Well as most of you have probably noticed, I've been a little quiet here on DA lately. No new photos, nothing. It is mainly due to my father passing away on May 5th. He was diagnosed with Mesothelioma a few months ago, which is related to asbestos exposure some 40 years ago. My father was very strong and healthy. Even at the age of 70 he was very independent and let a very active lifestyle. It was so hard to see all of that change few months ago. The strong independent man we knew was quickly whithering away. He couldn't stand it felt that it was no way to live. After a few months of treatment, he could no longer breathe very well on his own and spent his last few days in hospital. My family was able to see him a few hours before his death. It was so difficult for all of us. My dad knew that he wasn't going anywhere and felt that the end was very near. We all felt so completely helpless at the fact that there was nothing that could be done. He took his last breath that evening. We are all terribly hurt at the loss of my father, Fritz. I feel that there are so many life lessons left to learn. So many more adventures and stories to hear about. I was hoping that he'd be able to hold some grandchildren one day...

So, anyways... I'll be back to taking photos again, but it will take a bit of time to collect myself once again and find my creative ambition.

Well I've gone and done it. I have crossed into the dark world of infrared Photography. I'm just experimenting for now since this is all fairly new to me. The last time I tried IR was with IR film in an old 35mm SLR camera that my dad had. So anyways, I pick myself up a 720nm IR pass through filter for my S5200. I've been reading that my camera has quite a low sensitivity to IR due to internal filters, so that just means I need slower shutter speeds. Stay tuned for my new IR works.

Well, I'm realizing more and more that I am always trying to go beyond the limitations of my Fujifilm S5200. I'm going to start saving up to purchase a new Canon XTi or maybe a used 20D or something like that. I've been trying to submit to some stock agencies but they are not very fond of the minor colorization noise and fractures created by my camera's CCD. Time to upgrade and just keep that Fuji for non-artsy stuff and video.

Anyways, that's just an update of what's going on with me.

Well I think I have narrowed down the problem with my photo uploading. I have traced it to my home Internet access. Since I live outside of the city, I rely on a special high-speed wireless service which is rated to be faster than adsl & cable. It's a weird problem really. My downloading is still nice and fast at 1600kbps but upload is working very poorly and only transmitting at 6kbps. Something is obviously farked up with the receiver, so I'll have to get that fixed in the next while.

Either way, I've had to upload these latest photos using my office computer at work. Newer Prints will be unavailable until I get this fixed, but you are free to buy some of my old prints ... anyone??

Hey Everyone,

Sorry I haven't put up any photos lately, but something seems screwed up on my DA account. It's not letting me upload new deviations. I have a bunch of new shots to post but I can't do anything about it. I'm am going to start deleting some of my less popular shots. Perhaps they have put a space limitation on my account. I don't know?

But as soon as you see a new deviation from me, you'll know that I've fixed it.