ultimate frizbee league started on Tuesday. Today was our second game. The game on Tuesday was great the weather was really nice and there were lots of people. Today there were plenty of people but it was freezing cold out and the wind was just bitter cold. I was starting to get ear aches from the cold wind, I and wished that I had had some cotton to put in my ears.

It is a really fun game, but I need to work on my disc handling skills a lot. I'm in my endurance is above average right now because I have been hitting the treadmill for the last few weeks, but I also need to work on my speed. Losing 30lbs would go a long way and losing 50 would be perfect.

I'm on a team now. We are the yellows. It looks like a pretty good team. A few more weeks in and I'll be doing just fine. By the end of the spring league, I'll be ready for the summer competitive league.

Anyone in Medicine Hat looking for an Ultimate Frizbee team, check out the Medicine Hat Ultimate Disk League site hudl.ca

I am Iron Man

2008-05-07T23:48:00.002-06:00

I went to see Iron Man with a cute girl called Lisa tonight. I had a really good time. I really enjoyed the movie a lot, it was better than most of the comic book movies that have come out in the last few years.

Getting to know Lisa was the best part. It's been years since I have felt comfortable getting to know a woman other than as a co-worker or acquaintance, friend of a friend type things.

I do miss having someone that I am completely comfortable with to tell my secrets to, but I guess that will take more that sitting in a theater together and a dinner. At least I got to celebrate my birthday in style.

-Gary

I Come From The Land Down Under

2008-05-06T21:38:00.003-06:00

See this photo, It is making me famous down under. Look for it about seven seconds into the clip.

It's already working wonders here in Canada, I have a date tomorrow. The ladies just love Famous Gary.

-Gary Milner

Pedal Power

2008-05-05T11:27:00.002-06:00

I went for my first bike ride of the year today. I rode to the Crestwood Rec Center. On the way there, I stopped at the bike shop to purchase a new lock and some new pedals.

I accidentally broke my left pedal a couple of years ago and should have had it replaced right away. Today it was replaced. The new pedals are amazing. They are a lot wider than my old ones, it makes me wish that I had just had the old ones replaced right when I bought the bike in the first place.

Wide pedals are the way to go for sure. They are so much more comfortable for your foot, and it feels like you can pedal much harder because more of your foot is on the pedal. It also seems like my foot is much less likely to slip off of the pedal.

I think that I will start riding my bike to work at least two days a week. Maybe Wednesdays and Fridays.

Dating

2008-04-28T14:14:00.001-06:00

Downtown

Had my first date last Friday. We went to a movie and then to a restaurant for appetizers afterwards. It was a pleasant surprise to say the least.

I don't know what I was really expecting as I start my life over, but I have to admit that I had a really good time and I hope I can duplicate it again this week with another girl.

-Gary

Grad Formals

2008-04-26T23:45:00.003-06:00

I shot my second grad formal sitting today. The girl had a beautiful dress that must have cost a fortune. I haven't looked at the converted files yet, but I'm sure that I got a lot of very nice photos.

Graduation is my favourite time of year. The girls all look so good in their dresses, they are almost all excited to be their for their photos and they are almost always happy with how the pictures turn out.

Those three things make the job so much more fun. That and this is the beginning of the most creatively free time of the year. During the school shooting and to a lesser extent we have most of the poses pretty well planned and everything is choreographed to be as efficient as possible.

With grad, there is no real plan from person to person, each person gets an individual session. Within the limits of the photographer's style of course. I'm really happy that the formals are starting.

-Gary

The Big News A Little Early

2008-04-13T18:02:00.002-06:00

I promised some big news on Monday, but I guess I'll give it a little early.

The divorce is final today.

I guess I sort of thought of this whole thing as a place to share my feelings. It isn't. Not today anyway.

This will be the final post on the matter.

-Gary

Home Again

2008-04-11T20:35:00.002-06:00

I guess I've needed a couple of weeks to relax after my vacation. I'm a big fan of taking a little while to chill.

