Aaron Outward

how aDORAble

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:56:00 +0000

Well my other valentine got jealous, Amy got all the attention on Valentine's day but I have been getting the cold shoulder from my other valentine since. So today is my attempt at balancing the scales :)

Last fall my photography was one of the things that got put on the side burner with the getting ready for our wedding and the dips in my health. I did get to do a bit of photography but it was mainly portrait stuff for my portfolio.

With the start of the new year a couple things have happened. First, I have continued on my search for my "perfect camera" (in a post to come). And I have been trying to get back into my photography a lot more. The weather hasn't always been co-operating with me, so my favourite model has been getting photographed quite a bit lately. So much I think she is getting annoyed with me :)

What do you think of them? I think she is aDORAble

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Who Said You Can Only Wear A Wedding Dress Once

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:30:00 +0000

Being that today is Valentines Day I thought today's post would be dedicated to my Valentine.

Who ever said that you can only wear a wedding dress once. Every bride knows this conundrum. You spend countless hours (and dollars) finding that perfect wedding dress only to wear it for one day.

Well my stunning bride, Amy, was not happy with this reality and sought to change it. Throughout the fall Amy was always the first to see the results of any of my photoshoots but she was never the muse. As we departed for Aruba we made a deal that on our honeymoon, I would do a photo shoot for just her in her wedding dress, as she said she really liked the style of photos I take. I think it was an more an excuse to give her an oppurtunity to wear her beautiful dress once again and get some fantastic shots without the stress of the wedding.

Originally I was planning to an Aruban sunset shoot with her taking advantage of the beautiful colours and light, but we already had similar shots from our photographer at the wedding. Instead we did the shoot in the black of night, searching out as many unique lighting situations as we could throughout the resort.

When all was said and done we came out with some absolutely stunning photographs (Amy even liked them more than our photographers :) )

So without further adieu here are my favourites of my valentine in her wedding dress.

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

I think I may be a Senior Citizen

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:06:00 +0000

Well the day has finally come, I think I may be a senior citizen. I am sure you are thinking how can this be? Well let me lay out the facts and see what you think.

Exhibit #1 - Well the first exhibit is that I chose to do this posts in exhibits instead of paragraphs. This is inspired of course by my favourite new show the Firm, but it could have just as easily been inspired by Murder She Wrote.

Exhibit #2 - I own a 4 level pill dossier. Really think about it, who do you know that has the need to organize their pills that much :)

Exhibit #3 - I need to take on average 20-25 pills a day! Thats right you read that correctly, up to 25 pills a day. Remember that picture from months ago with the hand full of pills? Well it still is ;)

Exhibit #4 - This is more of my brother's joke towards me but works well in this arguement. As he would say, I am in my early retirement :)

Exhibit #5 - I used to live in Port Credit.

Exhibit #6 - Did I mention my grey hair ;)

Exhibit #7 - I joined a weekly photography group but instead of group it is a "Guild". First, I hadn't heard of a guild since my readings on them in the medieval times and fantasy books. But how cool is that, I am a member of a guild ;) With that said, I am one of the youngest members in the group by a long shot, although my grey hair helps me camoflage in :D

Exhibit #8 - this was the piece of evidence that finally sold me on my senior citizen status. I went to a public swim yesterday afternoon to try and begin building back up my strength and I was again the youngest in the pool by at least 40 years. Again thankfully the grey hair helped me fit it :D When I started swimming I had to choose the slower swimming lane or grey lane as I like to call it

It is okay, I accept my fate; senior citizen it is. But just one question, where do I get my discount card?? :D

disclaimer - this post was just to have a little fun on this friday and poke some fun at my situation. I don't think I am senior and have many many years before getting there but I thought I would lighten the mood for this friday.

But I do want a senior discount card...that is pretty badass!

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Developing My Own Photographic Style

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:56:00 +0000

Last fall I started doing some portraiture work with the intention of adding another dimension to my work. When starting out I was looking for my own personal voice as an artist; something that would differentiate me from the pack.

I was reminded of a story Amy told me years ago that has stuck with me and been my inspiration on numerous occasions.

At a training event they had one of Tiger Woods coaches come and speak to their group. (I am paraphrasing here) He told the story of how Tiger at the time was one of the best driver on tour but yet he spent the bulk of his time practicing to improve his driving even more. But why would he spend so much time practicing something he was already good at?

Most of us in this situation would start dedicating the bulk of our time to the weaker areas in order to try and improve them, but in doing so we would neglect what got us there in the first place and our overall performance would suffer. For instance, look at every time Tiger tinkers with his golf swing. He has to dedicate so much time to improving it, that the areas of his game that makes him great suffers and he becomes just an average golfer, not the dominant one we have come to know him by.

When we start spending more time on our weaknesses than our strengths it is in pursuit of perfection. But I hate to break it to you, perfection is an impossible feat. The pursuit of perfection will long, tedious, unfruitfal and untimately detrimental.

It is actually most important to play to our strengths and minimize our weaknesses. This is where success lies, Tiger used to practice this mentality. I am not saying forget about our weaknesses, we still need to practice and seek to improve weaknesses but not at the expense of strengthening our core strengths. Our ultimate success goes hand in hand with the overpowering abilities of our strengths.

This is something I have used often in my life. While in the management training program, I always took subsequent roles that had a great deal of stretch in them but was confident I would be successful because the stretch that was involved played to my strengths.

So again back to last fall when I was beginning my portraiture work, I was looking for my own personal voice that would differentiates me from the others and I came back to this idea of playing to our strengths.

I realizes my strengths lay in my compositional techniques from my street photography. I knew my main interest and strengths were in playing with light/shadows, compositions, juxtapositions, and catching that candid moment (the core of street photography).

I decided to adapt my style from my street photography to create my "posed-but-unposed" look and I am quite happy with the results so far. I will continue to craft this voice by studying posing techniques further and melding it with my ever improving "street" style.

Here is just a small taste of some of my favourites so far. I recommend you heading over to my webpage www.aaronoffordphotography.com to see my full portfolio; it is worth the visit!

As always I would love to hear your thoughts.

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

An Analog State of Mind

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 22:23:00 +0000

Some forms of nostalgia I have always had a soft spot for, maybe that is why my hair went grey :) Last year my experience using a rangefinder started to pique my interest in the possibility of using film. In photography film has a nostalgic feeling to it for me. I love having to do everything manual with the camera, it engages the brain so much more in my photography because you have to do the thinking for the camera instead of the other way around. Sure you can do all this with digital but it is just so easy to turn on some auto features :) So when I started talking about using film, my friend Tony graciously lent me his Minolta XD-7 and 28mm lens to start playing with last fall.

