DAVID COOPER - Olivia Chow, sits beside the Koi pond in the backyard of the home she shared with her husband Jack Layton.
DAVID COOPER - Olivia Chow, sits beside the Koi pond in the backyard of the home she shared with her husband Jack Layton.
Steve Russell - Staff Photographer
If I had to compile a list of the top refreshing places to be on a hot summer day this place would rank right up there.
Think about those gum commercials where the dude in a speedo pulls up at the bus stop and gets doused!
The wave of water produced at the bridge over the drop on Timberwolf Falls at Canada's Wonderland dwarfs that wave.
Park goers are known to skip the wait for the ride and venture up the exit to the bridge directly in the path of the wall of water created when the boat hits the bottom of the big drop.
Every two minutes dozens wait on the bridge for the next wave of water.
The wave lasts about four seconds and at it zenith you literally cannot see your hand in front of you face! If you were to breath as the wave passes you would have a mouthful of water.
To bring the view from inside this tsunami, I put my camera inside an Ewa-Marine bag, a water-proof bag that keeps a camera dry. The bag is pretty cumbersome, shooting with a camera is tough. You cannot manually focus and zooming is difficult. Using the controls is tough as well as is chimping (preview my images) freely. That makes editing full of surprises.
Three year-old Gabe Doerr could not get enough of the wave action on top of the bridge over Timberwolf Falls. It has to be the coolest place in the GTA, every two minutes relief from the heat arrives onto the bridge at the end of the drop of Timberwolf Falls. Park guests brace themselves for a wave that gets those on the bridge wetter than people on the actual ride at Canada's Wonderland.
Continue reading "The most refreshing 4 seconds in the GTA?" »
Steve Russell - Staff Photographer
Well, if Royal Wedding Photographer Hugo Burnand discovers he is overbooked on April 29 or finds a higher-profile wedding to shoot, Prince William and Kate Middleton need only look one branch up the family tree for a photographer.
The Toronto Star Photo Department recommends HRH Prince Andrew, a Toronto Star-published and almost-paid photographer.
In the Toronto Star photographic print archive sits a picture of a cheque made out for $40 to Prince Andrew.
In a folder of images sits a photo of the cheque.
The picture, taken in the summer of 1983, that warranted cutting him that cheque sits in the archive as well -- a photo of a wet Toronto Star photographer Mike Slaughter.
Steve Russell - Staff Photographer
At the end of the past week the Ken Faught era of the Toronto Star had ended.
Ken joined the photo staff in 1986 after being discovered in the North West Territories.
In 2004 he hung up his cameras in a blaze of glory by winning the National Newspaper Award in Sports photography to become photo editor. He also had a second picture up for the same award.
Here are some of Ken's pictures that jump to mind.
Ken Faught won the 2004 National Newspaper Award for sports photography with this picture of Austrian rider Raemmi Daemmi who landed between the logs and lay stunned for a few moments during the cross country equestrian event at the Athens Olympics. Horse and rider were all right.
Faught was nominated in the same category with this picture of Marie-Helene Chisholm who would win this bout against France's Lucie Decosse as she tried to make it back through the repercharge.
Chan Hon Go, principal dancer for the National Ballet of Canada shown on Dec. 11, 2000 in Toronto, started with her husband their own ballet shoe business three years ago. They are distributed across Canada.
Ken risked the camera for this hot frame, Scott and Rea Kerr pass the time playing cribbage waiting for the gas contractor to show up with the right parts for their furnace. They resorted to turning on the oven to heat the house. They had to wait 13 days for the problem to be fixed.
Mike, 38, waits for Street Patrol to make their way to his shack, "I don't like rules, regulations and the political side of being in a hostel. I like to be able to say, hey, this is MY place."
Michael McGourty for story on "why be a priest these days". Taken at the College residence in Rome.
Raymond Hnatyshyn and his wife Gerta react to a joke from Brian Mulroney as his appointment as Governor General on Parliment Hill in Ottawa.
A man ice fishes in Newfoundland.
A family of ducks get a little help exiting the pool at Roy Thompson Hall.