That being said I do have a few things to write about.

On the way home from Bs.As. the plane waited patiently for it's turn to take off for over 20 minutes. Then there was a storm over the amazon river that we had to go around, not to mention the head winds. Which meant that at the exact time we landed in Chicago, my flight to Dallas was taking off. Which was fine. The lady at the desk was very helpful and suggested that I take a flight to Huston then back to Calgary.

Good. I always liked Huston. But as we all know there are lots of problems in Huston. Not the least of which was that the airline that the lady in Chicago had booked my flight to Calgary on, wouldn't honour my ticket. They said I could go standby, but that if I didn't make it on, I wouldn't have time to go make it back for my plan B.

So I went back to the original airline told them the story and they put me on a flight to Dallas and a later flight to Calgary. I got to Calgary 12 hours later than I expected. But at least I got to go to Huston.

At Calgary I hopped a cab to the greyhound station and bought a ticket to Medicine Hat. Did you know that there is a bus from Calgary to Medicine Hat at 1:00am on Saturday night? I slept the entire way. I had my headphones on and when the bus driver shouted to the people on the bus that, "We're in Medicine Hat, and would Gary Milner please get off, I know you're here I did a head count and we have one extra person and your luggage is here." I didn't hear him. He started waking people up, luckily I was in the second seat from the front. I don't think I have ever been in such a daze in my entire life. I was completely powerless to resist.

A few minutes of the cold Canadian air woke me right up. I called a cab and got a ride home. It was really great to be back in my own bed.

Now I have been working for two weeks and we are done taking all the grad photos, except for a few stragglers. Anyone who comes now is going to have a hard time getting into the yearbook, we already sent the photos to the schools.

On of our photo editors has moved on to another job, editing video now, so I have been recruited to do some of the pre-editing. I like it well enough, in fact it is very nice when there isn't a lot to do in the studio side of things. It helps us photographers be busy and keeps us out of our assistant's hair so she can keep busy putting the packages together and helping customers.

Work is going really well. I'm really happy to be back in the studio taking photos again.

Come back Monday for some big news.

-Gary

La Boca Juniors

2008-03-25T10:36:00.002-06:00

I went to see a futbol game the other day. It was the Boca Juniors against Colon. I went with a tour group that works with some of the local hostels. They provide a ticket to the game, and a ride there and back for $50. That´s about 150 pesos. The thing is the ticket that you get only costs $8 if you buy it yourself somewhere else. That´s a measly 24 pesos a Taxi to the game couldn´t cost more that 15 pesos so I guess you´re paying to be part of the group, which definitely has it´s own benefits.

On the way from the bus to the stadium, there are people selling all sorts of things, food and drinks as well as knock off Boca Juniors gear.

About a block away from the stadium, the cops have blockades where they frisk you before you go past. They don´t frisk the women. Which is nice. They take away various things that could be used as weapons or projectiles. This isn´t hard to get past though, because the search is only cursory. Anyway, people live inside the blockade and I´m pretty sure it is only there for a few hours before the game anyway.

At the gate, they frisk you again before you go in. You put your ticket into a turnstile reader similar to what many mass transit systems have. It punches holes in the magnetic strip to prevent more than one person from using the same ticket.

I had a general seating ticket for the side of the stadium opposite from the hooligans. The tunnel to the general seating indicates that the stadium was built by hook or by crook. The entire place in made entirely of concrete, but the molds seem to be made from 2x4´s. You can see all the joints. It isn´t like back home where the concrete is completely smooth and finished looking. The concrete work here is rough. Then they paint it. You just hope the engineers didn´t make any mistakes.