The funny thing is the first day Tony and I went out shooting film, I spent the whole day shooting only until did we realize that the camera had no film in it. I still to this day remember in my mind the some of the shots I took that will never be. I always make sure the camera has film in it :)

One other benefit people often talk about with using film is you take better pictures because you don't take as many photos. Each time you push the shutter it costs money to use a frame of the film and the developing, whereas after the initial investment in digital it is free. I do understand the methodology with the film and do notice I take much less photos. But with that said it is much harder to experiment because it is costing money. Some of my biggest development in photography has come from experimentation.

So I do have a soft spot for film, but I think only in conjunction with digital right now in my photography development. Here are some of my favorite shots from my first 2 rolls of film. I have 2 more on the go right now so I will share those when I am finished with the roll. Next up, learning to develop!

A Real Emergency

Twins

3 on 1

Umbrellas

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Searching for a Perfect Compromise

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:47:00 +0000

My Rangefinder and I

Photography is an amazing artform. It can envoke feelings of sadness, happiness, and inspiration to name a few; the list is simply endless. Photography can be so much more though, like cancer, it is an excellent teacher of life skills as well. Photography has easily taught me as many lessons about life as my leukemia. But probably the best lesson it has ever taught me is;

Nothing in our world is perfect, life is about compromises.

It is no secret that I like to change my cameras often; I am on my 9th different camera. Don't get me wrong, I do like the aspects of playing with a new toy but that is not the central reason for my constant switching of camera systems. The true reason is I am in the neverending search for "The Perfect Camera" for me.

Notice how I said perfect camera for me. The problem is no camera company is calling me in to make me the perfect camera, instead they make them for the masses. With this sad reality of no custom cameras how do we find the perfect camera? Unfortunately we don't.

Don't let that dissaude you from looking though, there are great compromises. But in order to find your perfect compromise you first have to know what it is you are looking for. This step is so often skipped by so many people. They don't take the time to sit down and actually list out what is the most important aspects that they value. For me two of the most important factors are size and weight.

I had almost found the perfect camera in a rangefinder but it lacked great low light performance and was manual focus only. Now there is an option for low light performance but it is over $7000 for just the camera, which is drastically outside my price range :) I loved manual operation of this camera, oftentimes turning off all automatic features and using it completely manual. It was a wonderful camera but just not great for an all around camera so I moved on. Although one day I shall get another (maybe film, maybe digitial who knows :) )

I have since continued on my journey for my "perfect compromise". This is not the only place where the perfect compromise rears itself in photography. It is present almost everytime you press the shutter to take a photograph. I won't get into the science of exposure (or else this post will grow exponentially in length) but exposing a photograph is more often than not a compromise in attempt to create your personal vision for a photograph.

Again in order to make the decision on the acceptable compromise you first must know what is of utmost importance to you and what you can compromise on.

This is a concept that is applicable to our everyday lives. Our lives are filled with compromises that we have to make. Instead of just making random compromises we should use the lessons from photography and take a moment to take a step back and assess our situation. What are the things that are absolute must haves, and what are things you can compromise on. Once you know these two things you can more effectively tackle the compromises in your life.

Stay tuned for more on the Journey for my Perfect Compromise

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Surviving Leukemia - It's Not About the Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:46:00 +0000

Less than 100 is all you need to know

A diagnosis of Acute Leukemia (or any Cancer for that matter) is a very scary and confusing time. You are bombarded by so many different things that you have no prior knowledge of and as such start seeking out sources to try and help you gain a better understanding. In the first couple hours and days (and truthfully including even years later), the mountain of questions of the unknown is continually growing. The ultimate question and summit of your mountain of questions is always the same for anyone going through this terrible process:

What are my chances for survival?

Unfortunately this one question can do so much more harm than good for someone going through something as terrible as Acute Leukemia. It is expected than when you are told you are going to die without medical intervention you are going to be curious about the odds for your survival. Naturally the first place we go for this information is the internet.

I am here to tell you this is a mistake, the internet is a wonder source of information, but in cases like this it can be overwhelming and destructive to the most important tool you have in your fight against your Leukemia; your positive attitude. It is so destructive because lets face it the stats on survival for Acute Leukemia are just terrible. It is one of the most aggressive and terrible forms of cancer there is. In addition, the protocol for treating it is extremely long and just as dangerous as the disease itself.

Now I am not saying don't research your disease at all. I am the biggest supporter of becoming educated on your disease. When I got sick I half joked that by the end of this process that I would know as much as my doctor's about my disease. Now this was half in jest but also half reality. I think it is so important to be educated, if anything else it allows us to prepare mentally for the extremely long and difficult battle that we have coming up.

But there is a big difference to researching your disease and focusing on the numbers for survival. To give a frame of reference, I myself made this mistake one night just before my stem cell transplant. Amy and I were on the couch watching tv and she had passed out so I decided to do some research on my "chances" on the internet. It was alarming how bad the actual numbers were; shocking in fact. The worst part was although I could feel it stressing me out internally and destroying my positive energy I just couldn't stop looking. It was almost addiciting in a sadistic sort of way. Thankfully I came across a forum of survivors. As soon as I saw that others survived this regardless of the odds it broke the spell the negative odds had on me and I closed my laptop and have never looked at odds since.

You see the only important thing we need to know when fighting a life threatening disease is if others have survived so too can you. This is the most important thing we need to latch onto regardless of how bad the actual number is. If it isn't 100% then others have survived, and so too can you.

The source of numbers like this are studies, and they are just that studies. There is no, and never will be a, study that is able to give you a true representation of what your personal chances of surviving something is because so many other factors involved that just what type of cancer you have. Take me for instance, I have no met anyone in two years that has the same cancer, Phildelphia positive bcell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, that is in the same age group as me. So for me to get hung up on survival statistics done on people that weren't even close to my age seemed silly. Sure they tell you that when your cancer is more rare you are higher risk, but I think part of that is just because they haven't seen enough cases to say much else. Remember it is all about statistics, if only two people have a terrible condition and one dies, the survival rate would be 50%.

So whenever you are faced with something that feels like it has impossible odds, take the glass half full approach; if others can defeat and overcome it, so too can you. Your personal attitude is more powerful than anything a doctor can prescribe so always remember to fuel and reinforce that attitude with the right type of positive thinking.

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

My Favourite 8 "Street" Photographs from 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:53:00 +0000

I really don't like using the term "street" photography anymore. I haven't in a long time. I find it has such a negative connotation these days, often seen as being creepy, aggressive, or invasive. I strive now to make more than just a photo of a person walking down a street. I will continue to use the term street photography for the purposes of this blog but know I am not a street photographer just a regular photographer who likes to photograph what I see; it just so happens to be most times on the streets :)

I have spoken before we can move on to our goals of the new year we have to reflect on the past year. As an artist I think reviewing your images from the past is especially important. I decided to review all my street shots from last year and pull out my favourites. Without further adieu here are my 9 favourite shots from 2011. I hope you like them.