St. Michael's Choir School students attend the visitation pay their respects to Cardinal Carter. Taken at St. Michael's Cathedral.
.The Toronto Symphony Orchestra's Music Director Designate, Peter Oundjian, conducts the orchestra in Mozart's Overture to Don Giovanni and Mozart's Symphony No. 35 in D Major.
Youth Unlimited prepared a Christmas dinner for homeless/street kids. They set up a giant tent in Grange Park off Beverley south of Dundas complete with tables and chairs and novelty items for the homeless. Food was prepared by Islington United Church and trucked over to the park.
It wasn't always about covering the news, Ken showed his artictic side in the studio.
Joy Bernard, left, is originally from Nigeria and is facing deportation along with her daughter, Jennifer, 7, at right. If forced to go back, Jennifer will be forced to undergo a female genital mutilation. Practice is common in Nigeria and Joy had the procedure done as a baby.
Canadians on the ropes, Trevor Stewardson is held over the ropes and went on to lose to Ahmed Ismail from Egypt at the 2004 Athens Olympic games.
Perdita Felicien streaks ahead of the pack on her way to qualifiying in round 1, heat 3 of the 100m hurdles at the Athens Olympic Games.
Adam van Koeverden shows off his gold and bronze haul during the 2004 Athens Olympics.
A Slovakian is in deep in the Olympic white water canoe event.
Kids play street hockey on a Toronto Beaches street.
Ken loved to use more than one image to tell the story, Giving testimony during the MFP inquiry, Tom Jacobek answers questions while city lawyer Linda Rothstein gives a disbelieving stare away from the stand.
Ken Faught's photo illustration for a series of stories on gluttony.
Finance Minister Greg Sorbara poses for picture but security comes and takes away the "please watch your step" sign.
Fairy Dust. All the Mirvish Theatres were for family Hallowe'en tours, ghoststories and makeup sessions. Makeup artists were on hand at Royal Alexander Theatre making up little princess' like Virginia Matheson.
Jose Morin, foreground, makes several statements on Canada Day with his hair. Friend Jen Anderson in background.
Sue Cox, executive director of the Daily Bread Food Bank pose for a picture as volunteers sort donations and pack boxes.
David Kotin, Manager, Special Collections of Toronto Public Library shows off a recently acquired travel diary of Arthur Conan Doyle. The diary chronicles his impressions from the 1914 trip, his second, across Canada. Doyle travelled by rail from Montreal to the Rockies giving talks at several cities. The diary is part of a lot that was acquired from Christies in London, England.
At sunset the catch is brought in.
Lobster traps stacked at Sheaves Cove.
Medical Officer of Health for Toronto Sheila Basrur and Mayor Mel Lastman address media during the SARS outbreak.
A flock of geese narrowly avoid a dragon boat during the annual festival.
Scores of ice fishers stayed on frozen Lake Simcoe on Sunday despite the danger that cracks in the ice could leave them stranded. One group even tried to drive a minivan (shown) onto the fragile ice. The front of the van crashed through, forcing the six passengers to scramble out the back door. One man was taken to hospital.
Other retired Toronto Star Staff Photographer Galleries,
Published, unpublished, some of our April favorites in what will become a monthly feature!
DAVID COOPER - Trevor Rogers balances rocks by the boardwalk to the delight and amazement of kids and adults alike. With summer like weather in the 20's today the Beaches looked like a summer weekend with wall to wall people on the beach and on Queen st. East.
RENE JOHNSTON - Football players line up arm in arm as the casket of teammate and friend Mike McDonald, or Biggie passes into the hearse at his funeral at Westminster United Church in Whitby. The 16-year-old student was stabbed to death at a bus stop near his school.
BERNARD WEIL - Overshadowed by the CN Tower, John Andrews and Mike Rochford untie netting high up poles that were wrapped up for the winter, at the Docks Golf Driving Range.
RICHARD LAUTENS - Harmeed Kaurhundal, 10, spins a Chakra-a representation of a traditional Sikh weapon. The Khalsa day parade brought thousands of colourfully dressed Sihks to parade from Canadian National Exhibition to Queen's Park.
