Some the staff's favourites from the month of June.
LUCAS OLENIUK - Thirty-year-old cresseur Jacques Preston rests inside the opening of a post-and-beam supported mine shaft at the infamous Bisie cassiterite deposit in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. Cresseur's mine tunnels, some deep as 100m, in 24-hour shifts. Miners are paid 1,300 Congolese francs, $1.40, for 1Kg of cassiterite.
Steve Russell - Staff Photographer
Shaun Best at the Turin Winter Games. Brian Snyder/Reuters
News photographers in Canada are a tight community; there are not many of us and when on assignments we spend a lot of time together. We spend a lot of time waiting before, during and after assignments. We are usually in tight pens or seats during an event and usually eat whenever we can together.
Our community was rocked this weekend with the sudden passing of Montreal Reuters photographer Shaun Best,44, on the eve of the Montreal Grand Prix. He suffered a massive Heart Attack on his way home after covering qualifying.
Continue reading "Reuters photographer Shaun Best passes." »
The shortest month was not short of great pictures!
KEITH BEATY - Jack Gidlow and Eleanor Palmer are 92 and 88, but that doesn't stop them from going dancing at the legion hall every Friday night.
Richard Lautens/Staff Photographer
It is so tough looking back at a year's worth of pictures and picking out a dozen or so of my favourites. For a photographer, images become like children and difficult to choose between them. I find that many of those that people like are not my favourites. I get swayed by how difficult a picture may be to get or whether or not I liked the subject, even if it got good play in the paper or not.
With the Olympics and G20, some choices are naturals and I notice that I chose too many sports pictures to include which is unusual for me. I have included below a few that I really like and a few I just couldn't exclude.
Perhaps my favourite of the year. Actor Will Farrell was in town promoting his new movie, Everything Must Go, on at the Toronto International Film Festival. I only had 10 minutes or so with him but he was as nice and funny as I had hoped he would be. It's great when I can shoot someone my kids like.
Rick Eglinton - Staff Photographer
Sweden's lead Anna Le Moine reacts after winning the gold medal defeating Canada 7-6 during Olympic women's curling finals action at the Olympic Centre on Friday, Feb. 26, 2010 at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver.
Tannis Toohey -Staff Photographer
July 5, 2010 - Colm Manning, 10, finds a way to beat the summer heat by playing in the Jimmie Simpson wading pool while Toronto is under a severe heat alert, and its citizens are taking to the shade and water parks to cool off.
Rene Johnston - Staff Photographer
April 30 2010. Fashion shoot involving military inspired clothing. The location is Joe Rockheads Climbing Gym on Fraser in Liberty Village.
Continue reading "Rene Johnston finds his favourites from 2010" »
Rick Madonik, Staff Photographer
After filtering through my year of pictures the one thing which surprised me most was the number of sports pictures which made my list of personal favorites. In years past, my "yearenders" usually have a balance between news, sports and features, but this year is dominated by Sports. Some of that, obviously, has to do with the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, but I was surprised to find when I picked what I liked best from the year, there was little outside of sports I felt made the grade.
Over the next week or so, this blog, as well as photo galleries featured on the main web site (thestar.com) will feature a variety of "year's best" as selected by the photo staff. I invite you to take a look at various selections.
What it looks like when you win Gold at Olympics
Canada's Sydney Crosby (left), Joe Thornton (centre) and team captain Scott Neidermayer celebrate winning Gold in overtime against USA in Men's Hockey at Canada Hockey Place.
A look at some of the Staff's favourites from November!
Rememberance Day
LUCAS OLENIUK - Dutchman Ronald Stok makes the trip from Amsterdam to Toronto every Remembrance Day to pay tribute to the heroic actions of those that came before us. He was photographed at a bus stop on King Street west in Toronto.
Steve Russell - Staff Photographer
I guess it seemed like a good idea when it was awarded to Toronto a year ago, but then we know what happened there.