Two of a Kind

A moment of Enlightenment

Isolation

Three's Company

A long walk

Back to Back

Practicing

Afraid of the Dark

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Spreading Ourselves too Thin

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:31:00 +0000

You wake up and go to make breakfast. As your toast is cooking in the toaster, you cue up the tassimo for some nice coffee. Your toast just finishes cooking and rush to spread the butter on the toast so it melts nicely but the unthinkable happens, there is not enough butter. You try to "make it out" scraping every last scrap of butter onto your bread, but it just isn't enough.

Has this every happened to you? In the end you eat that piece of toast but it is never that satisfying.

This post isn't intended to be about bread and toast but rather something that happens much to often in our lives; spreading ourselves too thin. We are guilty of at some point taking on way more than we can handle. This usually result in one of three things:
-something falls through the cracks
-we become unhappy with how we are stretched so thin
-the things we can get done aren't to our potential

I am as guilty as the next person for this. In fact, since the new year began I am realizing just how thinly stretched I made myself for the final 4 months of last year. As I reflected on it I realized just how impactful it had been on my life; and not in a good way.

I realized that always having to be go-go-go with no downtime for personal enjoyment can really wear a person down (whether in cancer recovery or living our day to day lives). Even though life has started to return to a semblance of normalcy, I find myself wanting to just to do nothing in an attempt to counter balance the months of being so busy.

During that time I didn't get to do as much photography as I am used to. As many of you know, photography is more to me than just taking photos. It is a chance to challenge my brain, see things in a different light, and just a great oppurtunity to get outside in the fresh air. Since the new year has started I have noticed it is much harder to get back into this hobby, but without it I realized how unhappy I was becoming. So I have taken steps to infuse photography back into my life.

The other thing that has fallen through the cracks is updating here on the blog. It is not for lack of posting ideas, I have plenty. It more comes down to not feeling up to writing a post, opting to just relax instead. But it isn't just that, I have plenty of ideas to talk about but they range vastly in topics. Originally I had created multiple websites, which turned out to be a nightmare to maintain and resulted in it being so overwhelming none got maintained. While lying in bed trying to fall asleep I had an epiphany, this blog is for my thoughts and reflections regardless of the topic. And so I have decided to streamline everything into this blog. Not only will it be easier to maintain but will allow for many different topics and will keep the content much fresher.

I am also trying to get back into the habit and routine of doing a couple posts a week again. I have found that the best posting habit is usually a tues, thurs, and maybe saturday routine. Everyday is just too much work to write, and too many posts for you to read :)

This was kind of a rambling post but there is a moral to this. Be careful you don't stretch yourself too thin. Inevitibly it will happen and you will be forced to deal with it. Take time to step back and look at your life's "pie" (that we discussed two weeks ago), access where you are spending all your time and eliminate the waste. Just remember to not eliminate the things that make you happy like I did. Not only are they difficult to get bad started up again, not having them makes for a very unhappy life.

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Reflect then Resolve

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:02:00 +0000

I wrote recently about how we are often not successful in our New Year's Resolutions because we come at it from the wrong angle. Instead of just randomly picking resolutions we should take the time to analyze our life's pie and what's important to us.

Before any resolutions can be made there is something that must be done first; reflecting on the year that has passed. This is such an important step that so many people often ignore or forget at the beginning of each year. In your reflections take time to look at:
- what worked for you in the past year and what didn't
  - was your time allocated to the slices of your life that you wanted most
- did you achieve your goals for the year
- what would you like to change going forward

All these reflections give us insight and set the blueprint for the goals for our upcoming year. Without them our resolutions won't hold the same strength and be much harder to achieve.

Even though I use it from time to time, I don't like the term resolution. To me it is whimsical and fluffy often made with little to no thought minutes before midnight on New Years Eve. I propose instead of making resolutions we should be making goals or objectives for our New Year.

The first step to goal setting is reflecting, as I stated above. Because lets face it, how are you going to set goals that set in motion change in your life if you don't know what it is you are going to change? After that follow the SMART principles of goal setting and you shall be fine.
S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Attainable
R  - Realistic
T - Time Bound

Instead of setting a resolution like "I want to be healthier" or "I want to lose weight" the SMART principles will help you set a goal with a plan in place. Make your goal more specific with something that can be measured. For instance, "I want to lose weight by working out 3 times a week".

When setting this goal make sure it is not only attainable but realistic. If you can barely remember the last time you worked out, setting a goal of working out everyday is not very realistic or attainable. Setting goals like this are only setting ourselves up for failure.

Finally, no one says your goal needs to be a year long endeavour. Something that is much achievable is make it a 3 or 4 month goal. This shorter timeline is no only much less daunting, but it allows you to build momentum throughout your year.

Even though it is almost 2 weeks into the New Year, take some time and set yourself up for success; reflect then resolve. No one said your resolutions had to start on January 1st ;)

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

An Annual Update

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:28:00 +0000

I must admit I have been slacking when it comes to writing on this blog for the past couple months. It isn't that I haven't had posts to write, I just haven't been making it a priority; sorry for that :) I will attempt to be a little more regular in my updates in the future.

I thought the best thing to do today to kick off the reblogging would be to do a quick update.

As many of you may or may not know but last month, specifically December 22, was the one year anniversary of my bone marrow transplant. Or as I like to call it my second birthday, although I am still trying to convince Amy I should get birthday presents :) Presents or not I am now 1 years old! I can't believe one year has passed already, it seems like just yesterday I was going into the hospital to do my transplant.

The 1 year anniversary brings a slew of tests to make sure that I am still okay. The tests have all come back with good news so far.

1. My molecular blood work has come back negative of any signs of the Philadelphia chromosome. This means that I am still cancer free which is always a great thing to hear and be confirmed.

2. My bone density has come back normal. Another big worry for post transplant patients is the drugs used to combat the gvhd will deteriorate the bones. Thankfully my daily/weekly regiment of pills used to combat this has so far been successful and my bone density is normal for my age.

As many of you will remember I had quite the bout with gvhd in the fall and my doctors worked really hard adjusting my meds to a point that I would be stable enough to travel to Aruba for my wedding. Thankfully we were successful in stabilizing my gvhd enough to allow me to travel, albeit with a slew of pills still.

Now that we are back from Aruba, we have begun to taper again to try and get my body off of all these immunosuppressants. Since getting back from Aruba I have successfully tapered the steroid from 50mg to 20mg but now we are hitting the period where the gvhd could flare. With that in mind we are approaching this taper much more cautiously than tapers in the past and going to move from 20 to zero very slowly in hopes there won't be a flare up.

Not much else to update on the medical front.
Aaron

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Rebalancing Life's Pie

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:26:00 +0000

With the beginning of a New Year, come New Year resolutions for many people Unfortunately, now that is is a couple of days into the New Year most people have already failed at keeping some of their resolutions.
-Why are resolutions so hard to achieve?
-Are we setting the wrong resolutions?
-Are we looking at it from completely wrong perspective?

