Badlands of Caledon

Cheltenham Badlands with its fantastic land formation, brought back the kids in us. Without thinking we were climbing, crawling, running, jumping and sliding over it.

Toronto Zoo

It was a crowded Saturday in Toronto Zoo, but we enjoyed the visit. We were absolutely charmed by the baby Orangutan clinging to his mother’s orange hair. 

Butterfly Conservatory in Niagara

It felt like the most exotic tropical flowers came alive, fluttering everywhere, hanging from the trees and leaves, chasing each other around the plants and visitors or simply resting on the sidewalk, so fragile and unprotected, yet so much in charge of the place. 

The Gift of Long Forgotten Vision

When I was about ten, mother caught me squinting at the television. It was an old black and white clonker, which took about ten minutes on good days to warm up. Although its picture was never really sharp to begin with, in my squint mother's myopic eyes unmistakably recognized genetic repetition of her own vision defect. She took my hand and dragged me up the concrete stairway of a dark grey medical building into an optometrist's office, from which I emerged with the oversized square frames of my first spectacles.

The novelty of having glasses wore off under jokes and laughter of my ridiculing classmates. Most of the time I kept the specs safely stored in the school bag, far from the sight.

A year later mother spied me watching from a chair placed almost right in front of the TV box. Predictably, off I went on my second visit to optometrist. After the serious reproach for not wearing glasses, I got a new, much stronger prescription. This time there was no escaping it-I had to wear them all the time.

Later I discovered contact lenses and my vision became more or less fogged with the buildup of eye secretions and scratches on my contacts. For the next 30 years I alternated glasses with contacts and contacts with glasses, always with the same misty result until, finally, I had enough! Plucking the contact lens off my red-shot irritated eye I made a decision and, subsequently, a phone call to Lasik eye surgery centre.

For people who never had the experience of having a little silicone disk stuck to their cornea, it's impossible to explain the motivation behind the voluntary eye surgery. How to explain all the pain and tears spilled every time a speck of dust flew in the eye, when the air is too dry, too smoky, too hot, too cold?

For many months I've been haunted by advertisements for the vision correction surgery "from $499 per eye". The price seemed acceptable for the gift of long-forgotten vision I had as a child. A few days after the phone call I found myself in a stylish waiting room of a hi-tech clinic at the opposite end of spectrum from my childhood optometrist. A high definition plasma TV on the wall was big enough for even the most acute myopic cases to watch. Two waist-high jars stood in the corners filled with eyeglasses discarded by happy patients. In a course of a few hours I was led through the series of rooms where I looked at the binocular-like apparatus, had lights flashed into my eyes, got eye drops for this and that, then more flashing in different rooms, more different chinrests on different apparatuses, more "look-up-please", "look-down-please", "now-at-my-ear-please". Finally, the pile of papers gathered through all the checkups was assessed and I was "diagnosed" with about a grand per eye. Of course, it was strongly recommended that, considering my profession, I take the two-grand-per-eye optional procedure, which bears less risk for side effects. As for advertised $499 per eye-if you have a high prescription, which is the main reason why people choose to have the surgery, the price goes up. I left the clinic with the booked surgery date and two weeks to change my mind.

Two weeks later I was back at the plasma TV room. On my scale, the prospect of not fearing dust and wind, of being able to swim, to splash and to look under water if I choose outweighed fear of having my retina sliced and eyeballs burned by a laser. After monetary details were taken care of, I sat in the waiting room clutching a belt pouch with postoperative tools and medications provided by the clinic. The pouch contained several different kinds of eye drops, oversized plastic sunglasses and a couple of transparent eye-shields to be taped on my eyes overnight to prevent me from rubbing eyes in sleep. A nurse explained which drops to use, how and when, then made me repeat it twice to make sure I memorized it. To cap it all up, I got a shower-hat to prevent my hair from falling into my wide-open eye during the surgery, had the numbing eye drops applied and was ready for the procedure.