The general seating is precarious to say the least. Imagine a very steep staircase made from concrete. Make it the size of a stadium and paint it yellow. Add a few rails every 12 or 15 rows to prevent avalanches of humanity and your set. There are now rows, or columns, or walkways. Coca-cola salesmen walk through the crowd as best they can shouting, "Coca! Coca! Cinco pesos!" intermingled with, "Permiso" so that they can get through. They have to hold their tray of drinks high above their heads or they won´t fit through. There job is made more difficult as the crowd thickens and by the fact that there is no direction as to where you sit. It is literally just a wall of stairs you can sit where ever you want. There aren´t stairs for sitting and stairs for walking. It is all just one mass. Such that often you have to move diagonally through the crowd going up or down the steps. People seem to be really good about letting the sellers through.

There are also other vendors. People selling Popsicles are very popular. They carry their wares in Styrofoam coolers. With what looks like dry ices surrounding the Popsicles. If they can find their way into the middle of a group of tourists, it is like a jackpot. They can sell 2/3 of their stuff without moving. People pass the Popsicles and money back and forth. It works really well, because you don´t have to shift from your place and the vendor makes a lot of money very rapidly.

Then there are women selling hats and bandanna these aren´t as popular as the drinks or Popsicles, but they seem to do a decent business. I bought one because I didn´t have any suntan lotion for my noggin.

The for me the best part of the game is the crowd. A minute before the game starts, the hooligan band on the far side of the pitch starts to play. They have lots of drums and trumpets, and they play the entire time. The crowd sings, cheers and at times jumps. I wasn´t sitting on the hooligan side of the stadium, which would have been pretty scary if only for the jumping. The concrete sways and bounces with the jumping. On my side the people were a lot more relaxed and didn´t do much jumping.

They don´t boo here. There are choruses of shrill whistles when they want to show disapproval to the visiting side. When the get in the open or when they make a substitution.

Boca ended up winning 2-1, the drumming and trumpets continued playing. I think that the doors to the cheap seats are closed because the rest of the stadium empties well before anyone even stands up where we are, and still the music plays. I was starting to think that they were actually playing it over the loud speakers for the entire time but as the cheap seats began to empty, I could see the kids with the drums. And they played as they made their way to the exit. They played the entire time, from the start of the game to the time they passed the cops as they entered the tunnel. It was full force drumming for three hours. When they finally finished, the crowd cheered.

Leading a crowd of thousands with your band must be amazing, everyone singing, "Da le Bo! Da le Bo!" to your tune and the other songs for when they score a goal or when an opponent is sent off. The crowd makes the game the experience that it is.

Istock Event Day Three

2008-03-24T08:49:00.003-06:00

The shoot was held in and around the Istock employee apartments. There was a shoot on the patio on the roof of the building which has a little pool. There was a shoot on the ground floor in the kitchen/living room area. We had a shoot in the street again and a soccer shoot in a plaza not far from the apartment.

This was my best day of shooting of the entire event. I especially enjoyed doing the soccer shots. We had a big studio light attached to a battery, and I was able to use the extremely high sync speed of my camera to great effect. It is a type of outdoor lighting that I have been wanting to do for a year or so.

The great thing about the Nikon D70s is the high flash sync speed. With an on board speed light such as the SB-800 like I have, the sync speed is 1/500, while most other cameras top out at 1/250. This means to achieve the same results, your flash only needs to be 1/2 as powerful. Or that you can achieve great results in even more demanding conditions. Another interesting fact is that there is a hack for this camera. If the camera doesn´t know that it is firing a flash, you can sync it at much higher speeds. The duration of the actual flash starts to be what limits what you can do rather than how long the entire sensor is exposed.

Anyway, the final day was pretty fun.

At 8:00pm we went to the closing party, I had a really good time at the party. A lot better time than I thought I would have. I´m not big into the bar scene, particularly when I don´t really know anyone there. The good thing about our party though was that istock had rented the entire bar for themselves, so I knew most of the people there and recognized all of them. Well, I didn´t know all of the models, but they were really out numbered.

We had a slide show with photos from all the photographers. I have to say that it is a very intimidating thing. The 90 best photos from a pool of well over 45,000. Every photo was a 9 or a 10. Some photos got cheers and others didn´t. I was sorry for the ones that didn´t because it wasn´t as if they were bad or uninteresting it´s just that they were competing against the 10s the photos that were perfect and have that extra punch.