I personally think most of us are taking the wrong perspective. In order for our resolutions to succeed I think they all have to have a very specific purpose. We have to look at our daily lives as a pie. Each thing that is important to us, are pieces of the pie. The longer we spend on something, the bigger the slice of the pie it takes, therefore shrinking the other slices of pie in our lives.

Instead of spending all of our time building random resolutions, I think we should instead spend time analyzing our pie.
-What slices are most important to us?
-Are we allocating the proper amount of time to each of these slices?

Obviously this isn't a perfect science, as life will always pull on us and make other slices get larger. But we need to actively make sure we are re-allocating our time to the things most important to us. This is the key to setting our resolutions. They should be aligned with creating the our "perfect" pie.

When our resolutions are focused like this we will be much more successful in achieving them. And by achieving them, we will create a happier lifestyle.

Did you enjoy my post today? Save yourself time and have my all my new posts delivered directly to your email. Click Here to Subscribe to Aaron Outward by Email

Are you Taking Care of your Soul

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:38:00 +0000

It is a very busy time of year with the upcoming holiday season. Everyone is trying to not only meet our normal daily obligations but in addition finish our shopping and preparations for the holiday season. The holiday season is supposed to be a time of love, reflection, and happiness but every holiday season I notice the same thing...most people are cranky, impatient, and just generally in a foul mood (I myself am guilty of this from time to time).

But why at one of the happiest times of year are we in our worst moods? I believe the cause comes from us becoming so busy we often forget one of our most important tasks; taking care of our soul. I have spoken about this quite often in the past when discussing the importance of our personal sanctuaries and was reminded about it while working through my book last night. I thought today I would share a passage from a past post as a friendly reminder.

Personal sanctuaries are an essential part of maintaining our well being. Unfortunately there is no magic formula for finding out where your sanctuary might be. Since we are all different and unique, our place that heals our soul will also be different and unique. In addition, what actually heals our soul will be different for many of us too.

Toni Morrison spoke about how to find your own personal sanctuary or getaway. "A getaway is a vision of a place you've had in your mind. And, when you find yourself there, you recognize it." This definition may be a little vague, but she's saying you already know what your personal sanctuary should be. You just neet to reflect on what will do the best job of healing your soul.

For some, it is a getaway from their fast paced lives. For others, it may be getting lost in some relaxing music. Whereas for others, in may be getting lost in creative endeavours (writing, painting, cooking, etc).

Locating our personal sanctuaries is not enough though, it is critical to find the time to actually balance all the demands in our lives. These times of solitude are essential for maintaining a healthy mind and body, and are as important to us as eating, drinking, sleeping, and breathing.

By spending time in our personal sanctuaries we are able to renew our energy, so we need to use them often! We should all make a promise to ourselves to spend some time to find our own personal sanctuaries. I guarantee once you start spending time there, you won’t be able to wait to get back.

For me my soul enjoys itis moments of peace and solitude. The experience for my soul is photographing sunrises. There is just something magical about a sunrise that no other part of the day can duplicate. It is tough to always feed your soul with sunrises, because lets face it they are really early in the morning and very cold these days.

Sunrises aren't the only renewing source of energy for me. Simply laying quietly and listening to music has the same renewing powers. In fact this was one of the main techniques I used to get through some of the worst experiences of my life (the heavy chemotherapy treatments).

I think the negative attitudes or feelings during the busy periods such as the holiday season is just our soul's yelling out to us asking to be taken care of as well. During these times we often get so busy that taking care of ourselves is often the first thing to go which is a mistake. So this holiday season remember to take a few moments each day to renew your soul.

If you are interested here is a little flavour of the music I am listening to right now when I recharging session. Click the link and you will taken to one of my playlists at youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrEOddQJ8Jg&feature=BFa&list=PLEA1634D846259AA2&lf=mh_lolz

Have a great day!

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Its Me Again....

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 14:36:00 +0000

Hey Everyone,

I bet you have been thinking I have forgotten all about you. I am sorry for the extremely long delay in posts, but it has been a crazy busy time since September. It all started with Amy and my move to Hamilton, followed by a prolonged illness, and then the wedding planning took over. We never expected the weeks leading up to the wedding to be as busy as they ended up being but they took up quite a lot of time.

The wedding was a blast! It took place on the beautiful island of Aruba. We couldn't have asked for a better place, it was a dream wedding. I ended up taking quite a few photos, although most of them came from the honeymoon week. The week of the wedding was just too busy for me for my camera to make an appearance out of my satchel bag but I was able to get some awesome shots the second week. In the posts to come I will share some photos with you and share a link where you can go check the photos out.

Now that we are back, we have just been scurrying around getting ready for the Christmas season. With the Christmas season upon us I have decided to run a "giveaway". I thought it would be a fun way to embrace the Christmas spirit and it is a really simple giveaway that everyone can take part in.

As you all know I have started a dedicated photography facebook page/(www.facebook.com/aaronoffordphotography) This page is the central location for my photography and includes updates and many of my photographs. If you click on the link you will be taken to the page. I encourage you all to go check it out :)

The giveaway is quite simple, just click the link to be taken to the facebook page. When you arrive there click the like button to like my page. That is it! I told you it was simple, but you must be wondering what the giveaway is.

For every 10 people that like my page I am going to give away a free 8x10 print. To select the recipients, I will do a random draw from the list of people who like my page, and the winners can select the print of their choice. I want this to be a holiday inspired giveaway and since it is so easy to participate in the deadline will be the end of boxing day.

So go check out and "like" the page, send the link to as many people as you know and encourage them to do the same. I am in the giving mood this holiday season and would like to give away as many prints as I can!

The link once again is www.facebook.com/aaronoffordphotography

That is it for today but don't worry my next post will be soon :)

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Introducing Aaron Offord Photography a Lifestyle Portrait Photographer

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:45:00 +0000

Aaron Offord Photography - specializing in maternity, family, children, infant, engagment, couples, portrait, and pets lifestyle portrait photography servicing Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville, Mississauga, Milton, Toronto, Kitchener, Cambridge, Toronto.

I wrote a few days ago about the need for all of us to find some me time. Part of the reason behind that post was I had been so busy as of lately that I was forgetting to take time for myself which I was beginning to feel internally. I have since remedied that situation which I will discuss in upcoming posts but today I wanted to share with you one of the culprits of taking my time.

In my last post I mentioned I was working on a side project. Well that side project was building the webpages for my business Aaron Offord Photography. Today I am pleased and honoured to officially launch them here on Aaron Outward.

The pages are as follows:

main webpage - Aaron Offord Photography - www.aaronoffordphotography.com
facebook fan page - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Aaron-Offord-Photography/257403104310311

About Aaron Offord Photography

You know that line, “If when you wake up in the morning you can think of nothing but writing; then you are a writer”?