RICK MADONIK - Richard Bansu, of Chaminade College School, runs the first leg of the Junior Boys 4 x 100 during the competition as St. Michael's College School played host to the SnowBall Relays track and field event.
STEVE RUSSELL - Vale INCO continues to dump slag, the molten byproduct of the smelting process. As the Strike between the Brazilian company and Members of USW 6500 entered its ninth month.
TARA WALTON - Mohamed Kajouji (right), the father of Nadia, an 18-year-old Carleton University student who became depressed after leaving her Brampton home and later drowned herself in the Rideau River in March 2008.
LUCAS OLENIUK - The cast and crew of "Unnamed Superheroes", a parody of the film "Kick-Ass", shot in Toronto's port area Tuesday afternoon. The film is a school project for director and York University student Vas Saranga. Saranga's films can be watched at www.3shadeproductions.com.
RICK EGLINTON - Graeme Cameron demonstrates the quality of his custom made "Best Made Co." axes from the U.S.
STEVE RUSSELL - Chris Bosh lays on the ground after missing a shot to win the game as the Toronto Raptors lose to the Golden State Warriors 113-112 at the buzzer at the Air Canada Centre.
TONY BOCK - Kevin Youkilis out at home in the first inning on the throw from right fielder Travis Snider to catcher John Buck, after J. D. Drew singles on a ground ball to right.
MICHELLE SHEPHARD - GUANTANAMO BAY - A detainee runs the track inside Camp 4, where "highly compliant" detainees, including Canadian Omar Khadr, are imprisoned. Khadr was 15 when detained in Afghanistan and is charged with five war crimes including murder for the death of Delta Force soldier Christopher Speer. Now 23, his case is the first to go to trial under under the Obama administration this week.
COLIN McCONNELL - The 60th aniversary jubilee mass at St. Casimir's parish on Roncessvales honoured the death of the Polish president, the First Lady and nearly 100 others in the plane crash in Poland.
RICK MADONIK - Lyba Spring, sexual health promoter with Toronto Public Health, in her downtown office, with two puberty felt aids which have interchangeable parts to demonstrate to kids the changes that will occur in their bodies.
Steve Russell - Staff Photographer
We hate it!
This picture from Reuters dropped into the Star at 4:45 pm on a Friday.
Looking at a picture on the wire, we are wowed by the image until that little nagging voice in the back of our head creeps in, questioning the image. And when the picture advisory crossed the wires, it leaves us a little disappointed.
The culprit this time? Toning.
There is no way for every newspaper or wire service to be everywhere and have every angle covered. That is why third party pictures might be sought out from breaking news pictures of events from time to time.
The Good: We have a picture. The bad? We have to bank our reputations on that image.
Iceland's recent volcanic eruption placed Reuters in that position.
One of the most striking pictures out of Iceland was taken by farmer Ólafur Eggertsson's wife (her name unavailable currently, the picture was originally credited to him), which eventually was distributed worldwide by Reuters.
A sharp photo editor at the Sydney Morning Herald, Wade Laube, had some doubts about the image.
"One picture stood out from all of the others — so much so it was the clear choice for our coverage in the Herald. Well, we wanted it to be but something about it didn’t seem quite right," Laube writes on his blog.
Laube and the Herald decided to put in a call to Reuters Singapore to ask about the image. By the time he called, Reuters had already begun to seek out Eggertsson to retrieve a raw (un-enhanced) file. In the wait for that picture the Herald decided to use a different picture in their first edition. The original was obtained by Reuters and the Herald used the new version on the front of their second edition and Reuters sent out an Advisory letting clients know that "an updated, correctly toned version immediately follows this advisory."
The advisory reads, "ATTENTION EDITORS - QUALITY REPEAT FOR SIN500 TRANSMITTED ON APRIL 15, 2010 AT APPROXIMATELY 2000 GMT. WE HAVE OBTAINED FROM THE SOURCE THE ORIGINAL FILE OF THIS HANDOUT IMAGE. AN UPDATED, CORRECTLY TONED VERSION IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWS THIS ADVISORY. WE ARE SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE CAUSED. REUTERS"
A comparison between the two images, original is on the left and toned on the right, the date stamp on the bottom of the original has been cropped out.