The visit to the operation room lasted five minutes, in which I chit-chatted with the surgeon and joked about getting an X-ray vision for about three minutes, then had the vision on both of my eyes surgically altered in remaining two. Before I get into all the gory details, I must post the warning:

THE FOLLOWING DESCRIPTION CONTAINS GRAPHIC DETAILS AND CAN CAUSE STOMACH SICKNESS OR OTHER FORMS OF DISGUST. PROCEED WITH CAUTION!

To start the procedure, they taped my left eye shut and the right upper eyelid was taped to my forehead. Next, metal pincers were slid around the eyeball to keep the eye open and a small round instrument, called the keratome, was pressed over the pupil, the eye tissue was sucked into its concavity, then a cut was made through the base of the keratome's ring which sliced open the layer of cornea-that's the transparent tissue at the front of the eye-and left it dangling at its base. They call it "creating a corneal flap". On the receiving end, I felt pressure when the keratome was pushed on the eye, followed by the weird vibration when the slicing occurred, then all went black and for a few seconds I was blind. The vision returned blurred to oblivion. There were a green light and a red light flashing. I was asked to look at the red light. The laser buzzed, not that I could see it, but when the eyesight fails other senses kick in, smell in particular. The laser beam shaping my eyeball into its natural form released an odor, which reminded me of the smell of meat forgotten on a barbecue while the cook took a lengthy phone call. In less than a minute the burning was over, the flap was flipped back to its place and some gelatinous substance was smudged over it. Then the eye was taped shut, all was repeated on the other eye and I was led outside where I got the first serving of the eye drops and had sunglasses installed on my nose. The first look through my "new eyes" felt like looking through water-very muddy water. Still, with a lot of blinking, I could read signs on doors, a feat which was before literally impossible without the glasses.

An hour and many eye drops later I was checked to see if the flap is healing properly and sent home. The procedure comes packaged with three mandatory checkups-a day, a week and a month following the procedure. On top of it, I purchased a one-year-maintenance plan-yes, I know it sounds like a car dealership-which should cover any additional procedures that may occur within a year. Of course, I was told that, with my prescription and age, it's a wise thing to do.

The morning after, I was back at the clinic. When the door opened, a dozen heads turned towards me and I saw my reflection multiplied in a dozen pairs of the exactly same dark glasses. It was an eerie feeling, seemed like the waiting room was crowded with giant insects. Their dark, shiny goggle-eyes followed me to my chair. Occasionally, some of the "insects" would lift their goggles and squeeze a few drops in each eye, replacing the shades quickly. One by one, yesterday's surgery patients were checked up. When it was my turn and the dark glasses came off, I sat speechless in front of the vision test sheet, digesting the wonder. The gift denied to me by Mother Nature-the gift of vision-was miraculously restored.

Toronto Gay Pride Parade 2006

It was a perfect Sunday in Toronto – nice and sunny, but not too hot, and loaded with bodies in all stages of nakedness, a little something for every taste. Yes, it was the Gay Pride Weekend, crowned with the Gay Pride Parade on Sunday and we went to watch it and enjoy. It was colorful, crazy, noisy, curvy, shaky, wet (those damned water guns were everywhere, but a cold spray of water now and then was quite welcome to keep the head cool in the sun) and on occasions explicit. My absolute favorite is the Snow White, a well endowed edition, but because of the explicit content could not upload it here. I know you’re curious, so follow the link and enjoy the Parade! We surely did!

Camping in Europe

Vienna

 The reason I am writing wide awake at 5 o'clock in the morning is a severe case of jet lag. It keeps me yawning for most of the day and staring at the ceiling in the dark of the night. At least, it gives me time to reminisce on the trip I undertook with my wife. The trip kept us awake with excitement before, and is still keeping me awake now, upon our return. But, frankly, it was worth all the sleepless nights.

 We just returned from a 3-week camping trip in Europe. Here in Canada, camping is usually associated with wilderness, campfire, mosquitoes, bears, moose, fishing, porta-potty or not-a-potty relieving style and other charms of the “return to nature”. Since I have already been camping in Austria in my youth, I knew there are washrooms and hot showers available near the tent pitch. Vienna, with its high-class charm, was my favorite town then, and we decided to make it our first destination. Three and a half hours after landing in Munich and getting a rental car, we were there.