Well this is photography for me. When I wake up in the morning, I can think of nothing else but my passion for photography.

My passion comes from capturing candid untouched moments that help tell stories of subjects I photograph. These moments are pure, perfect, and one-of-a-kind.

Seeing one of these moments immortalized and frozen in time is what makes “Capturing Life’s Precious Moments” so powerful. They are unique, raw, and untouched moment’s of true beauty that when captured will never be duplicated again.

I am a friendly individual full of many life experiences, just ask me how I got into photography; it is a story for the ages!

The ultimate goal of each session is for you to enjoy having a great time while we work towards capturing that unique split second of your own Precious Moment

Over the past couple weeks I have had the pleasure of doing four wonderful sessions and here is a sneak peak at my favorite photo from each one. Check out the facebook page and website for more photos!

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Grabbing some Me Time

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:29:00 +0000

With the upcoming wedding, trip, and side project I have been working on, it has been pretty busy around here needless to say something hada to give. Unfortunately my writing time here on the blog was the one to suffer with all that is going on.

When so much is going on in our lives it is very easy to get overwhelmed and stressed which can often lead to shortness and crankiness in our dealings with others, especially those close to us.

This is why I think it is so important even in our busiest times to find a little "Me" time. It doesn't have to be much, but something you enjoy doing where you can be at peace with yourself.

I was very careful this time around not letting the hustle and bustle of life push aside my photography. I allowed that earlier in the summer and found I was miserable. Realiizing this has just further cemented in my mind just how important passions are for us. Sure the other P's of Positivity are important, but on a day to day basis it is our passions that help with the maintenance of a positive and healthy lifestyle.

So this time around with my days and nights becoming so busy, I have managed to continue setting time aside for my photography. I have taken to getting up early and photographing the sunrise again, and even ended my hiatus with street photography.

I am sure each and every one of you experience this overload of daily chores where you have to let something slip off to the side. Allowing it to be a passion can be a dangerous thing though, I can feel it in my emotions this time around, being really busy, and when I haven't used my camera for a couple days.

What have you done in your lives to ensure you are grabbing some of that all important me time?

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Life's Ironies

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 13:00:00 +0000

I wrote about my idea for a "new" New Years taking place on December 22 instead of January 1. Truthfully the idea came to me while watching a recent episode of "The Big C". In the episode the main character's, Kathy's, friend told her it was fitting he was dying on December 21st, since it was the darkest day of the year.

Up until then I had not really thought about December 21 being one of the darkest day of the year. At least not since it was covered in high school at some point. The epidsode got me thinking about all the small ironies that take place in our lives. Most of these ironies we are not even aware of them until something small like this episodes triggers the "lightbulb to turn on" and allowing us to become aware of them. This episode was one of those triggers in my life.

On December 21 of 2010, I finished all of large chemotherapy doses and 4 of my 6 total body irradiation doses. From a literary sense it was kind of fitting that I was going through these treatments at this time of year since darkness is often associated with death. And after all those treatments I was well on my way to joining this darkness without any intervention.

Then the 22nd came, the beginning of a where each day is a little bit brighter than the next. What a perfect day to receive my life giving stem cells. Receiving these cells brought hope and happiness; transitioning from darkness to light and signalling the beginning of something new. Like in nature, there still was much darkness to get through, but with each passing day my outlook and health got a little bit better or brighter.

We had always looked before at my transplant as an early christmas gift, but there was so much more to that date. It was a manifestation of the age old transition from darkness to light.

Of course these mini ironies occur in all of our lives. I personally believe their occurences are more than just sheer coincidences. So keep your eyes and mind open, you never know when one of life's ironies will come your way.

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Why Jan 1st?

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:41:00 +0000

Have you ever thought about why we celebrate New Years when we do? Why was January 1st chosen as the veginning of the new year. By definition this date represents a beginning of something new. Our early ancestors based all their timing on the movement of the planets, changing of the seasons and most importantly the movement of the sun.

So why choose January 1st? If you think about it, nothing new happens on the morning of January 1, except that we are told it is the start of a new calendar year.

Why didn't they choose the first day of spring? Don't you think that might better represent the beginning of something new? At least at this time, life is beginning to grow again after a hard winter. Waking uo on New Years in the spring would definitely be a new world. Hopefully, no shovelling the snow just to get outside the door. Instead you would be greeted by budding flowers, a warming sun, chirping birds, and a general air of happiness and hope. I don't know about you, but that sounds like something I wouldn't mind waking up to.

Now I know this is an improbably wish. Unfortunately for us the spring thaw doesn't happen on a predictable schedule. But there is always another option.

What about December 22nd? To me it seems like a great logical choice. December 21st (the winter solstice) is considered the shortest day of the year, since it has the fewest hours of sunlight. This makes it the darkest day of the year. It also means that each day following it will be slightly brighter.

What could make for a celebration for a new beginning than the change from increasing darkness to increasing light? That to me much better embodies the definition of beginning something new, more than the arbitrary date we have set for us now.

So lets join together and start a movement to move New Years to the 21st. If you are a little on the fence, just think of all the statutory holidays we would get bunched together! :)

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

My Photographic Journey (Part 6) - August 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:55:00 +0000

Then End of the Ricoh GRD

With August came the end of another camera era in my journey. The Ricoh had to go. Not because I didn't like it anymore, I still loved it, I just found the deal on a Leica I have been looking for and needed the Ricoh to help fund it. All in all it was a great little camera. If it had better ISO performance at night and still had the 40mm adapter I doubt I would have ever gotten rid of it. But I just had to see what the red dot mystique was about. Even thought it was small, it produced still to this day some of my favourite shots I have taken.

Purple Flower Close-up

A long day of work ahead

Trapped Morning Dew

Shadow Giants

Riding the Darkness

The Leica M8

So why did I make the switch. Part of it came from curiousity about the "allure" of the Leica. But mostly it had everything I wanted in a camera. It was light, small, unobtrusive, allowed for interchangeble fast prime lens. On top of all of this it was nostalgic looking and made you feel a connection with the past. It was tough to adapt to because it took all bells and whistles out of photography, forcing you to read lighting conditions much more, and manually focus everything. But I am a bit of an old-timer at heart and I absolutely love the cognitive side of photography. I love that the camera made me think about so many things before just snapping a picture. My picture count went way down as I was thinking about them more, but the quality dramatically improved.

The only drawback though is the Leica has limitations due to its nature. It is meant for slow methodical photography. You can operate it on moving objects but it takes great practice at focusing and knowing the camera. It is a great camera for street photography and as such for all of August I pretty much solely focused on improving my street photography.

Reflections

So Bored....

The Water Tunnel

Entertainment Dancing

Its Right There...