Gary Hershorn, Reuters' News Pictures Editor for North America, says that Reuters typically does not like to move unsourced third party images, but they do come along at times that need to be sent. "It is our policy to put ‘Quality from Source‘ when sending user generated images. We continued to try and contact the farmer and were successful and acquired the original image which we sent on the wire"
News organizations are always on guard against images that circulate after natural disasters. Some agencies got burned after the Haitian earthquake as images filled the social media web. Many of the images were from the Chinese earthquake two years ago.
This picture? A Reuters' TV freelancer in Iceland acquired the image from the paper and sent it to Reuters TV in Stockholm, who passed it on to Berlin who passed it onto Reuters Pictures Berlin.
Hershorn says in the investigation of the volcano picture, they found it on an Icelandic newspaper web site and it resembled the original file. A second day of digging revealed that the picture did pass through the hands of someone at the paper and that version was toned and ended up distributed to Reuters, Zuma, Getty and a few other agencies.
Photo on the website from the Icelandic newspaper site.
Why the toning was done is still a mystery, it might have been what the file looked like after a press curve was applied.
What exactly happened with the toning, and if it is acceptable, is constantly the subject of debate in the photojournalism community.
But for the most part, news organizations do not manipulate images, whether this be while taking the picture or afterwards in Photoshop.
The Toronto Star's Code of ethics reads, "Altering the content of documentary photographs through technology is not allowed. ……. What may seem innocuous to some inevitably leads to an erosion of public confidence. Manipulation aimed at correcting technical deficiencies, such as burning, dodging, spotting for dust, noise reduction, contrast and colour balancing, are acceptable. That said, these adjustments and enhancements should be used with great care and should not alter the integrity of the image."
Just a little sidebar here.
Photojournalists take great care in ensuring that the photograph is made in camera. The better the image coming out of the camera means that we spend little time tinkering with the picture in Photoshop. Reuters' Lucas Jackson talks about how he got this picture.
Lucas Jackson blogs on how he got this picture with a 125 second exposure.
Jim Rankin – Reporter Photographer
Being March Break and all, thought it’d be a good time to show you what photographers do when on vacation. Yeah, we shoot.
My better half and I have just returned from two weeks in Belize, where we beached ourselves, ate well, read lots and snapped away. The better half, a darn good shooter in her own right, she went armed with a Nikon D90 and a couple of lenses. I decided not to bring the big gear with me. Instead, I packed a newly bought Canon G11 point-and-shoot and underwater housing, good to deeper than 100 feet. Not that I dive, or anything. But we did spend a day snorkeling along the Belize Barrier Reef and also killed a hot afternoon tubing down rapids in inner tubes. I’m a Nikon guy, but I have to say the little Canon is a keeper.
A school of fish at the Hol Chan Marine Reserve, off Ambergis Caye. You’d think I would remember the species, but, no. Tech specs: Lens (mm): 6.1; ISO: 80; Aperture: 2.8; Shutter: 1/640; Exp. Comp.: 0.0

The camera has a preset white balance for underwater shooting, but you can see that the deeper one shoots, blue hues become stronger. Lens (mm): 6.8; ISO: 80; Aperture: 2.8; Shutter: 1/200
And now, some snaps from holidays past. Most of these were taken with pro NIKON DSLR gear.
Mud-caked bathers at the Dead Sea, Israel, 2006. 
Bedouin tea at Wadi Rum, Jordan. This one was shot handheld in 2006 with a Nikon D2H, Lens (mm): 14; ISO: 800; Aperture: 3.2; Shutter: ¼ sec. Note the noise!
Back of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, 2005. Shot with a Coolpix 5000.

Just married, Paris, 2005.
Taking a nap along the Thames, perhaps after a few pints at lunch, London, 2007.
Potty training at Jesuit centre for families, Quito, Ecuador, 1991.
Shoeshine boys, Quito, Ecuador, 1991.

Lake Titicaca, Bolivia, 1991.
