Focus-on-Imaging and its benefits pt1

Before I went and got cancer, I used to visit a photographic show at the NEC called Focus on Imaging. It's a show open to the public that features all sorts of different aspects of photography.

Photographic bodies like the Royal Photographic Society, SWPP have stands as well as companies selling equipment, storage media, display media, and the camnera gear itself. Seemingly it's quite important for folks like Nikon and canon, who usually have huge stands, and Nikon usually have lectures from their tech guys, professional photographers, and sometimes folks from the photography magazines.

Until 2009, I had done the show 3 times, the last 2 in consecutive years, during which I noticed just how dominant Digital photography was becoming. Fujifilm were almost non existent and even the mass producers of photopaper were becoming scarce, replaced by a few boutique specialist producers, and purveyors of both online and 'real' album manufacturers.

I was really pissed off that I couldn't get out of hospital until after the 2009 show. Not that if I had gone, I'd have been up to much, what with my short-range walking abilities, and need for plenty of sleep after walking oohhh 200 yards in a few minutes! I'd checked online when the show was on, and tried to work out when I'd stop getting the chemo, and then allow a few days to be neutropenic, and then they'd let me out.. and... and....

For those that don't know (ie probably everyone bar me, nowadays) neutropenic is the after effect of some chemo drugs that wipe out your white blood cell levels. Having B-Cell Lymphoma, and with it being in the bone marrow (and elsewhere) it was pretty important to kill off infected cells, and if that involved collateral damage, like healthy cells, tough titty. It can last for a few days post-chemo. Being in hospital having daily blood checks let the docs know how I was doing. God it seemed ages waiting for my white cell level to register.

Anyway, I missed it in 2009, and from the shots on Flickr.com, I missed a great time.

Some of the stands have promo-girls, and in 2010, there was even a promo-boy, who should have taken bravery pills by the bucket! LOL! xSome are there to hand out leaflets, others to be the muse of the photographer on the stand for the week.

During my visits in 07 and 08, I discovered a producer of flash and lighting systems called Bowens. They had a big stand, with a few sales bods hanging around, and one side had a lighting rig, and a big sign giving timings of demonstrations.

Jon Gray was the photographer and Jade Cartwright was the model. Jade had been in Page3 and done various other lads mags. His set-up was simple. Have a camera set up pointing at Jade, and talk through various poses, lighting rigs, how different gels have different effects, different cones on the flash concentrated the light in different ways, varying the flash on the back etc.. All the while he would take photos of Jade, and they'd be shown on big monitors, so Joe Public could see. Then we could give it a go ourselves.. using our camera, and his set-ups.

Oh that was fun. I've posted a few on my flickr feed here.

example...

That pose became known as the 'Pulp Fiction' look.

Anyway, this year I went back to the show, unsure if Jon or Jade were going to be there. I knew pro-photographer Andy Rouse was going, and talking on the Nikon stand. Until 3 years ago, there wasn't a hope in Hell that Andy would say anything remotely complimentary about Nikon. Nikon was the work of Beelzebub. Then he got given one of their new cameras, and.....as he demonstrated with shots of Rwandan gorillas taken at ISO levels a mere 400D Canon can only dream about, and a clarity I could then only dream about.. he converted. Andy was doing a talk, and publishing a new book of Tiger shots, to help his Tiger charity.

I entered the show and found the Nikon stand. Not hard as its black and yellow Kubrickian Monolith dominates the hall it's in. I then walked round the place to find the Bowens stand. No Jon, No Jade, and a very different, more ad hoc set-up. No microphones, no real area to demonstrate.. No attendance from me!

I walked around the place again, and watched a few other demos, better set-up than Bowens, and got some gear ideas.

Warning Mad American Presdential Wannabe talks out his backside!

http://www.breitbart.tv/they-have-been-cursed-pat-robertson-says-haiti-swore-a-pact-to-the-devil/

This is a video of Pat Robertson suggesting that yesterday's earthquake is a result of a centuries old pact with the devil they made to get the French out of the island.

Please remind me why I hold those in power in the various churches of the world in such little regard....? Katrina.. blamed by him on New Orleans not being God-Fearing enough. AIDS, the World accepting homosexuality.

"I know this is painful for the ladies to hear, but if you get married, you have accepted the headship of a man, your husband. Christ is the head of the household and the husband is the head of the wife, and that's the way it is, period." –Pat Robertson

Not forgetting his quote on Scotland that it's SOOOO full of homosexuals it was a truly godless place. Apparently Homosexuality rules he positions of power. It's because Scotland allegedly means 'Dark Place'. That was back in '99.

Add that to Jimmy Swaggert, Jim Bakker and his PTL organisation (not forgetting the funds required to keep his wife Tammy Faye in mascara). PTL was a pseudo-christian organisation where, for a simple fee a month, you could help Jim and his ministries. Oh and pay for his secretary, Jessica Hahn, who posed for Playboy twice after her sugar daddy got found out. Jim Bakker started his PTL, Praise the Lord show on Pat Robertson's channel! Not only could you help Jim and his work, but, if you shelled out enough, got the chance to have a holiday at their very own theme park, Heritage USA. I remember seeing footage of that place when it all came out..