A Breath of Fresh Air

Quiet Alley

Three of a Kind

Isolated

Yawning or Yelling

Two of a Kind

Texting Break

Playing with Colour
It wasn't all black and white shooting for me in August. I dabbled a little into colour as well. Black and white is the generally accepted medium for street photography because it allows the artist to easily seperate their subject and story from the busy background, but artists have been playing with colour too. Colour just adds a whole new dimension to the photos and can often make them lose their impact on the viewer. But you always have to try :)

Not street - but a beautful lampost at dusk

24H Newspaper Sales

Catching the Light

Twins

Well that once again concludes another part of my photographic journey. I hope you enjoyed this as much as the last 5. This month was dominated by street photography but I would still like to hear if you had any favourite images!

I will tell you mine if you tell me yours :)

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

A Rebalance Required

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 10:59:00 +0000

I have to be honest, my interest in photography was starting to falter a little bit over the course of end of August and September. I kept a small amount of interest alive by trying some new things like shooting film on old mechanical SLRs but in the end something was still missing.

That is one of the main reasons why I started going through all my old photographs from the past year and a half and began sharing my photography journey. I find it is always inspiring to see how far one's ability and talent has come and I was hoping this review of my photograph's would yield such results.

The review has been a huge success in my eyes. I had one of the most enjoyable times looking through all of my old images and seeing my growth as time went by. I even found a couple photographys that I loved this time around but missed seeing before (which is always nice).

The best part is I think I have identified one of the roots of why my interest had been shrinking. Since I began my photography I have always been extremely ecclectic in my approach. I would shoot whatever I found to be beautiful and inspiring. But during August and September I focused solely on street photography. Although, I love this genre, too much of one thing is never good. Mainly because it quickly become monotonous and inhibits creativity.

This singular focus was completely opposite one of my pillars for creativity; variety. Another thing the review showed me was that many of my best keepers are full of wonderfully rich colours. Focusing on street photography took colour out of my world and had me seeing in only tones, shadows, and hi-lights.

Don't get me wrong, this black and white ventrue has been invaluable to me in learning how to read lighting conditions better but I think it is time to add some colour back into my life as well. With fall being here and our upcoming tril to Aruba I know I will have no troubles with re-balancing myself photographically back to my ecclectic style.

Will this unfocused style ever get me into a gallery? Maybe one day, but doubtful. That is okay though, photography is more about the personal satisfaction of the process and your own love for your works of art.

The street photography will still stay around because it is an excellent way to kill time when I am downtown for appointments, but be on the lookout. When I get some sun instead of overcast rainy days, I am going out fall colour hunting and going to try and infuse some the wonderful rainbow back into my work.

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Two Beers and a Jar of Mayonaise

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:09:00 +0000

I was sent this message in a email forward and it had such a wonderful message in it I just had to share it with all of you. I could not find a better way to get this message across than how this writer did so I won't even try. So sit, back and enjoy!

I am not sure who the original writer is so I can't give them their much deserved credit

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 Beers.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls..

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.. '

Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life..

The golf balls are the important things---your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions--- and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car..

The sand is everything else---the small stuff . 'If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.

The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Spend time with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups.. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.

Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, 'I'm glad you asked.' The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Rolling with the Punches

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 03:20:00 +0000

I was driving to Guelph on Monday for an appointment with my sleep doctor and as I was driving I began to reflect. First, I began reflecting on this blog. Although, I started it when I was first diagnosed I really didn't get serious with it until November 1st last year. Since then it has grown much bigger in a year than I had imagined possible. I am not one of the bloggers that is always checking my stats out as an ego boost, although I would be lying to say I didn't used to (at one time or another everyone gets obsessed with it :) ). With that said I am always looking to grow this blog with readership that enjoys what I have to say.

This thought pattern slowly morphed over to how the blog has evolved. It was originally just a place to update friends and family on my progress so I didn't have to write a million emails. Eventually the progress updates got farther and farther apart but everyone liked hearing from me so I started adding some of my thoughts to my posts. From there it has merged to what the blog is today, reflections and lessons that my journey with cancer has taught me about life. What I like most about it now is that it is applicable to everyone, you don't have to have cancer to get something from this blog...In fact, the goal is you use the reflections and lessons in your own lives to make positive changes instead of waiting for that catastrophic event to cause you to start making drastic changes.

I continued my reflection and started thinking about the past 6 weeks or so and was trying to come up with an idea to write about. I started thinking about what my recovery from the bone marrow transplant can teach us about life. The first thing that came to my mind is it is HARD. I wanted to dig deeper though because you don't need cancer to tell you life is hard. What has made the recovery the hardest is the unexpected challenges that come along. I wasn't prepared to have as a slow of a recovery as this has been. I half expected to be back to normal after a couple months.

But again I came back to the point we don't need cancer and a BMT recovery to hi-light that we have to deal with unexpected difficulties in our lives, that is just part of the wonderment of living. My mind was churning now though, because it wasn't just about the unexpected difficulties, the recovery process has them just like life but the duration you fight them is magnified for so much longer. And there it was, my AHA moment. My recovery is teaching me most how to deail with the unexpected difficulties or "punches" life throws our way.

What makes any difficulty hard is the the duration we have to deal with it. They can quickly lead to disapointment and then slowly morph over time into the worst thing, negativity. So how do we get through these difficult times? Well with my 4 P's of Positivity of course (if you are newer to the blog, the P's can be found here: 4 P's of Positivity :) By using these simple tools we can slowly fight off the negative energy that builds through our difficult times.

I thought I would give an example to hilight a difficult time that we just recently used the 4 P's to help get through. On Monday after my appointment I was planning to go take some photographs with my Mom, in and around Guelph. It had been crappy weather all weekend leading up to it, and Monday was the only day of the week that looked like nice weather. I have been trying to get some nice fall pictures before the leaves disappear and I thought this was the perfect day.

Well needless to say, the weather wasn't very nice. It was beautiful on my drive in to Guelph, getting me all excited for the day of shooting but as soon as I walked out of the doctor's office the clouds changed and it became super overcast, cold, and windy. My mom and I weren't deterred though because for the two years we have been trying to do photography we have been stopped by rain everytime except once. So with the rain not out we went out anyways even though we both had some disapointment. Instead of letting the disapointment turn to negative feelings I rationalized the day using the 4 P's.

First, I made peace with the fact that beautiful landscapes weren't in the cards for the day. We would just have to roll with it, because there were definitely great pictures to be had. Next, putting everything in perspective, I was actually out of the house with my camera for only the third time in weeks. So really life wasn't that bad compared to the past little bit. Passion is always easy for me when I have my camera in my hands. Using it fills me with an electricity of energy. And then finally I realized our purpose was to just get great shots regardless of type.

In the end we had a fantastic afternoon of shooting all the wonderful architecture around guelph, and just enjoying the outdoors. The best part was as I was driving home was that I realized it wasn't just the bmt recovery that was teaching me how to deal with difficulites but regular life was teaching too.