 Vienna, however, gave us a cold shoulder. Or, rather, cold shower, testing the waterproofing of our tent for two, which endured the test leaklessly. Cold and reserved were also the looks of its people, while we stumbled under umbrella from St. Stephen's Cathedral to Hofburg Imperial Palace and around. Beside being unfriendlier than I remember, Vienna was also more crowded and housed - metaphorically speaking - much greater number of homeless and panhandlers. The latter proved to be good training for what awaited us in Italy. Otherwise, it is still an awe-inspiring town, clean and grand, where street musicians play Strauss, sounds of Mozart follows you on the stroll through historic downtown and narrow streets serve to dazzle you when they open to a majestic sight of a palace, or a church, or a square where baroque monuments are framed with pictoresque 18th century facades. Visit to Schoenbrunn was a treat for itself and took a whole cloudy day, which was barely enough. It is hard to single out what impresses more - the palace with its gracious courtyard and huge flowery backyard, the Neptune Fountain, the Gloriette, the park, the maze, the zoo... If only the Viennese could learn to smile again!


 Slovenia

 Chilled by Vienna's weather and people, we headed south, our route cutting through newly accepted EU country Slovenia. The border between Germany and Austria was so thoroughly removed that we didn't even realize we were in another country until we reached Linz, which I knew for a fact to be in Austria. Now going south, we crossed the still-existing border between Austria and Slovenia. The transition of Slovenia from a former republic of former Yugoslavia to an accepted EU country is still in process, as we were reminded by the presence of the customs officers, the border itself and by handfulls of Slovenian currency "tolar" - not to be mistaken as "dollar", though pronunciation is similar - for change every time we paid in Euros. We paid the highway toll sometimes before and sometimes after we used a portion of a highway. For all I knew, we might have been charged twice for some sections.

 Our path took us through Postojna, at the southwest part of Slovenia, which is the town built around one of the biggest European caves. The joke goes: a couple of centuries ago a Slovene entered a bar in town complaining how he lost a silver coin near by. All the patrons hurried out and started digging for the coin, resulting in 20 kilometers of so far explored paths of Postojna Cave. The true story is more banal: Luka Cec, cave's discoverer, fell through a hole in the ground during one of his morning walks in 1818, thus discovering one of the main tourist attractions of this miniature country. We took the bait, cashed out about 18 Euros each for tickets and hopped on the little train that took us few kilometers deep in the cave. There we got off to continue on foot, following our guides through maze of stalactites hanging from the cave's ceiling, and stalagmites growing from its floor, which on some occasions met to form magnificent natural pillars. Each pillar needed few thousands years to form. All along our exploration, we were confronted with signs warning against taking pictures and videos in the cave. Futile effort, considering that nowadays cameras are built in every imaginable electronic device. Also, whoever cashes out 18 Euros to enter the cave, won't leave without snapping a few souvenir photos along the way. After a 2-kilometer stroll on cemented paths gave us a feel - too small for the price - of this natural wonder, we were ushered back to the train and out of the cave.

 Before we left Postojna and Slovenia for good, we went to see another attraction, Predjama Castle. Built at the entrance of another cave, it is an impressive, though somewhat tiny castle that seems invincible, especially for the time it was built, 700 years ago. Inside, only a few rooms were decorated in the spirit of medieval times, most of others still under construction, despite the castle being open for tourists and charging hefty price to enter. Castle's back is built into the cliff, which was enough for a man with a rich imagination like mine to picture nobles climbing steep stairs and enjoying fantastic view of the valley underneath, and servants washing laundry in the stone basins built into outer wall of the castles, drainage being just a hole in the wall, taking water down the hundred-feet cliff of the mountain. Having exhausted our interest for speleology, we drove towards Italy and our first originally planned destination, Venice.