Pleae remember folks like this exist when the Daily Jackboot are slagging off Muslims like they're going out of fashion.

Lumber punctures

As part of my treatment, I was to have a total of 8 lumber punctures. I would then get vials of chemicals injected into me.

The procedure was thus. On Wednesday or Friday afternoon, I was taken either to a room off the daycase area or in Fletcher ward, which was on the floor above me. I would then be bent double, with my back facing away from bed I would use as a head rest. The registrar/doc would feel my spine seemingly for a gap between the vertebrae. I would then feel a globule of cleaning gel rubbed onto the area around the target. I would then get a measure of local anaesthetic, the get that spread around a bit, followed by another measure of local, deeper into the skin.

Obviously being told the phrase lumber puncture sounds pretty nasty, but I'm told they only injected into the fluids around the spinal cord.

A few samples would be drawn from my spinal cord, apparently to check for infection or evidence of contamination by my cancer. This would be sent off to various labs, I'm told.

After the samples were drawn, It was time for the injection. It's part of the procedure that I visually check the packaging before it being used. Info I had to confirm was that it was the right drug, right date, and it had my name on it. All this is apparently legal requirements. It was another legal requirement that, regardless of however many procedures had to be done that day, the process for the individual had to start before 4pm that day. Legally this process started at the picking up of the vial of gunk from Pharmacy.

After confirming details of the package, the needle was readied, and I resumed the position, if I'd moved much. The injection would be delivered. Two measures of methotrexate, and 6 of I think it was called Cytarabin ended up in the old back. I would then get a small plaster over the hole.

After the dose was delivered, I was told to lie flat on my back in the room, for around an hour. I would then return to my room.

Big Day pt1

Today marks the first anniversary of a Big Day in my recovery. It's one year today since I was taken from Licoln hospital to City Hospital, Nottingham. Almost to the minute, actually.

I was picked up from Lincoln and driven by hospital taxi to Nottingham, and the driver and I had a good chat en route. It wasn't quite as fast as the trip from Grantham to Lincoln by rickety old ambulance, facing backwards, and sitting up on the trolley a week earlier, but normal paced. The guy used to service aircraft in thr RAF, and had stories about his times when they had to rip the insides out of a Vulcan because some bigshot wanted to go fishing in Canada, and had a bed in the nose cone, and the like.

When I got to Nottingham, I was put in a bay with a guy called Brian. He was of retirement age, and was recovering from another form of cancer to me.

The ward was set up as a series of bays, with a few private rooms for those with the more dangerous forms of treatment, or as I found out later, problems like C-Diff, and housing us in own own rooms could contain infection. My bay was Bay 3, Toghill ward. The building was a relatively new building. It wasn't your traditional '20 beds in a ward, all open plan, no privacy at all' setup. There were 6 Bays, if I recall, mostly up one end of the building, with a central spine housing bathrooms and shower rooms, both male and female, then a central reception area, and then extra bathrooms, with staff room, and 'consulting' room, and kitchen. The consulting room was a small room with tv and video/dvd, with a case of books and old videos.

I was welcomed into the ward by my roomie, Brian, who showed me the ropes. In Bay 2, the bay behind me, was Barry and Basil. Barry had had various treatments for a few years, and was itching to get out. He was hoping to go to Germany to visit the Christmas Markets there, and had a family do organised in ye olde Skegness coming up too. He would often wander around, and pop in for a chat. Basil was another long term patient. Many a time over the next few weeks, you could hear him doing circuits of the ward, keeping his leg muscles working, so they didn't go to pot.

I seem to recall, Brian had been in on this stint for 6 weeks, and when the docs told him he could leave on the Friday, 2 days after I arrived, you could see the relief, and joy in his face. It really was a lovely thing to see.

Back to yesterday, and I had my 2-monthly checkup. Going really well, haemoglobin, neutrophils, a type of white blood cell, and everything getting back to normal levels, so the after effects of the chemo on the blood at least, are going.

Next visit in 10 weeks. Just before my birthday.

In memorium

Today it's Remembrance Sunday over here in old Blightey. I believe our tranatlantic cousins celebrate Veterans Day tomorrow.

Calendar wise its the anniversary of my fleeing to Grantham A&E with a temp of 40.6C, and the start of my stays in the local hospitals..

This morning I watched The Queen and family do their thing at the Cenotaph. This afternoon, I did my bit at All Saints, Oakham. Higher up the guest list were Oakham's great, good and members of Parliament.

The service started at 2.30pm. There was a small band of onlookers, as well as various service personnel dotted around. Apparently most were there as detail for the Cottesmore base commander. I did get some group shots, but they've not come out too great.

After the service, they all troop out the Church, and lay their wreaths on the memorial outside. The base commander then goes to a dais down by the market square, and the cadets and regulars march past. If I'm around next year, I should have my better telephoto lens with me. I used my old zoom, which doesn't have stabiliser on it.. Now I see how much it does!

