dancingfish news

My sweet cat is gone.

Photos taken with the Autocord my dad left me.

This is my cat. He’s getting old and his kidneys are failing. I don’t know how much longer he’ll be with us. I am going to miss him very much.

This is my dog. He’s not old, but we just had a cancerous tumour removed from the base of his tail (you can see the shaved area in the photo). We are optimistic but we don’t know if the cancer will come back.

These are my beautiful kids. Every day with them is treasured.

But I owe it all to my dad :). I don’t ever remember him being without a camera. When I was a small child, I have vivid memories of making playdough animals by the dim light of a darkroom redlight with my brother, as my dad made black and white prints and watched over us. He’s been gone for many years, but he left behind one of his first cameras, a Minolta Autocord TLR with a broken shutter. This camera moved around with me for many years and I re-discovered it in a box a couple of weeks ago. With a little internet surfing, I found a resource for repairing the camera (Karl Bryan, here in Oregon), and sent it off. Karl cleaned and fixed the camera, and replaced some leatherette. I got it back this week and it looks and works just beautifully. I’ve put two rolls of TMAX film through the camera now, and will have it developed very soon. I hope to have some shots from this camera up on the website shortly after. Isn’t it cute??

Did I do a calendar this year?? Actually yes, though it was a bit delayed. I created a quick one before my trip to the Solomons in December, just so I could get a couple printed for family before I left, since I knew it would be well into January before I was back. But I wanted to have photos from the Solomons included in my final calendar, so I did not post it on my site at that time. I’ve now integrated some photos from the Solomons trip, so it is done and available. A little late for those who like to have their calendars in January, but available nonetheless!

I made some adjustments to my calendar, to use colors that cafepress seems to do fine with (e.g. avoiding blue!). Anyway, I’ve once again made it available at cafepress .

I’m afraid I have to make my 2006 calendar unavailable again at Cafepress. I received my proof copy, and the quality is unacceptable, especially where blues are used. I may redo the cover, theme, and some of the photos and try to work around this, or I may just find another supplier, but it means it may not be available online. Apologies! If I do get this resolved, I’ll post an update here.

I’ve just made my 2006 calendar available. You can see it and order if you like at cafepress .

Now that rescuers have finally been allowed into areas affected by Hurricane Katrina to rescue animals, they are finding heart breaking and dire situations for many. Time is of the essence, so please consider donating time, effort or money to the response teams of the Humane Society; they can use your help:

Not related to photography, diving or anything else on my website, but I felt I had to share. I’ve been a little preoccupied lately, training for a particular goal. The goal was to bicycle the Seattle to Portland organized ride in one day. That’s 204 official miles (or 205.96, as my bike computer reported). I’ve done this ride over two days, twice before, but Saturday was the first time to attempt it in one day. Two other folks on my team did this with me, Laurent Rochette and Mike North. This was a long day in the saddle, over 12 hours saddle time, and I was fading after about mile 150. But I’m nothing if not stubborn, and I gritted it out to the end. Due to the exceptionally wet spring and early summer, I was undertrained for this, but I’m glad we did it. Now back to diving!