 Venice

 Having wasted the daylight in the darkness of Slovenia's caves, we were at still-existing border with Italy at night. Our passports were checked by a fashion-model-turned-customs-officer blonde in uniform, with a rich layer of makeup covering any possible emotion her face could have betrayed. Her eyes, the coldest things I saw this far south from arctic circle, must have been designed to stop any thought of flirting from numerous truck drivers waiting to cross to Italy. I could feel her icy stare at the back of my neck as I violated speed limit to escape it. Hour and a half later we were in Venice where we managed to find the camp site without the city map and with only one u-turn! "Camping Venezia" was small and crowded, part of it closed for inevitable dusty expansion works, but its small size meant our tent was a short distance from washrooms and hot showers. From the downtown across the sea channel a band was clearly audible, playing badly some of Sinatra's evergreens.

 Camping in Europe is probably the friendliest and undoubtedly cheapest way to travel. We woke up to a chorus of "good mornings" in several languages, none of them Italian, from our neighboring campers. Older ones were sipping coffees in front of their recreation vehicles, while younger ones unzipped their tents open and lounged on the grass or the camping chairs beside. Too eager to get going, we decided to hurry with the morning rituals and have a breakfast in town. After a 5-minute bus ride we were picking our way from the bus terminal towards the pedestrian-only maze of streets and channels known as Venezia. Following map, instinct and signs pointing to Piazza San Marco, we enjoyed an early stroll through streets too narrow for three people to walk side by side, over stone and wooden bridges bridging equally narrow channels cluttered with parked gondolas. Along the way, we found several bakeries where we didn't need to pay a small fortune for fresh buns, mini-pizzas or sandwiches. Though still early in the morning, old town was quickly filling with tourists. Locals, rushing to work or to do the morning chores, were distinguishable from the touristy lot by the lack of cameras. Dragging along their two-wheeled briefcases or shopping carts, they plowed through sightseeing crowds clogging the narrow passages. After my leg savagely collided with an old lady's grocery cart in one such instance, I learned to respectfully clear the way for the locals.

 Margaret, my wife, who has never been to Italy before, marked our progress towards the centre with a series of "wows" which would become more frequent when streets opened to a square, or a canal. Long "wooooow" marked our ascent on the stone "Ponte di Rialto" bridge from 16th century which, beside its own beauty, rewarded us with the view of Grand Canal bathed in the morning sun and busy with morning traffic. When we finally approached Piazza San Marco, I asked Margaret if she was ready for the view and she nodded hungrily, her eyes shiny with anticipation. Still, when the street spat us out onto one of the most beautiful squares in the world, the lack of "wow" showed how much she was taken by the sight. After a while, head turning in all directions, she mouthed "holy smokes" and reached for her camera.

 The beauty of Venice, beside its rich architecture and network of canals, also lays in the lack of motorized traffic. If your elbows are sharp enough to make way through throngs of tourists, or, as we did, you stay away from the main tourist paths, it is easy to fall in love with this unique, sinking town. This late in September even the infamous stench was barely noticeable, and that only in some less-traveled canals. We rambled around until nightfall, then made our way back, passing by street musicians performing Italian classics on everything, from acoustic guitars and saxophones to wine glasses.


 Tuscany

 Florence, as opposed to Venice, is built at the banks of Arno river, on the solid ground and easily accessible to motorized traffic. Italian obsession with their motor vehicles and apparent unwillingness to go anywhere on foot shows in swarms of scooters zigzagging angrily among pedestrians and cars alike, making us jump aside whenever a scooterist decided to avoid the traffic congestion by bypassing it on the sidewalk. More often than not, a car would split the current of tourists, driving up the stream in pedestrian-only zone.

 Streets of Florence, heavily infested with tourists and unbudging traffic, reek of urine and car fumes. Camping, however, was more than pleasant experience. Our camp site "Camping Michelangelo" was positioned on the hillslope overlooking downtown. Every morning we enjoyed cappuccino in the camp's cafe with a view of Florence bathed in raising sun.

