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Sherraine Schalm wins Silver in Rome

MAY 25, 2008

Sherraine Schalm and the rest of the women from the Canadian Epee Team were in Rome in February for a World Cup Grand Prix event. Sherraine fenced well, making it to the finals before being defeated (10-9) by Britta Heidemann of Germany in a close match that went into overtime.

Pay attention in August when you're watching the Olympics. Sherraine is currently ranked 9th in the world and has qualified to go to Beijing to compete for Canada. This will be Sherraine's third olympics. Good Luck Sherraine!

Boots Wedding

MARCH 14, 2008

On my way to Houston a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to stop in New York for a few days and photograph the Boots wedding. The wedding and reception was held at Chelsea Piers on February 22nd and there were friends and family from all over the world. Cherisse flew up from Houston for the wedding (and to help me). Thanks Cherisse, I'm not sure how things would have turned out without your help and suggestions. You can see some of the photos from the wedding and reception on the galleries page.

Congratulations to both of you, your wedding was beautiful and you two definitely know how to throw a party!

Timido & Ciccio

FEB 19, 2008

When someone abandoned two young kittens at the Torre Argentina Cat Sanctuary back in October, our plan was to foster them until they were old enough to be let out with the other cats. But somewhere along the way we got attached. So we adopted Timido (white male) and his sister Ciccio. I know, her name doesn't work... it's a long story. In the short amount of time we've had them they've become like family and are way more entertaining to spend time with than TV. I didn't think it was possible to get so attached to pets so fast.

After a basic operation last month, Timido had a bad reaction to the anesthesia and started having complications. Several times it looked like he was doing well and recovering, only to stop and go backwards. We thought it was liver damage, then saw test results that showed his liver improving, then we thought it was respiratory and it could be fixed with antibiotics. We finally realized it was a rare feline disease with no cure, and tonight we lost Timido. Even when he was sick he just wanted to be near people and would follow you from room to room waiting for you to offer your lap, and he would purr.

I've added some pictures of the two of them taken by Cherisse and I over the last few months.

Istock Photos Updated

JAN 20, 2008

I didn't get a chance to add as many photos to Istock as I had hoped to this past year, but it would have been a lot less without Cherisse's help in keywording and disambiguating those that I did get loaded. Thanks Cherisse! Some of these photos surprised me again. A few that I expected to sell have done nothing, and a couple that I almost never loaded, surprised me by being some of my best sellers. Who knew Chris and his cannonball would be such a hit. The rest of these can be seen on the "Stock Photos" page or by visiting my istock account here.

Chris & Marcy Freeman Wedding

DEC 9, 2007

After taking heat in Cancun all week for being slow to post pictures, I figured I better get a few up. I realize the posts have been infrequent and fencing isn't everyone's favorite sport, so here are a few pictures from last week in Cancun where Chris Freeman and my sister Marcy were married on November 27th. It was held at the Excellence Playa Mujeres Resort and was an amazing week of sun, food, drinks and relaxation. Marcy and Chris, you did an amazing job selecting the location and organizing the whole event. Congratulations and thanks for the memorable week!

I'll load the rest of the pictures next weekend, I promise.

Fencing World Championships - St. Petersburg, Russia

NOV 11, 2007

I was happy to hear on Friday that my computer is back up and running with everything still in place, so I won't be spending my weekend reinstalling software. The pictures are finally loaded from the Fencing World Championships last month in three sets. The Canadian women's epee team - individual and team events, several of Krisztian Kulcsar's nail biting matches on his way to a gold medal, and a third set with a mix of some other photos.

There are some photos from our trip to Sicily this summer that I still need to add, and will try and get them up in the next week or two.

My Missing Fencing Photos

NOV 1, 2007

About a month ago Cherisse and I went to St. Petersburg, Russia to see the Fencing World Championships and the Canadian Women's Epee team. While there we also had a chance to see Krisztian Kulcsar, a friend we met through Sherraine, win a gold in the Men's Epee. I was able to get a press pass again this year and was pleased with some of the pictures I got during the competion.

