While working in 90 degree temperatures in the south this past month, the fall 2011 issue of Watershed Magazine hit stands in Ontario. Pages 38-40 have my piece on the Ganaraska Railway Modellers Club whose lives connect while building their intricate miniature world within Canada’s oldest working train station in Port Hope, Ontario.

The article can be read here. And a short multimedia is forthcoming.  

So I arrived back in YYZ about a week ago, and have since sifted through Toronto and other parts of Ontario prepping for what’s next. 

My last month or so was spent in and around Seaside, FL, a bubble where wealthy Americans of the southern states vacation and retire among their unified architectural delights, some of which were featured in Peter Weir’s The Truman Show. Then a small circus arrived, of which I was a member as a camera operator on the TV-pilot, Centerfold.

My DP, Jesse Blight and I had kept trying to find time to shoot stills, but just couldn’t make it happen outside of our minimum 16 hour days that ran straight through the main 15 day shooting schedule. 

But we were graced with the presence of World Press Award-winners Eli Reed and Peter Geller. Eli was shooting a behind-the-scenes story as a part of a Magnum series, which I’ll link to once it’s published. Both had brilliant stories and insight, some of which was captured in an interview to be posted online by Crucible Pictures. 

One of the video elements featured at NAPTE 2012. Official trailer and news for season one production start coming soon… 

Vic Ciesielski of Cambridge, Ont. prepares for the Seaforth golf tournament at Whistle Bear Golf Performance Centre on August 12, 2011. This is Ciesielski’s sixth year as a member of the Canadian Golf Tour. (Janek Lowe, Record Staff)

Christy Beckhoff was a hospital social worker helping cancer patients and their families when her beloved dog became critically ill last year. She has since become a clinical counsellor at the Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph, advising and comforting pet-owners whose animals are ill or dying. (Janek Lowe, Record Staff)

Technical Sgt. Ed Cole of the Viper East F16 Demonstration Team, guides Major Ryan Corrigan’s F16 fighter to a parked position just before the pitot probe breaks Cole’s skin at Waterloo International Airport, August 17, 2011. This precision parking is a long standing tradition between pilots and their ground crew to demonstrate trust and discipline. The pitot probe is a flight data collection antenna that must be turned off once touched down, or it will singe the ground crew. Cole, who grew up in Gary IN, was based in South Korea before joining the demonstration team in January 2011. The team is based at Shaw Airforce Base in South Carolina, and will be demonstrating combat maneuvers during the Waterloo Air Show this weekend. (Janek Lowe, Record Staff) 

My first multimedia assignment for the Record back in May or June introduced me to Ed Forwell of Forwell Super Variety on Lancaster Street in Kitchener. Fifty years in business is nothing to shrug at, especially when built pennies at a time, as Record reporter Greg Mercer wrote here.

Twin Cities Predators at practice on University of Waterloo’s Warrior Field on August 12, 2011. The inaugural season of this new Canadian Junior Football League team kicks off Saturday at 7 p.m. at Laurier stadium versus the St. Leonard Cougars. (Janek Lowe, Record Staff)

Lightning illuminates a neighbourhood at Westhaven Street and Erb Street West in Waterloo late-Wednesday. Severe weather tumbled across south-western Ontario, fresh on the heels of the F3 tornado that devastated Goderich just four-days earlier. (Janek Lowe, Record Staff)

There are so many times I wish I had more than a half-hour or hour to shoot assignments. When I was a kid I’d visit my grandparents in Prince Edward County for a few weeks each summer. Several years in a row, I remember travelling down the road to a local rodeo show where I swallowed my allergies and gawked at what only happened on television come to life. 

(Above) Aaron Riley of Cambridge, Ont. breaks out at the Western Rodeo Weekend at Calhoun Stables in Breslau. The rodeo weekend was in support of the Canadian Diabetes Association. 

(Below) Only a Canadian bull rider would secure his spurs with hockey tape and skate laces. Cody Heal of Tamworth, Ont. has been riding for three years and is currently ranked third in Ontario. 

(Below) Dylan VanKoughnet, 16, of Napanee, Ont. (left) and Cory Lewis, 11, of Holstein, Ont. stand over the bullpen at Calhoun Stables in Breslau. Vankoughant and Lewis rode 900 pound steers in the Western Rodeo Weekend Jr. Bulls event on Sunday. Vankoughant broke his hand after being thrown and “stepped on everywhere.”