 Down in town, providing you were not run over in pedestrian-only zone by a scooter, or a car, or a horse carriage, you'll be mostly left breathless by piazzas and buildings rich with intricate details. Streets of the downtown transfer you to medieval times when Florence was flourishing, from 11th to 17th century. Walking the cobble-stoned streets, I almost expected to bump into a noble, some descendant of Medici family, the rulers of Florence from 15th to mid-18th century, or a knight, even a minor noble would do, someone like Machiavelli. Instead, I bumped endlessly into Japanese tourists and had an elbowing contest with an un-knightly chubby American with a crying face and a baseball hat, who was whimpering about having to walk(!) from one tourist site to another. Still, the sights worth fighting for were all around: at Piazza della Signoria stands the most famous naked man, Michelangelo's David at the entrance to Palazzo Vecchio, a duplicate - the original being moved to the Galleria dell'Academia - whose exposed intimate parts were photographed by millions of cameras, greatly surpassing Pamela Anderson; to the right from the fake David are original sculptures permanently exhibited on Loggia della Signoria, a platform dating from times preceding Michelangelo's; a short walk from there is Duomo, Florence's cathedral squeezed in an unfortunately small square, unfit to hold the number of tourists crowding there to see it.

 An hour drive from Florence is Pisa, famous for its Leaning Tower and Campo dei Miracoli, the square where the tower stands, or, rather, leans. At the square, beside the tower, are Pisa’s cathedral - also unimaginatively called Duomo - and the baptistery. Older than Florence's Duomo, Pisa's cathedral seems brighter, with more intricately woven lace-like facade. The whole square, Campo dei Miracoli, is spacious and doesn't leave you gasping for air even when filled with tourists. Leaning tower is there, inclined, it seems like it’s mischievously lurking from behind the cathedral. We couldn't climb up, because the number of visitors is limited and apparently we should have reserved the tickets in advance.

 Leaving Pisa, we took a country road through the lovely hills of Tuscany. It is exactly as shown on all the postcards and calendars - vineyards and small towns glued to the hilltops, looking like they are going to slide down from their cliffs any moment, yet somehow managing to cling on. When the road brought us to Volterra, a town built in and around the 12th century fortress, we made a stop to explore. The brown brick walls of the medieval city were not completely devoid of tourists, but it was considerably easier to move around, even to find certain corners and streets only to ourselves. Of course, no matter how narrow or steep a street was, eventually there were cars and scooters revving upwards noisily. Yet, it seemed that tranquility of the surrounding landscape sipped into Volterra and reflected in its relaxed atmosphere and slow pace.


 Rome

 Just when we thought the traffic can't get any worse than in Florence, we came close to Rome and changed our mind. Driving on a two-lane highway to the city was like playing 4 video games, trying to watch the road and all rearview mirrors at once. The cars were squeezing in front and behind us, two or three at a time, doing so in such speed that I could not understand how they did it without crashing. Once we reached the camp safely, we parked the car and decided not to drive until the day we left Rome.

 All fantastic buildings, monuments and ruins, for which Rome is famous, were crawling with tourists. Since there is no low season in Rome, I guess there is no perfect time to visit. We braced ourselves and dived into the tide of tourists, swimming in it as swift as we could. Remnants of Europe’s first great empire, the Roman Forums, are just being excavated. Romans, apparently, only recently - in the last couple of centuries - realized that once they were the cradle of civilization. Alas, by that time, generations of citizens of the Eternal City were building their houses with bricks and marble which used to hold the great halls of the Forum. Powerful nobles had parts of the Forums covered with soil so they could grow luxurious gardens on it. Today, gardens gone, there are few columns standing upright amongst ruins, like a few remaining teeth in otherwise toothless mouth, a sad reminder that once there was a mouthful of teeth smiling proudly at the world.

 A day after we visited Vatican and enjoyed magnificence of St. Peter’s Basilica, where Margaret touched the worn-out shiny foot of bronze St. Peter’s statue, but wouldn’t tell me what she wished or prayed for, we queued up early for Vatican museums. Though we arrived shortly after 9am, the queue was already stretching around few blocks, almost to the entrance to St. Peter’s Square. Determined to see the inside of the Vatican and foolish enough to wait, we crawled step by painful step until, few hours later, we were at the entrance, where they told us we have only an hour until closing! There is so much to see in Vatican museums, an hour is barely enough time to make a full round if you are walking constantly. Unfortunately, all those thousands of people lining up in front and behind us were also in the museum, making it impossible to stop and admire individual exhibits. The river of people simply swiped us and carried us along the hallways. But even then, the golden halls, murals and paintings on ceilings and walls were awe-inspiring, judging by “oohs” and “aahs” all around, including ours. Sweaty hour later, safely outside in fresh air, I couldn’t help but feeling cheated for paying 12 Euros per person only to be teased with what we could have seen if there was more time and less people.