Now I'll explain why there aren't any of them loaded on my site. The weekend after we got home I processed everything and had them ready to upload to the site when my hard drive crashed. That made it two hard drives in a week. I just had a secondary drive that holds all my photos crash a few days before but wasn't too worried about it since I keep a second backup of those on an external drive and DVD. Well, the newly processed fencing pics hadn't been backed up yet, so when my C: drive crashed all the processing was lost as well. The data has now been recovered, but they're still trying to get my computer up and running again. I'm hoping to have a working computer sometime next week and will post the galleries as soon as I'm up and running again. Sorry for the delay, but please check back soon.

New Stock Photos Uploaded

MAY 26, 2007

The link to my most recently uploaded istock photos is finally active on the stock page. I've had pictures waiting to upload for almost a year that are finally up, and so far seem to be doing pretty good. Thanks Cherisse for keywording and disambiguating them all. Here's the link to the slideshow.

Hannington Kennel Website

MARCH 25, 2007

Over the past few weekends I've been working on another website project for my aunt and cousins. Gwen, Chelsea and Courtney live in Katy, TX (for a few more weeks at least, they're heading back to Calgary). and they raise and board Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. I've never been a big fan of small dogs, but these are hard not to like. They want to be your best friend, and even if you say something stupid they give you a look that says, "wow, that's amazing, why didn't I think of that". At least they make me feel smart.

Visit their site at Hannington Kennel and check out some of the puppy pictures. But be careful, it'll make you want one.

Canadians Back in Rome

FEBRUARY 18, 2007

This past weekend my favorite fencers were back in Rome for a women's epee world cup event. They had the individual event on Friday and Saturday and the team event on Sunday. Sherraine, Julie, Catherine and Ainsley did well on Sunday and finished 5th in the team event which gave them enough points to maintain their 4th place team ranking. Erica from Saskatoon was here with them as well to compete in the individual event and traveled with them to Barcelona this weekend.

The first few pictures in the "Back in Rome" gallery are from Sherraine's last match against Cascioli (ITA) in the individual event, and the rest are taken during the team matches against Russia, Italy and Germany.

Walk Like an Egyptian

FEBRUARY 17, 2007

A couple weeks before Christmas, I was invited to a rig site near Disouk, Egypt as an observer. This small town is located about 100km North of Cairo in the Nile Delta and is full of lush farmland. While I was there, and since I didn't really have any responsibility as far as the drilling operation was concerned, I decided to go for a walk.

I didn't get very far. Actually, I didn't get past the front gate of the rig site before being stopped by security. Trying to explain to them I just wanted to go for a walk was difficult when they didn't speak any English, and I speak about that much Arabic. After tracking down a translator I was given permission to leave as long as I didn't go out to the main road.

The rig was located in the middle of a large plot of farm land that was broke into little strips about 10 meters by 30 meters. Groups of local residents would arrive early in the morning on their wagons, donkeys, oxen, or by foot, and take care of their crops for the day before packing up and going home in the evening. The crop was similar to alfalfa and was harvested by hand with a machete.

As I was leaving I noticed I was being followed by one of the armed security guards. At first I was a little disgruntled that they wouldn't even let me go for a walk by myself, but in hindsight it probably wasn't a bad idea. My camera and I may have gotten in trouble with all those farmers and their machete's. But with Hassim, my personal security escort and translator (at least what the two of us could work out with hand gestures), all the locals were very friendly and happy to take a break from their work to pose for a picture.

Most of the pictures added in the "Egypt, Nile Delta" gallery are from around the rig site, and the last few were just quick snap shots taken from the car window as we passed several towns heading back to Cairo to catch my flight home.

Fencing World Chamionships in Torino, Italy

OCTOBER 19, 2006

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to go up to Northern Italy to watch the Torino Mondiale Scherma 2006, or the 2006 Fencing World Championships. And the best part was, I had a press pass thanks to the help of the Canadian Fencing Federation and Sherraine. That was the first time I've been allowed to hang out inside, and it was definitely a learning experience. I didn't have many "keepers" the first day, but each day, as I figured out something new I think the pictures improved a little. Thanks Sherraine, I had a lot of fun, even with the flu.