One of my photos didn´t get a cheer, one that I particularly like, but it´s good stock, not really art. My second photo got a cheer and that was really gratifying. To be in a room full of the best photographers that you´ve ever met and to get a cheer of approval. My third photo got the best response of all. A photo of an old lady sitting on a park bench. The crowd gasped. I loved it.

The party was fun and we danced a while and talked a while. I ended up going back to the apartment really early. Ursula, a lady from my group and hotel wanted to leave at about 1:00 am she said she was too old to stay up so late, anyway I was ready by that time and so were the others. In Argentina, the real party is barely starting at 1:00 am. I don´t know how long the rest of them were there, but I get the feeling that the party sort of ended at around 4 or 5. The istock crew had to return all the rental stuff by about 8 and so that had to get home in time to do that.

The next morning Ursula and I went out to exchange a shirt she had bought for her husband. I was in the most amazing boutique I have ever seen. I´m told that it was one of Argentina´s top designers and some of the most expensive clothes in the country. The funny thing is that when you look at the currancy conversion, the prices were about the same as you would find at any regular mall in Canada.

I´ve come to the conclusion that I don´t really want to buy clothes in Canada anymore. I´m no fashionista, but people in Canada don´t really seem to have much style. It isn´t like I have some sort of fashion sense, but you can´t go your entire life wearing sweat pants. You should look good at least some of the time.

On our way back, we saw some of the other guys on a patio cafe relaxing so we joined them for a couple of hours. Lise Gange wandered by and joined us as well. She didn´t come for the event, but just to travel to the same place as the istock crew. She is an istock celeb, she has the most sales of anyone at istock by 300,000 or so. They were all planning a final meal for that night and I was able to snag an invite which I really appreciated.

We went to a really huge restaurant and sat on the patio. Is there anything Canadians love more than having dinner on the patio? I don´t think there is. It was really hot, but this restaurant didn´t allow smoking indoors. Legally speaking, they don´t allow smoking in any restaurants, but it varies from place to place here in the city and out in the more rural areas, forget about it. You can pretty much smoke where ever you want. I had this opinion about Argentina before, they have rules and norms, but they aren´t really enforced much at all. Like the drinking age. It´s a good idea, but then you can´t send your kid to get beer for you, so the rules get bent. Anyway, back to smoking on the patio. Cigs here cost 5 pesos, which is about $1.60 or so. So everyone was smoking up a storm.

The food was amazing. The steak was so good again. I´m thinking of getting a cab up there tonight just for dinner. It really is that good. One of the higher ups at Istock got the bill which was really nice of him. We sat and ate and talked for 3 hours or more. I just love the lifestyle. Even if I never go full time with istock, I can easily imagine myself taking long vacations during the slow periods at the studio, and coming here to relax and enjoy the lifestyle.

-Gary

Istock event day Two

2008-03-22T08:28:00.003-06:00

On the second day of the event, we had a manor house rented. It was fairly large. There were five stations and lots of models for each station.

The first station was themed "The Super Rich", the second "Tango", the third "The Psychologist", the fourth was "Death/Funeral" and the last was in the plaza with dogs.

The super rich setting was a problem for me. My main light came unplugged and we couldn´t figure out where it had come unplugged until my time was mostly up.

The tango was great I really enjoyed shooting the dancers and they definitely had their work cut out for them, because they were really dancing, just holding the dance poses.

The psychologist office was great. Both of the patients were amazing. I particularly liked the girl, she is an aspiring stage actor and just finished a television ad for diet coke that will be airing in Canada.

I enjoyed taking pictures in the plaza the dogs were great, and so were the models that we had.

The funeral scene just didn´t work for me. I couldn´t think of anything to do and just wasn´t inspired by it.

All in all, it was a great day and I have some photos that I am very proud of. Like I said before though, they are all in Raw and I won´t be processing them until I get home.