One year after the start of things

Today marks the first anniversary of the day my treatment should have started.

I should have started ABVD Chemotherapy at Grantham a year ago today. Mum and I went for the arranged appointment at Grantham Hospital, with the intention to get my first dose of chemo in outpatients. Plans changed when the specialist informed us that the results from my bone marrow biopsy hadn't come back yet, and as yet, they did not know exactly which version of lymphoma I had. It could have been a rare version of Hodgkins that looked like Non-hodgkins, or vice versa. If I started the treatment for one, and it was finally diagnosed the other, it could have proved disastrous.

It was decided that treatment be delayed for I think 2 weeks. It was also decided that from then on, I be signed off work.

As I was walking out the Outpatients door, I saw a positive sight. A few weeks earlier, I had been in for a blood test, and an old gentleman was brought in on a wheelchair. I instantly recognised it as Richard Todd, of Dam Busters fame. I clammed up instantly, not sure if I should say hello, or let him be.. He didn't look too great, and the use of the wheelchair didn't improve things. This time, as I was walking out of the hospital, he was walking in.

Yesterday was my first proper day back. I'm partly retraining, partly covering holidays. Since I left, the beloved company has introduced a new computer system which automates some things, but throws up more processes elsewhere. I guess in time it will fall into place. Yesterday I messed up the cash-up twice in ways that balanced out later. I had forgotten to include either notes or a bag of coins in the final tally.

Lots of customers came in to pay their paper bills etc, and their compliments and messages of 'missed you' were appreciated.

The Slaughtered Lamb

Have you ever been the sole person in a cinema screening? I've been in a few where it was me a around 4 others (Night at the Museum 2, for instance. Apparently rip-roaring comedy.. Only laughs were the Einstein Bobble-heads).

The Vue cinema in Leicester are doing a week of 10pm screenings of the John Landis horror-comedy An American Werewolf in London. All time Classic, one of my favourite films, and I've managed to get a few different styles of poster for.

I had thought of ringing and booking my ticket in advance, what with it being such a, I thought, well known film, and short run and all. I needn't have bothered. I got there around 9pm, and made sure I got my ticket. The attendent was talking to a couple about the Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus, the Terry Gilliam film starring the late Heathe Ledger. Without knowing which film they were discussing, I didn't recognise the film at all.

Anyway, I got the ticket and returned to the car to read the new US Esquire magazine, featuring ms Kate Beckinsale as the newly enobled Sexiest Women in the World. I'd seen scans and the video they had posted beforehand, and it's a post I have no disagreement over. Earlier incarnations of the post include Jessica Simpson, Halle Berry, Megan Fox.

As the screening time neared, I returned to the desk to get a good seat. Whilst I hadn't noted a flood of folks into the place, couldn't be too careful. It soon became obvious that I would be in a small number of folks watching.

Knowing that if so inclined, the folks outside the screening can watch what the folks in screening are doing, being the sole person in there kind of restricts even more as to what you can get up to. Playing 'Drum Hero' to the opening of the film (one of many versions of Blue Moon in the film) could look a bit silly... LOL!

Even though I've seen the film countless times, this digital transfer made the film really fresh, and I noticed lots of things that I had either not noticed, but forgotten. Still loved the pub scene, especially the 'Remember the Alamo' joke told by Brian Glover. Don't recall Rik Mayall having so many shots. But then until it was pointed out in later years where and what Rik Mayall was in the movie, I just took it as 'extra in shot', which I guess he would have been at the time. Also forgot just how stunning Jenny Agutter was in the film. Sometimes you had Jenny in soft focus on her own, sometimes in normal focus, on her own, or two shot. As a lad growing up just after the film came out, it was a rite of passage watching American Werewolf, especially the Agutter moments, and the first 'change' sequence.

The initial transformation scene was still as great as always. Still amazes me how they shot the stretching of the feet, ears etc. In the past few years they had a 'top 100 scariest movies'on Channel4 in which this was placed. This enabled director John Landis to demystify that scene, telling us how David Naughton (David, the survivor) just had his head and shoulders above the floor when he was seen laying on his back, as his stomach changed shape.

I guess it's one of those films that has a bit of 'Jaws' in it. You don't see much of the werewolf at any part of the film. The werewolf look in the aforementioned transformation scene is different from the werewolf in later scenes, and I think its the first time I spotted the werewolf crouching in the back of the alley in the closing scenes. Movie legend has it that the 'terror' in Jaws was built up because you don't see the whole shark til a long way into the movie. Partly due to the fact the mechanical fishes they used kept breaking down, or looked rubbish. Most of the shots of the werewolf are headshots just before the thing attacks, or long range shots like the closing scenes.

I thought it was nice of Landis to allow the poster for 'Airplane' to be featured on the walls of Tottenham Court Rd tube station (Northern Line), as well as the 'See You Next Wednesday' porno flick that David and his undead friend go to see off Picadilly later on.

It's the 3rd film I've seen this week! This Is It! and Fantastic Mr Fox being the other 2.