 Verona

 Drive from Rome to Verona took us over the mountain, following a narrow road from Lucca to Modena through the landscape from fairy tales. We arrived to Verona at night, and had the first look at the town next morning, immediately charmed by its seducing beauty. Although Shakespeare, in truth, never walked Verona's romance-inspiring streets, his presence could be deeply felt in town. The fruit of his fictitious imagination, Juliet, became a part of history, as real as the tourists who flock around her statue to rub her right breast for good luck, love and happiness. The statue stands in the courtyard of what never was her family's house, under the balcony which never was the balcony of her room.

 Heavy rain which started around noon made further exploring impossible. It chased us from this diminutive town of love and romance, over the magnificent Alps towards Munich, our final destination. A day after Oktoberfest, there were still sausages, sauerkraut and beer waiting for us. We enjoyed beer and conversation with a German couple who shared our table at the market, then watched the night fall over Marienplatz.

Not-so-candid Camera

By Zoran Bozicevic, National Post, June 16, 2006
(from Canada.com web archive)

On my computer screen, a picture pops up, one of a few thousand that stream into the Post's photo department daily. In the photo, reproduced on this page, a Palestinian man clutches his automatic rifle, aiming at an unseen target, while an old woman looks on.

Just another gritty war scene from the Middle East? Not quite. A few awkward details pique my interest: (1) the woman is casually leaning against a doorframe amidst what purports to be a gunfight; (2) the fighter holds the rifle unnaturally high, so as to conveniently hide his face from the camera; (3) the rifle's butt-end, designed to brace snugly in the shoulder joint, is held at an odd angle. Had he fired the weapon from that position, the gun's recoil would have bruised him, and the rifle might even have kicked him in the face.

All of this convinced me the photo was staged. As an additional bit of evidence, the text in the caption provided says the Islamic Jihad gunman "holds his weapon" after an Israeli attack. From experience, I know that phrases such as this are used as euphemisms for the obvious: The guy is posing for the camera.

Such a photo should never make it into mass-circulated press agency databases. But, as in this case, they do. And too often, naive photo editors end up publishing them.

A staged picture such as this must pass at least two filters before it reaches the newspaper. First, it should have been eliminated by the photographer under scrutiny of his own professional conscience. Failing that, the photo should have been disposed of by an editor at the agency that received the photo.

From my own experience as a war photographer, I know that sometimes it's impossible to avoid people posing for the camera. But that doesn't mean those images have to end up in a newspaper: Whenever confronted with posing combatants aiming their guns at an imaginary enemy, I would dutifully take a few pictures, thank them and dispose of those pictures at the earliest opportunity.

It is odd the way people will change their behaviour in the presence of cameras. On one occasion I remember well, I encountered a family of Bosnian Muslim refugees from the besieged town of Srebrenica. The family members were all wailing -- partly from the sorrow of losing all their belongings during their flight, and partly from the relief of having escaped Srebrenica with their lives. Tears were pouring down their faces until I pointed the camera. Like magic, they all flashed smiles in unison. The result was a bizarre photograph: While I had not deliberately staged it, the discordance between context and facial expression made the shot look artificial.

While intentionally staging a photo is forbidden by the profession's code of ethics, there is more ambiguity about situations in which the subject stages it on his own accord. But even putting ethics to one side, this phenomenon can cause problems.