-Gary

Istockalypse

2008-03-21T09:05:00.002-06:00

So to get back to blogging a little bit.

On my third day here, the event started. We began the day with a presentation by the Ministry of Tourism. It reminded me a lot of watching other groups presentations in university. They showed us their website and talked about the self guided tours.

I guess you can go on these tours and when you get to a certain spot, dial a number with your cellphone and they will give you an audio explanation of what you are seeing.

After that we were released into the wild streets to take photos of the models. I´m going to post photos of the models later, I shot everything in Raw format and I haven´t had the time or desire to go through them yet.

We got tons of nice pictures. It is amazing what a reflector can do for you. It makes the pictures spectacular for not a lot of money. It does seem to take a little practice to learn how to use a reflector. You would think people could just imagine they were shining a mirror on someone, but I guess you have to know that the reflector actually has to be in the sun for it to work.

We bought some flowers along the way and they made a very good prop.

The first day of shooting was very successful and I got something that I am very proud of.

Later that night, we went to a very nice restaurant in Palermo Soho. I had the lomo, in english it is called the fillet. Let me tell you that it was the best steak I have ever had in my entire life. I´m sort of sad to think that I have never ever even had a great steak before now.

The thing that I like best about Argentina, and Buenos Aires is that everything is so laid back and relaxed. The meal in the restaurant must have taken at least 2.5 hours or maybe even three hours, and the waiters didn´t even bat an eye. They weren´t in a hurry to kick us out to reuse the table. We just sat, talked and ate. The service here is really good everywhere. They aren´t the fastest, but they are very attentive and seem to have the perfect balance of coming by the table while not bugging you all night. Tips are gratefully accepted, but they don´t seem to be expected.

Everything here seems very cheap. For example, the restaurant, is a pretty fancy place in one of the best neighbourhoods in the entire city. My steak cost 30 pesos with is $10, and it was literally the best steak I have ever eaten. $10 would barely even cover the tip back home.

I could really see myself living here during the coldest three or four months of the Canadian winter. The lifestyle is just so great.

-Gary

2008-03-20T04:58:00.002-06:00

What would you if in the same situation again?

Well, it seemes to have worked out for me, but there are a couple of things I could have done differently.

I didn´t really need to go into this area. I could see that it wasn´t a good neighbourhood and people have told me that you can´t really leave the caminito on foot. They have police stationed at the entrances and exits to keep their eyes on things. It is pretty much an unwritten rule everyone stays on their own side of the line.

I could have had my camera in some sort of bag so that it wouldn´t be visible. This doesn´t work if you want to take photos, but it helps while you are just walking.

Another thing I could have done is to keep moving a little quicker. I was obviously just wandering around and had stopped to take photos. If I had just taken the photo then continued on to another spot, I would have probably not been approached.

You can probably see that the street is pretty empty. I didn´t know for sure but it could have even been a dead end. I just checked google earth and it isn´t but I didn´t know at the time.

How many cameras do you have with you?

I only have the one camera with me. I don´t know what I would do if they got it. Use my cellphone camera or something. Maybe find a point and shoot for the rest of my trip it is hard to say.

-Gary

La Boca

2008-03-19T13:50:00.002-06:00

robbery

I was walking around the Camintio in the Boca in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Caminito is fairly small and I soon decided to go further afield. After walking a block or two, I saw some men playing soccer, but some ladies on a balcony warned me not to go over. I went down a different street taking photos.

Eventually I came to an empty street near some warehouses. I saw a pair of boys looking at me, but I chalked it up to me being a tourist. I continued down the street, but was aware of the boys. It's always a good idea to PAY ATTENTION TO THE WORLD AROUND YOU. I saw the boys coming towards me and I kept one eye open.

When they got within a few meters of me, I said hello and they continued to approach.