Here are some my best shots from the day. Do you have any favourites?

One of my last attempts at shooting Landscapes photos

An Old Home

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

Getting Back to Our Roots

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:46:00 +0000

A little over a week ago in my post "Remembering to Feed our Roots" I discussed how important it was to once inawhile feed our root system. This is the base of who we are and is what keeps us strong during life's toughest storms. Many of you had some amazing comments about what you do to feed your roots. With everything that has been going on I could feel my roots were getting weary, because I was getting mentally weary. I just knew that I needed to do something to get back to normal, and so over the thanksgiving weekend I focused on correcting this.

Leading into thanksgiving had been tough for me. I had been battling with stomach problems for weeks by then. The problem wasn't actually all the "lost" liquid (you guess the end) but it was more a tiny prison. Because of my situation I could never be far from a bathroom. This stopped all forms of pleasure in my life, by constricting my diet to the blandest thing you can imagine, and taking my photography away. I just couldn't go out taking pictures without a tow along porta potty :)

This isn't a post looking for empathy or to complain, just trying to give some context. I made it through, mostly smiling so everything is all good :) But back to the story.

Leading up to thanksgiving there were two drastic changes in my situation. First off, I sold my Leica camera and bought another system (more on that in my photography review of October). The second was the doctors started to get a handle on my stomach and I was making my way out of that dark valley. The tuesday before thanksgiving I was given an IV bag of fluid because I was so dangerously low and started on a cocktail of drugs to try and fix the problem. I had to go back to the hospital for Friday for a second appt. This is the first time I had two appointments in one week and had an IV bad since my first 90 days post transplant. The Friday appointment was to determine if I was getting better or whether I was going to get admitted to the hospital for thanksgiving weekend.

As you all know by now I didn't get admitted. I decided that weekend enough was enough and it was time to feed our roots. The first method I like to use is drawing on our passions. These are almost like fertilizer for our souls! They rejuvenate us and make us remember why like like living. I had a two pronged approach for Project Passion Re-Introduction.

I love to cook so for the Sunday I cooked a turkey dinner for Amy and I.

There were two reasons why this is important. First, turkey is by far and away my favourite meal ever. Especially having too much of it for all those delicious turkey sandwiches for weeks afterwards. Second, due to my treatment I haven't been allowed to eat a stuff turkey since 2009. Everything worked out though and I cooked my turkey to perfection. The weather was even so nice we had our dinner out on our back porch.

The second approach was I reintroduced photography back into my life. I hadn't done it in so long it almost felt like I had lost some passion for it. But once I did my first click, I knew it was still there! I ended up taking over 1000 pictures over the course of thanksgiving weekend.

The Monday was my real getting back to roots day. My mom and I went off to Erin (the village I was born and grew up in) to visit their annual fall fair. This was an oppurtunity to really get back to my roots and remember the times of my youth (the fair was always my favourite) and get some pictures in at the fair and in and around town. We broke the day into four parts essentially: visiting the fair, visiting the roots, photography focused, and saying goodbye.

This post is getting a little long winded so I will just share a brief description of each part and my favourite pics from that part.

Visiting the Fair

The fair is a fun activity where there is a midway and lots of farm animals. If you aren't a country kid you may not appreciate it as much but here are some of the pics we took from walking around the event.

The Welcome Area

Midway from afar

Saying Hello

There were many more pictures from the day but those were my favourites/give you a look at the fair.

Visiting the Roots
This was the second phase of the day. Since I grew up there I thought I could take you on a mini photo journey of my childhood.

My very first home, where I was born and grew up until around 4

My Childhood home. We lived here until relocating to Guelph

My Elementary School - St John Brebeuf

Our Church - St John Brebeuf

Just a quaint looking part of down town...no significance personally but just wanted to give you an idea of what the "downtown" looked like

Photography Focused

This part of the day is exactly how it sounds. I hadn't shot photography in so long and wanted to just get some good ol' fashioned shooting in. Plus my fall collection of photos was extrememly bare so I was hoping to bulk up that part of the portfolio. I didn't get as many shots as I would have liked but I did get a couple. Here are my favourite shots

Autumn on the Credit - I finally got a fall image I was proud of

I just loved the colouring of this barn

Dinosaur Trees - We were walking through the forest when I came across this. Maybe it was all the nostalgia of the being back in my childhood places but to me this looks like a dinosaurs head being held down by another ones foot. I imagine a trex standing above this poor fellow ready to eat. Do you see it too?

Saying Goodbye
A tradition I always keep when visiting Erin is to make my last stop on the way out of town and say hello and check up on my dad. I didn't have any pictures so I took a couple from this visit.

Reflections in the headstone

Words to live your life by

Well that marks the end of my getting back to my roots. I hope it wasn't too long of a post, I didn't intend for it to be. Also sorry for the delay, I was intending to write and send this out a week ago to better line up with last weeks theme. As always, would love to hear if you liked any photos and which they were :)

I have been responding in the comments on the photographic journeys with my favourite as promised so if you are curious go check it out. I will continue to reveal my favourites a couple days after each post. So once I know yours, I will tell you mine :)

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

My Photographic Journey (Part 5) - June/July 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:00:00 +0000

My Two Favourite Ladies

June 2011
Well I bet you are going to know what I am going to say for June before I even start but I switched cameras again. The big red dot was calling me and with me spending more and more time shooting street photography I figured I should give the tool a chance. So I sold off all my gear again (I actually enjoy the haggling on kijiji trying to make profits) and began looking for a leica. In the meantime while I waited for the right deal, I got a Ricoh GRD III.. This is a time point and shoot camera but I must say I had some of the most fun shooting with this camera than any other camera I had to date. It was so small, light and quiet I could take photos inches away from people without them even knowing. It had a few limitations but it is definitely one of the best street cameras I have ever shot with. I didn't get it right away and had some health issues in June so I didn't shoot too much. But I did get out and during a Bollywood inspired flash mob to take some pictures....My whole goal with this exercise was to push my comfort zone boundaries and get as close to my subjects as possible. The ricoh only has a fixed 28mm lens so you really have to get in close for great shots.

Rushing Off

Pre-occupied

The Centre of Attention

Arm Geometry

July 2011

Improving My Street Photography
I was having so much fun with the Ricoh and hadn't found the right deal on a Leica yet that this camera lasted throught July too. I continued to use it to push my street photography both compositionally and personally. I added a viewfinder to it so I could get away from the dreaded shooting from the hip model. This allowed me to really starting focusing on compositing the pictures properly in camera and not just shooting for luck. The improvement in quality of my pictures was dramatic, my hit rate went up and love of street photography increased dramatically!

An Afternoon Break

The Long Walk

Patiently Waiting

The "Purse-Cycle"

Waiting for One More

Faces of a Street Artist

A Graffitt's Kiss

A Coffee Break

The Camera isn't only a Street Machine
I also found out as I was playing with this little camera that it wasn't just a street machine either. It had a macro capability that allowed me to get really creative get some great results as well.