A rookie photographer I know, for instance, visited the frontline trenches in the Balkans during the early 1990s. It was a quiet, slow day. Much like the photographer who took the above-cited Palestinian photo, this young rookie was eager to get a combat shot. Eventually, a soldier said to him: "Hey, get a picture of me shooting," and, without waiting, pulled the trigger. Caught by surprise, the photographer missed the initial burst of fire. Moreover, he spent the next several hours crawling in the mud on his belly, hiding from the barrage of enemy fire that came in reply. Such are the perils of bringing out the ham in trigger-happy combatants.

The pre-digital generations of war journalists, dubbed the "war romanticists," guarded their reputations zealously. They were thrill-seekers, to be sure. But they were not cavalier about ethics. Indeed, they considered themselves "documentarists," and took pride in the fact that they never doctored their pictures or staged their subjects.

With the rise of digital photography, barriers to entry fell in the profession: Anyone could call himself a photojournalist, pick up a camera, and e-mail photos to editors around the world. The cost-cutting media increasingly relies on these cheap, sometimes unscrupulous, local stringers. In some cases, they flout professional objectivity, and take sides in the conflict they cover. In other cases, they stage pictures to keep employers happy. Or worse, they manipulate digital pictures after the fact, turning a photo into a work of fiction.

Sometimes, even staff photographers get tempted. Brian Walski, a staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times was in Iraq in 2003. He sent many great pictures from that assignment. However, he will be remembered for the one picture that cost him his job. In an act he describes as "temporary professional insanity," Walski manipulated a photo by combining elements of two digital photographs on his computer. The picture was used in two newspapers from the Times' chain. A day later, a technician discovered irregularities in the digital file and alerted Walski's editor. Walski admitted the manipulation and was fired.

Other cases are more ambiguous, but also troubling. In January, 2006, for instance, The New York Times and Time magazine published an AFP photo of Pakistani tribesmen in the ruins of a house allegedly bombed by U.S. aircraft. In the picture, reproduced on this page, the tribesmen stand by an unexploded bomb which allegedly hit the house. However, military analysts proved that the bomb in the picture was of Pakistani origin, and nothing like it is used by the U.S. military. The claim makes the authenticity of the picture questionable. (AFP says that the photograph, if staged, was staged by the tribesmen, not the photographer.)

The "romantic" days of war photography are gone. The likes of Robert Capa, who in 1954 stepped on a land mine in Vietnam and died while searching for a better camera angle, are now only names in history books. The rest of us, stuck in the era of high speed Internet, short attention span and general mistrust, will have to rely on our own common sense to separate the real from the fake.

(Zoran Bozicevic is associate photo editor at the National Post.)

New York in April

After delaying and postponing this trip for many times, we finally went to New York to visit our newborn niece Jean and, of course, her parents Alex and Joti. We were there in April

Milosevic meant war

By Zoran Bozicevic, National Post, March 13, 2006

Zoran Bozicevic, an associate photo editor at the National Post, covered the war in the former Yugoslavia for The Associated Press for four years. He moved to Canada from his home in Croatia in 1997. This is his first-hand account of the Milosevic era.

- - -

When I think about Slobodan Milosevic, I think about death and destruction, about burned villages, about dead bodies on farms, fields and streets, about tears and blood. When I think about him, I think about war.

In late 1989, I travelled to Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Yugoslavia, from my hometown, Zagreb, in Croatia. At that time, socialist Yugoslavia was still holding together, nine years after the death of its creator, Tito. The Communist presidents changed in succession, each year a president from a different republic.

In Serbia, a new political star was on the rise -- Slobodan Milosevic, a wild-eyed man with funny-looking hair and fiery speeches.

In Croatia, we found his rhetoric amusing. It is hard to be passionate about politics when you grow up in a one-party system. However, this late after Tito, ties with Belgrade were loosening, Croatian Communists were growing mellow -- so mellow that they would allow democratic elections a year later, and lose -- and Milosevic was far away, or so we thought. On my visit to Belgrade, I noticed that Tito's pictures were being replaced by Milosevic's, his posters were decorating store windows and people were buying his words and promises.

Fast-forward a year later. My mother's kitchen window looks on the railroad connecting Zagreb with Belgrade. In May, 1990, a train loaded with drunken soccer hooligans from Belgrade was stopped in front of our building. While waiting to be escorted by the police to the soccer stadium, the gang chanted from the train: "Slobodan, send us lettuce, there will be meat when we slaughter the Croats."

