Ottawa Citizen photojournalist Rod MacIvor Retire. I will quote myself, from an old ECNPA forum thread:

When interning at the Citizen in March/April, I remember that I saw Rob one Monday morning editing some photos of his week-end trip to Mont-Tremblant (ski resort, north of Montreal). He was filing the pictures he took on vacation, just in case the paper would need some stock photos of the resort in the future.

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I remember one day I was tagging along with a photographer that will remain nameless. He was, too, a veteran. We arrive at a scene of an accident. He pulls over, crank his window down and grabs a few shots from the seat of his car. I was shocked. Just before leaving (like 30 seconds after we arrived), he asks me if I want to get out to get some shot. « Of course! » I say! So while he waits for me in the car, I move around to find an interesting angle and see how I could make an interesting picture. Of course, mine was better than his… And it’s not that I was a better shooter than him!

To make a long story short, as a young and starting photographer, I hope I will be a Rob MacIvor in 20 or 30 years from now.

CTV did a nice reportage on his last day at work

Today is a new landmark. We officially went above Victor’s pregnancy time. He was born at 19 weeks and 5 days. Little Francis (not decided on a name yet) is 19 weeks and 6 days into the pregnancy.

Cindy is followed very closely. She had like 15 ultrasound yet. She has blood test and all kind of things every week. This one his going to go thru.

But Victor.. You toys still miss you.

Cindy went for some routine test for her diabetes. Since she had a virus last week-end that forced her to stay three days at the hospital, the doctor decided to listen to the baby’s heartbeat to make sure everything was OK.

The nurse gets the instrument and tries to listen. And it takes time. She search, and search, but can’t ear anything. She has a nervous “it’s ok” and get another nurse. And then the doctor. For two hours, they try to ear the heartbeat and at the same time calm down Cindy who is crying and panicking. So much that they even have to plug her to some machine to make sure she will not break down.

Eventually, they decide to get an ultrasound. Well, he his a shy baby. He was hiding as far as he could. You could not ear him, but you could see him.

Did I say “he” and “him”? Yes I did!

I’m more or less done packing my stuff. Tomorrow morning, I leave for Toronto. Friday and Sunday is the Great White North Workshop. Then, I’m coming back but on my way to Quebec City, I’ll stop in Montreal. Sunday and Monday, I have an assignment for two Swiss newspapers, the Lausane 24 Heures and La Tribune de Genève. More on that as soon as the pictures are published.

What is the most important gear a photographer must have? What is THE gear you must buy, not matter what?

A cell phone.

And what it the most important part of your marketing tool? What is THE thing you must put money into?

A website.

I just got a phone call from a photo editor in Switzerland. She had two contacts in the area, but she could not reach one of them, and the email of the other one bounced back.

She used Google, and she stumbled into my website. She liked what she saw, and called me. My cell phone is with me all the time, so her problem (finding a photographer) was quickly resolved. And me? I got a neat 2 days assignment, which will pay my cell phone bill and web hosting for many months.

** edit ** 30 minutes after I posted this, I got a second call from a publication in Ontario, thanks to my website.

I just won my first award in my professional career. One of my soldier departure images got an honorable mention at the ECNPA (Eastern Canadian News Photographer Association) picture of the month contest. Sweat!