A bumble bee's heaven

Purple Flowers

Mac Makeup - taken for Amy

Red Flower

Reaching for the Sun

Well that concludes part 5 of my journey. I hope you are still enjoying the photographic journey. Which images were you favorite in this series? Again I will provide my favourite image from each section in the comment section once I know what yours were :)

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!

The Bone Marrow Transplant Recovery Drug Cocktail Explained

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 11:38:00 +0000

Let me start by apologizing on this post being one day late. You will just have to enjoy it over a relaxing Saturday morning coffee instead :) Truthfully I had an entirely different post planned for yesterday but as I reflected more on what I wanted to write I felt today's post needed to be said.

I have mentioned a few times over the past couple weeks how much difficulty my body has been having. I lost over 16 pounds over the course of 2 weeks, scary I know. They almost admitted me into the hospital for thanksgiving weekend to fill me up with fluids. Instead we changed up my drug cocktail which seemed to curtail the issue of losing water and now I am up 20 pounds from that point. Yes you heard it right, my weight has fluctuated over 36 pounds in the past 4 weeks. Needless to say I hadn't been feeling much like myself.

Don't worry though, I am been riding this roller coaster now for almost 10 months and I have learned to just go with it.

I often talk about my drug cocktails but never really go into detail, I thought today I could explain the mix and how it affects my BMT recovery rollercoaster.

The "Cocktail" is a mix of three different types of drugs:
1.) Immunosuppressants
2.) Protector Pills (as I like to call them)
3.) Prophalytic Pills

Immonsuppressants
These are the bread and butter pills of my recovery. Their job is to suppress the new immune system that I received from my donor so it doesn't go around destroying every cell in my body. You see not only did I get replacement stem cells to produce my blood for me, I also a whack load of the donors T-Cells. For those that don't know, T cells are the cells in our immune system that go around attacking, eating, and destroying what it thinks are foreign invaders. They do this because they have certain DNA markers that are supposed to make the organs of the body, so if a T cell sees something that doesn't have its DNA marker, it attacks. For the transplant they try their best to get us strong DNA marker matching but there are so many markers it is impossible to attain a perfect match. This is what GVHD is in a nutshell. The donor's T cells see certain parts of my body as foreign and are attempting to destroy them.

This is where the immunosuppressants come in. They reduce the effectiveness of the Tcells ability to attack me. My current cocktail of immunosuppressants is 3 different pills.
1.) Myofortic - this pill some people are only on for 90 days, but in others like me you have much more stubbern Tcells that need to keep that suppressing pressure applied to them. I take 2 of these pills twice a day
2.) Cyclosporine - this is another of the immunosuppresants. This pill is also acts as an anti-rejection drug from the transplant. The dose of this changes on a weekly basis as they have to keep the amount of cyclcosporine in my system at theurapeutic levels. But for the most part I take 2 pills twice a day. If you haven't ever seen this 100mg monsters you truly are missing out. They are some of the biggest, stinkiest pills ever!
3.) Predinose - this is the "miracle" drug that is always getting moved around in doses. It is essentially an extremely strong anti-inflammatory drug so anytime my GVHD gets out of control I have given high doses of this to calm it back down before lasting damage can be done to my body. Right now I am on approximately 2 pills a day of this.

This takes my weekly pill total to 70 pills, it is a lot I know but I still have two more categories to go.

There are some drawbacks to these wonder pills. Although they work magic on the Tcells they can reek havoc on the rest of your body. The cyclosporine burns of magnesium when you take it and the predinsone has a whole slew of negative side effects. This is why the second category exists, what I call the protector pills!

Protector Pills

These pills have one purpose and that is to try and minimize the debilitating side effects the first group can cause. Because the cyclosporine burns off magnesium I have to take magnesium supplements to keep my blood chemistry correct. Low magnesium can cause muscle cramps and arrests which if not monitored properly can cause heart failure. For this I take 2 pills a day.

The predinonse is the real bastard of the group. Sure it is extremely effective in stopping the GVHD but its list of side effects is endless. This is what I call the rollercoaster pill because you are getting moved around on doses so quickly that it it always throwing you through an emotional rollercoaster.
The main side effects it has are:
-affects the heart causing high blood pressure - I used to take two blood pressure meds for this but now only 1 pill once a day

-destroys bones like crazy. being on this pill for extended periods of time will eat away all your bones, and I have been pretty much on it for two years now. To combat this problem I take a whole slew of drugs. I take a bone harderner once a week. Calcium twice a day and Vitamin D twice a day.

-destoys the long muscle groups - This is probably the saddest side effect as the predinsone eats away your large muscle groups. It can get so bad that people can't even walk. Just come to clinic with me one day and you will see a who host of people in really bad shape. There are no drugs to combat this, just easy exercise to try and keep the muscles strong, this is where my photography helps so much.

-can induce diabetes - I had this problem last year where I became extremely diabetic. To the point I was adminstering on myself 6 different insulin doses a day. Thankfully this time around my body hasn't taken up this nasty side effect.

-retains fat and water this is a natural corticosteroid that occurs in the body naturally, just as patients we are given such high doses it shuts our adrenal glands down and our bodies don't need to produce it anymore. The adrenal gland convert chlosterol into this steroid, so when you are on these high doses little fat stores show up all over your body (very common trait is moon face, where the neck is greatly enlarged). of all the side effects, it is this one that I hate the most. It is vain I know but can't help it :)

So as you can see there is a huge range of pills that need to be taken in order to combat these nasty side effects. In all my weekly count of these pills is 50 pills

Prophalytic Pills
These pills help make up my broad range defense against foreign intruders since my immune system is comprised at the moment. My regular cocktail consists of an anti-biotic (Septra), an anti-viral (Acyclovir), and an anti-fungal (fluconzonale). These three drugs pretty much help cover all of my bases for potential infections. What are the quantities you may ask.
-septra 2 pills three times a week
-acyclovir 2 pills daily
-fluconzonale 3 pills weekly

Since my guts have been actuing up though I have had the special priveldge of aquiring two new pills to this group. They are anti-biotics that are specifically for stomach bacteria (sorry the names have slipped me at this moment). For those I take:
Drug one: 1 pill twice a day
Drug 2: 1 pill three times a day.

So if we do the math my prophylatic weekly pill count is normally 23 pills a week but with this new routine it has jumped to 58 pills a week!

So there you have it, in any given week I take injest a cocktail of 143 pills a week!! And how do I handle it all you may ask? Well I have a handy 5 layer pill dosset and a great memory!

I hope this gives you some more insight what I mean when I am talking about the drug cocktails in my posts.....Just remember the next time you are struggling to take that one multivitamin once a day.....it could be worse!

Did You Enjoy This Blog? Get all my posts delivered FREE to your email!