One of them said, "Give me your camera." I didn't understand what he said right away, and took half a step back because he was talking about my camera. The second kid said, "Give me the camera." This kid was a little grabby and reached for my camera. In that split second, I clued in and punched him in the face. The kid seemed taken a back. Unfortunately I had my camera strap on and my hand raised with my camera to my shoulder. My left hand was basically in the same position. This meant it was mostly a jab to his eye and didn't have as much force as I would have liked. I know I didn't hit him hard enough, because he didn't fall down or anything, and my hand isn't bruised.

In the instant after I hit him, I was worried that there was going to be a real fight and there were two of them. They were only kids though and I would have put a hurt on them. In the instant after I hit the kid, he pulled out a steak knife. Not a really good steak knife, but a cheapy weepy one that cost $1 for a set of 5. I'm sure that if he had stabbed me, it the handle would have broken off.

As soon as I saw the knife I split.

It was a sprint, let me tell you. It's a good thing I was only 2.5 blocks from the tourist area because I am pretty fat and by the time I rounded the first corner I knew that I probably wouldn't be able to stay a head for much longer. About half a block past the first corner I looked over my shoulder and didn't see anyone coming after me.

I caught up to some guy in the street going in the same direction as me and slowed down to take a little rest in case they decided to come after me after all, and the guy asked me what happened. I walked with him back to the caminito and they have police stationed at all the entrances and exits to the area. He took me to the cop, I told the cop what had happened, but when he asked me if I could recognize them or what they were wearing I knew that I couldn't. I told him not to worry because nothing happened to me and I got to punch the kid in the face anyway.

I didn't get a photo of the kids unfortunately even though the camera was pointed right at them. They were probably 15 or 16 years old. The bigger one spoke first, but the smaller one was grabbing at the camera and he is the one that got punched in the face.

-Gary

Working holiday

2008-03-19T07:00:00.002-06:00

I know that many of you want a few more posts about the trip so far and unfortunately I have been working almost the entire time, or out in the streets anyway. I'll just say that the event was amazing. I had a great time. The other photographers were amazingly helpful. The locations were good and the models did an outstanding job.
The first day we shot in the street. The second day we had a mansion with 5 shooting stations. On the last day we were in an apartment they rented. I had a great time so far.
I'll write again asap, but I have another shoot set up for tommorow.
-Gary

Estacion de Dario y Maxi

2008-03-13T20:36:00.001-06:00

Estacion de Dario y Maxi

I went to see some friends of mine in La Plata yesterday. On the way I went through this train station. Apparently two boys, Dario and Maxi, have claimed ownership of the station by painting over all the signs with their own names.

Apart from being disgusted by the vandalism. I find this to be really, really funny. It put a smile on my face. Thinking about it makes me happy. While I am against vandalism, I find this to be somewhat more clever than most other graffiti and it must have taken a lot of effort, because they had to paint the regular signs black first and then come back later to pain their names.

I was on my way to La Plata to see more friends and I received some bad news. A good friend of mine called Luis has had a stroke or some other type of brain problem. He has a big scar on his head and couldn't remember me at all. He was pleasant enough but there wasn't even a hit of recollection. His daughter Brenda is in her last year of high school now and his son Alexi has a baby daughter. His wife, Maria del Carmen, swore to me that she couldn't believe it was me. When she looked over the wall to see who was clapping, she told me that I looked very familiar but that she didn't know who it was until I told her. Maria was very happy to see me.

Another friend of mine who lived around the corner from Luis, called Dario has died. I was told that he was hit by a car. He had two young daughters and a wife. The three of them have since moved somewhere else.

To a certain extent I regret going to see them, but having a day to absorb it all, I'm glad that I know what's happening with them, at least a little anyway. At the time I was very disappointed, but now I know how they are doing and it was nice to see them.

That makes at least two of my very good friends here dead, for those of you counting. More have probably passed away, but I don't know if I will be able to find out either way. I'm pretty sure I couldn't find the children of Lidia, and she seemed pretty old to me 10 years ago.

The others are probably fine, and I will go to see them next week if I can. There aren't many more to visit.

-Gary