The results for the Canadian Women's Epee team weren't quite what they planned, but they did well. They are always entertaining to hang out with, and feel like friends I've known for years. Igor Tikhomirov with the Canadian Men's Epee team had an excellent day and made it to the semi-finals before being defeated by the eventual winner, Lei Wang from China.

I've added three set of pictures, one of the Canadian Women's Epee Team, one with a mix of Igor Tikhomirov's matches and a third one with a mix of the Foil, Saber and Epee matches. I hope you like them, I had a lot of fun taking them.

Italy Wins World Cup!

AUGUST 19, 2006

I've finally finished the updates, or more accurately, a complete rebuild of the website. I had worked on it previously in Tunis, but after returning to Rome things got busy. We had some visitors for a few weeks and went to Sardegna with Marcy, Chris and Stu for a week. So along the way, while learning some basic CSS and HTML, I was able to put the new version of the website together.

I have a couple new galleries to add from the May update. For those of you in Canada and the USA, you may not have noticed, but Italy won the World Cup about a month ago. I had no idea it was this big! Growing up in Canada, and then living in the US, you would hear the occasional conversation about a soccer tournament going on, but it never really made the news. For the rest of the world it's HUGE! The tournament is held every 4 years, and it is as big as the Olympics, except there's only one event - FOOTBALL (or soccer if you're from North America).

We watched the semi-finals (Italy vs Germany) at a pub in downtown Rome with Germany favored to win. When Italy scored in the final minutes of overtime to go up 1-0, then scored a second goal a minute later to win 2-0, the city went crazy. I'm sure the same scene was being played out throughout the rest of Italy. Marcy and Stu were still in town visiting and got to witness the excitement.

For the finals (Italy vs France) we returned to the same place (with Stu still in town) and watched them play to a 1-1 tied through regular time and overtime before going to a shootout. Italy won the shootout 5-3 and the whole country went nuts. I've included some pictures taken after each match with many happy Italians.

Watching Fencing and Updating My Website

MAY 3, 2006

While spending a month in Tunisia I found time to rebuild my website. The previous version wasn't really set up to make modifications or additions. So in theory at least, this version should load quicker, as well as allow me to update the pages more easily and frequently.

There have been a couple new sets of photos added. The first was taken in Rome at a recent World Cup Fencing competition where we had a chance to meet up with Sherraine Schalm-Mackay and watch her, and the rest of the Canadian fencing team compete. Canada had a good showing with Sherraine finishing 3rd and teammate Julie Leprohon finishing 7th. For me it was the first time watching a fencing competition. It was exciting and stressful, and looked exhausting and graceful at the same time, if that's possible. Cherisse and I are looking forward to going up to Torino in October when the Canadian team visits Italy again for the World Championships.

It was great to see Sherraine again after so many years, and after reading her book, "Running with Swords", it was fun to hear her gift for story telling, in her own words. The book is definitely worth reading, and her sense of humor will keep you laughing. You can click here to get the book, or visit Sherraine's website at www.sherrainemackay.com to read articles and interviews with the world #1 ranked women's epee fencer.

Other new pictures include some taken in Tunis, Carthage and Sidi Bou Said (small towns near Tunis). I just returned from a month there for work, but managed to get out on the weekend and wander around. They drive a little crazier than Italians, but overall Tunisia is much more Europeanized (I'm not sure that's a word) than the other North African countries I've visited. It was a nice change of scenery, and I may be back again before long, but it's good to be back in Rome for now.

I've also added a section with some of my stock photos and a link to Istockphoto where I contribute. The images can be purchased royalty free for various uses such as brochures, web pages, advertisements, etc. It's not enough to quit my day job, but it is starting to help pay for some of the toys for my camera.

I hope you enjoy the pictures, and thanks for taking the time to look.

I'm always looking for ideas or suggestions on ways to improve the website. If you have any recommendations, please let me know.