I even seemed like a good idea a couple weeks ago when Toronto looked like the game was going to be a dream match up between Beckham's Galaxy and Henry's Red Bulls in a East coast West coast battle.
Alas, when the Colorado Rapids hoisted the MLS Cup a large portion of the fans had left before the overtime.
Too bad, they missed Rapids Keeper Matt Pickens making some of his more spectacular saves.
The fans were into it, there were TFC cheers and at the 24th minute the Danny Dichio song, in fact those that were still there gave an encore in the 24th minute of the overtime. It was jsut wierd to see so many empty seats at BMO.
From a photo perspective the evening was a nightmare, an 8:55 pm start (why?) plays havoc with our deadlines, our first chance to file is at the half, so, 9:40 pm, you have to add any injury time to that plus the jog to the press room, dealing the the overzealous security guard (don't get me started on all the dumb rules at BMO that concern photographers covering the game!), editing and filing pictures on the painfully slow internet at BMO Field (less that 9 kb/s!). By the time the pictures get to the paper, after 10 pm the sports guys have to slam a picture into the paper on a day when they have early pictures from a Raptors victory over the Celtics and an Argonauts Play-off loss. Toss in a Toronawanda Bills victory and sending in pictures that late worries me.
Now add another 45+ minutes for the second half, add another 30+ minutes of overtime and time for the trophy presentation and the jog to the press room, editing and filing pictures on the painfully slow internet at BMO Field (less that 9 kb/s!) the pictures came in at just past midnight. I identified two pictures that I wanted to send right away, one horizontal, one vertical because I had no idea what the page looked like and need to give them some options. Nine times out of 10, the web likes horizontal, the paper vertical.
Kudos to the editors that laid out the Sports pages, they managed to get my second file into the paper!
Anyways, here is a little taste of my MLS weekend.
FC Dallas practices for the Sunday's MLS Cup at BMO Field.
FC Dallas defender Ugo Ihemelu hits the target to light up the CN Tower during a promotion as FC Dallas and the Colorado Rapids prepare for Sunday's MLS Cup at BMO Field in Toronto. Ihemelu is a strage case, Nigerian by birth, he lived in Winnipeg for a spell, he played for the US in 2006 and then was called up by Canada to play in an international in 2008, he ended up not playing and he was invited to the US training camp in 2009 and played in an international friendly.
Former Toronto FC player now with FC Dallas forward Jeff Cunningham stretches the day before the final.
FC Dallas goalkeeper Kevin Hartman trains as FC Dallas and the Colorado Rapids prepare for Sunday's MLS Cup.
Colorado Rapids forward Omar Cummings stretches as they prepare to play FC Dallas.
FC Dallas forward Atiba Harris (16) tries to get around Colorado Rapids defender Marvell Wynne (22).
FC Dallas midfielder Brek Shea battles Brian Mullan for the ball.
FC Dallas midfielder David Ferreira (10) leaps over Colorado Rapids goalkeeper Matt Pickens after scoring the first goal of the game.
Colorado Rapids forward Conor Casey (9) fouls FC Dallas midfielder Daniel Hernandez (2).
Colorado Rapids defender Kosuke Kimura breaks up a long pass for FC Dallas midfielder Marvin Chavez.
Colorado Rapids forward Conor Casey gets tangled up with FC Dallas midfielder Dax McCarty.
Brian Mullan congratulates Colorado Rapids Macoumba Kandji on scoring the winning goal, it later was switched to an own goal as the Colorado Rapids beat Dallas FC 2-1 in overtime.
Colorado Rapids goalkeeper Matt Pickens yells for his wall to move.
Colorado Rapids goalkeeper Matt Pickens (18) rolls to the back of the net after the ball bounced off the top the goal.
Colorado Rapids goalkeeper Matt Pickens celebrates a 2-1 overtime win as Colorado Rapids beat Dallas FC to win the MLS Cup.
Colorado Rapids captain Pablo Mastroeni raises the MLS Cup raised with his team.
What we ran, First Edition
What we ran, Second Edition
