Once the ruler of the easy to take picture, Kodak is now the opposite of coolness in the new digital age.

But they are trying to do a comeback in the be groovy again.



The end of the video reminds me the “I am Canadian” Molson Canadian ads.

The assignment sheet for the Montreal Gazette freelance gig said I had an hour with Michel Audet, Quebec's recently named designate to UNESCO, for a portrait.

I arrive a bit early to scout the place, one of the many Université Laval huge campus buildings. I find two great locations that I could use as a backdrop.

I arrive at Audet’s office at the same time as the reporter, who asks him how long he will have for us. 15 minutes. Knowing that I might not be able to get him on my previously scouted location, I start to take pictures as the journalist interview him. The office is small, there is nothing I can use as a backdrop, so I just put an off camera flash and I try to created something.

After 15 minutes, he have to leave. I ask if I can have him for 5 more minutes in the hall downstairs. I know I don’t have a lot of time, so I decide to use the second best location I found. Less potential, but safer. The other one has some mixed light with weird reflection on the floor so I want to play safe.

No time to be artsy fartsy. “Get the best picture in the time allowed”, was saying Frank O'Connor, one of my teachers at Loyalist College. I just put a side flash on a light stand and I shoot a couple of frame. “Thank you for your time, sir!”

At the end, the Gazette used the one in the office. The picture ran pretty small and I guess they wanted a tighter one.

Flip book? Audio slide? Both and none at the same time. Let’s call this one a multimedia project, I guess. Yes, I was strongly inspired by the Iraqi Kurdistan project when I created it.

I did not talked a lot about myself since we came back from Windsor. That’s mainly because they are not a lot to say. I went back to my old job to repay some debt before I can start to freelance more seriously.

Well... I *AM* freelancing. It’s just that I do not really advertise myself for now. However, the Montreal Gazette call me for freelance jobs here and there. Saturday, they publish two pictures of mine for a story on Tran Trieu Quan. This one was on the front of the business section, and this one inside on page C4.

Reporters without border just released their 2006 annual worldwide press freedom.

Finland, Iceland, Ireland and Netherlands share the first place, and Canada is ranked 16.

The sad thing about the index is the United-States, ranked 53^rd, ex-aequo with Botswana, Croatia and Tonga.

17th position in the first year of the Index, in 2002. Relations between the media and the Bush administration sharply deteriorated after the president used the pretext of “national security” to regard as suspicious any journalist who questioned his “war on terrorism.” The zeal of federal courts which, unlike those in 33 US states, refuse to recognise the media’s right not to reveal its sources, even threatens journalists whose investigations have no connection at all with terrorism.

Freelance journalist and blogger Josh Wolf was imprisoned when he refused to hand over his video archives. Sudanese cameraman Sami al-Haj, who works for the pan-Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera, has been held without trial since June 2002 at the US military base at Guantanamo, and Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein has been held by US authorities in Iraq since April this year.

This 53^rd position surprised a lot of people at Sportsshooter, where most of the members are Americans.

However, two comments tend to go along with what Reporters without border think.

Joe Cavaretta

Fredrik Naumann, a photographer from Norway:

1976, a journyes through the ghettos, farmlands and lifestyles of Cuba, is another great audio slide showcased on MediaStorm. I really wonder how they created this one!