If you had the sense to not listen to radio call in shows or read the comments sections of blogs and news websites in Newfoundland and Labrador in recent weeks you might have missed the torrent of abuse heaped upon the province's news media by the Disciples of Danny Williams. This anonymous digital lynch mob that swarms those who dare ask questions about the premiers mysterious heart surgery were calling for media censorship and publicly being encouraged by cabinet minister Tom Hedderson to abuse journalists and media outlets. So much for the defenders of democracy bullshit. What is it about Newfoundlanders that they don't like democracy?

You might even have missed the part where Deputy Premier Kathy Dunderdale and vengeful cabinet ministers repeat that the Premiers  health is a private matter and is sacrosanct. That is unless it is them or Mr. Williams' communication staff that is talking about it. Yes, you can use the word hypocrisy if you like.

The fact is the premier has a history of talking about his health problems and once government officials speak its name publicly it is in the public domain and fair topic for the news media. It is news. If fact, I doubt there is a culture or society in the world where the health of their leader is not of the highest public interest and concern. This applies from any third world dictatorship to the mighty USA  and its presidents.

Speaking of which, the guy in the photo is US President Lyndon B. Johnson. He is lifting his shirt to show reporters and the famous AP news photographer Charles Tasnadi, his cholecystectomy scar after surgery in 1965. Charles Tasnadi is a great story himself and you can find out about him and his career at Visual Editors.

Tune in to the NTV news on Monday night when Fred Hutton gets an exclusive post-operative interview with Premier Danny Williams at his Sarasota, Florida home.

I'm guessing Mr. Williams won't show off his scar on the NTV news (although, stranger things have happened) but I hope we get to find out what this mysterious medical procedure is that the rest of us can't afford. 

Let's hope that this leads to MCP putting medical tourism in their schedule of services as a line item and we can all enjoy that awesome resort hospital on the beach in Goa, India. I'm booking my knee replacement now.

I could do this for weeks, there are hundreds of public spaces, private residence and offices that will have their views, blocked and shadows cast across their property from sunrise to mid-day. Look at the Victoria street photo ...you can't see the top of the existing Fortis Building. That means its current elevation rises to the level of Queens road where I was standing for this photo. The proposed new building with another 4 stories or 15 metres which would make it roughly the same elevation (above sea level) as Military Road.

People dismiss "The View" as a valid argument in the development debate but a house, apartment or office with a great view of the harbour, the narrows or Signal Hill certainly carries a bigger price tag than one that doesn't. Ask any real estate agent. They certainly use it as a feature in their sales features.

If a persons property is devalued by the actions of a "neighbour" can the property owner seek damages?

While standing at the beginning of The Battery a man stopped while I was taking pictures and asked what I was doing. I told him. He said, "I live over there. The only good thing about that new building is that it will block my view of Atlantic Place." Reminds me of a joke I heard in Warsaw, Poland. Locals say the best view of Warsaw is from the Stalin Building ...because you can't see the Stalin Building from there.

Don't waste you Kraft Dinner money on journalism school. Here is all you need to know to be a TV reporter ...with apologies to my TV reporter friends :^)

Rex Murphy has packed up his column at the Globe and Mail and hauled it uptown to the National Post. 

The long time Globe columnist, CBC commentator, host of Cross Country Checkup …and all round Newfoundland favourite son won’t be able to be read in print in Newfoundland any more because the National Post …a NATIONAL newspaper does not distribute in the province.

No big announcements. Most people heard when Peter Mansbridge mentioned it in the extro to Rex’s piece on The National. Could it have been a part of the CBC – National Post content sharing agreement?  Is it a part of new Globe editor, John Stackhouse’s, new plan? Or were Stackhouse and crew less than impressed with Rex's appearances in a rival paper after Murphy’s December 5 column in the Financial Post.

Oddly enough, the Globe and Mail used to be considered the right wing conservative paper before the National Post came on the scene.

Some are saying he was starting to drift a little too far to starboard (the right side of the boat) so could a senate appointment be next?  …NAW!, that's going to a Loyola.

But can you imagine the blood bath in the senate chamber when Rex was turned loose?
Duffy would be stuffed. dressed and with an apple in his mouth laid out on the clerks table.

Check out the discussion at Ian Capstick’s Media Style blog.

A few events collided this week to make me finally get around to a time sucking chore I have been trying to ignore like a cheque presentation news conference. It's winter, my traditional time to clean up the previous years work, do a final edit and get the the stuff archived and indexed, and I am surrounded by boxes of old slides and negatives ...that stuff we used to make photos on before these new fangled digital thingies. Also, someone pointed out I have been doing photojournalism and documentary photography in Newfoundland and internationally for 30 years now and suggested that, just maybe, I should be assembling a retrospective exhibition.
...great, just great...

So, the task has begun. The scanning of more than 30 years of 35mm slides, negatives and prints where the original negs have been lost. Indeed, a darkroom fire in 1986 destroyed a lot of personal work from the late 1970's through 1982. Thankfully, the valuable stuff was on file with the agencies I worked with. ...that reminds me, I need to do my offsite backup of my digital files.

I can't remember not having a camera so I can't say when I first started making photos, certainly my pre-teen years and I was the geek who worked on school yearbooks in Jr. High and high school. The camera was another tool in some obsessive need to document the people around me, their culture and tell their stories. I eventually got evolved with the student newspaper, The Muse, (now online but then hot wax halftones and paste up) at Memorial University. While at university I turned "Pro" doing piece work for United Press International (UPI), The Newfoundland Herald, The Evening Telegram and anyone willing to pay ...fun yes, but always a business first.

But the 1984 Papal Tour of Canada by Pope John Paul II was what I consider the big turning point in deciding to move from writing and documentary film to photojournalism and documentary photography solely. It was my first major international news event and I got to see how the serious pros worked. ...when not getting the picture was not a option. Which can't be said without giving heaps of thanks to legendary photo editor Bob Carroll and his team at UPC/UPI in the 1980's for letting me into their world and passing along the skills (Thank, Bob ...and Andy! ...if you're reading)

With the late 80's financial problems of UPI and the closure of its Canadian offices this team would be picked up by Reuters when they built their international news picture division.

It's just a coincidence that this photo of Pope John Paul II came out of the box first.
As stuff gets scanned I'll add it to the 30 Years of Photojournalism folder over there in the left side column. It won't be in any particular order, just my favourites as they come out of the boxes and binders.  ....maybe my favourite photo of Frank Moores will be next.

...hmmm, I wonder if I can train my 9 year old to run the scanners?

I worked pretty exclusively with 35mm slide film. Fujichrome 100, 400,  Ektachrome 64 and Kodachrome 25, 64, 200, for magazine work. The early days of the wire services it was Kodak Tri-X and Ilford HP5. In the mid 1980's colour neg was the standard for newspapers and wire services. It's sad that the young photographers today never got to use and know these films and their different characteristics. The decision of which film to use on a magazine assignment was a critial decision and could decide the tone and feel of the final published work.

For this project we'll be using a Canon film scanner and an Agfa flatbed scanner for fine work. For bulk scanning we have welding some old and new technologies. We will be coupling a Nikon D2x to an old school Bessler slide duplicator!!

Camera RAW files will be processed with Adobe Raw. Processing software will be Adobe Photoshop PS3 with Bridge handling the IPTC, captioning and archiving. A bunch of plug-ins, utilities and scripts/actions to speed up the agonizing process, yet ensure best quality.

So, let's begin with a Pope!

(NOTE: These photos will be available for purchase and licensing through NL Press.)