Sunrise above the clouds, Tungurahua Volcano, Ecuador, 1991.
Alberta road block, 2002.
Charles, a silverback mountain gorilla, Rwanda, 2009. This was shot with a D2X; Lens (mm): 200; ISO: 400; Aperture: 4; Shutter: 1/180. I was standing about 5 metres from Charles.
Intore dancer, Rwanda, 2009.

Women react to a roadside comedy skit, Rwanda, 2009.
Football supporters, Kigali, Rwanda, 2009.
Journalism students on a road trip, Rwanda, 2009.
Capuchin monkey, Montezuma, Costa Rica, 2007.
For a final frame, something from a wonderful sun-bathed September in Provence.
Roussillon, France, 2007.
Steve Russell, Staff Photographer
It was leaning up against the wall in Ken Faught's office.
A black and white picture in a 16x20 frame.
Why I had gone into the Photo Editor's office that day in August was forgotten as I looked at the picture.
"Nice picture, Ken, yours?" I asked.
"Nope, a reader dropped it off," Ken answered, "Guess who?"
The image of a man sleeping, well, more passed out, on a small bit of cloth under a sign painted on a building declaring "The King of Good Times" was strangely beautiful.
A great example of street photography.
The photographer, who was inspired by August's Big Picture Feature, took the picture off his wall and brought it down to the Toronto Star hoping that the paper might use it?
No other than World Boxing Hall of Famer, George Chuvalo.
This touched me more than anything. George is a man whose life has been chronicled in front of a lot of cameras, his boxing days and later in life, family tragedies claimed three of his sons and his first wife.
The idea of George picking up a camera to chronicle life, and doing it well, I took as a compliment to my profession.
The King of Good Times
"The King of Good Times"
Photo by George Chuvalo
George Chuvalo was on holidays with his wife Joanne in Goa, India.
As his wife shopped the market place in Margao, George wandered around the same Marketplace when he stumbled across this "poor soul, sleeping on the thinnest of blankets"
That Sunday morning George was carrying his Minolta x-370 camera with a 45 mm lens loaded with some black and white film when he came across the man sleeping under a sign that read "Kingfisher, The king of good times"
Chuvalo's first thought was,"Holy Crips, that is the opposite of the King of Good Times!"
He took a picture of the man, framing him up with the sign.
Chuvalo likes the black and white film because it's "more stark and more emotional and more real and dramatic, especially for that type of picture, it captures the mood perfectly."
Chuvalo, whose friends, some in AA, admire the picture when they drop by the house, says, "This is a tragic picture, an awful picture about life, this guy was sleeping on the smallest and thinnest piece of blanket. After I shot the picture I felt guilty as I walked away, I should have slipped a sawbuck in his pocket"
The hands that rained down so much pain to his boxing rivals dwarf his Minolta X-370.
Chuvalo started taking pictures with a Pentax camera in the early 60's. He also had the occasional chat with legendary Toronto Star Photographer Boris Spremo about photography.
"I drive people nuts taking pictures," Chuvalo confesses.
George Chuvalo and his camera
A few other pictures that he is proud of, although he is unsure where the negatives might be, are a security guard at an old amphitheatre in Croatia, the guard was half asleep on a chair with his pistol half out of his holster.
A picture of a friend jumping from a balcony to his balcony at a hotel, 27 floors up.
A picture of his son Jesse when he was 8-9 reflected on a table.
Carlos Osorio - Staff Photographer
Last week was the last day to submit an application to get on a list to buy a home on Toronto Island. I was sent with reporter Jennifer Yang to talk to some of the people on the ferry heading over. STORY HERE.
It was foggy and raining when on the ferry. Most people were inside.
Anne Barnett has lived on the Island for 35 years. She didn't have to wait on a list to buy a house she came right over from England and settled there.
Jennifer spoke with Sarah Roe who was on her way to drop of an application and I made a quick photo with her and the disappearing skyline.
After getting off the ferry I wondered around and made some pictures. The Island is such a beautiful place and the rain and
the fog just made it look even better.
The view of the CN Tower from the Island.
I couldn't help looking back and making photos of the skyline.
Basketball island style.