Fast-forward another year, and the same chant was sung by Serbian soldiers marching behind black pirate flags through the rubble of what used to be the town of Vukovar. After 86 days of siege and constant bombardment, Milosevic's Yugoslav army and various paramilitary gangs captured the town. This time they were true to their words -- they slaughtered thousands of Croats.

Vukovar is in a region called Slavonija. To put it into Canadian perspective, Slavonija is very much like Saskatchewan on a far smaller scale. It is flat and agricultural; its people are nice, friendly and relaxed. An old saying describes the life in the region moving in the rhythm of a ploughing ox.

It is also the region closest to the border with Serbia. The first big wave of refugees to hit Zagreb came from there. As a young photojournalist, I was sent to document those first refugees.

There would be countless faces recorded on my negatives later, all with the same expression of pain, hopelessness and loss, with stories growing in horror as the time went by. But for some reason, those first scenes are burned into my memory. People came in a long line of cars loaded with scattered belongings they managed to rescue in the hour they were given to leave their homes and farms. There was lot of commotion in a sports arena, where they had to spend their first night on the floor.

Aid workers and reporters stumbled around as lost as the refugees themselves, not knowing what to do or what to ask and say. An elderly couple stood isolated in the corner. They were both short and stocky, with round, open faces. The man was holding his hat, twisting its rim with thick worker's fingers. The woman was looking around expressionless. They recounted their story in long, slow sentences. They told about their Serb neighbours going around the village, knocking on doors with guns in hands, ordering the Croats to pack and leave. They told about the farm and things they left behind. Then the man paused, his expression unchanged except for a single tear sliding down his round cheek. "They took our son away. He is 17."

From that moment on, my memories are a whirlwind of scenes and images of war -- bodies loaded on a horse-pulled cart, elderly villagers who did not leave on time. An old woman whose face was smashed with the butt of a rifle, still clutching kitchen cloth in hand. Soldiers fighting and dying, victorious or defeated, and more refugees with fewer belongings and less time to leave.

Of course, to wage a real war, Milosevic needed a counterpart. He found it in the man who became the first president of Croatia, Franjo Tudjman. Tudjman declared Croatian independence, Milosevic countered that all Serbs should live in one country. Tudjman raved about the Croatian army crushing the rebellion, Milosevic sent the Yugoslav army to help the rebellion.

After about a third of Croatia was lost to the rebel Serbs, the two sides were locked in the status quo and the war moved to Bosnia. The two madmen presidents met in secret to divide Bosnia. They agreed to join its mostly Croat-populated southwest to Croatia, and its northeast to Serbia. But Milosevic and Tudjman didn't include Muslims in the equation and the war went on with now three sides battling each other. Four years later, with more than 300,000 people dead and millions displaced, the war in Croatia and Bosnia ended.

In one of their meetings a photo was released of the two presidents -- Milosevic and Tudjman -- shot from the back. They were on a terrace overlooking the sea, chatting idly and enjoying the sunset, like each of their meetings hadn't been paid for by thousands of lives.

Tudjman died of cancer shortly after the war. He left a legacy of fresh graves and hatred. Unfortunately, the worse monster, Milosevic, went on to wage and lose another war, in Kosovo, and was finally removed by his own people. He died in his cell in The Hague on Saturday, awaiting resolution of the trial for his war crimes.

All the time I was covering the war in the Balkans, I wished for Milosevic's death. But all I feel now is sadness. Sadness that he slipped away so easily, when he should have suffered for all the suffering he caused. Sadness for all those anonymous victims from my war photographs, for millions of people whose lives were eternally ruined by the decisions of the monster.

Bon voyage, Grandma

Wednesday, January 4, 2006


 The morning snuck in like a thief enveloped in fog and stole something precious from my life. It took my pillar of wisdom and my lighthouse - it took my grandma.

 It is impossible to explain the special connection we shared, just as it is impossible to measure the void this morning left in my life. As she always did, granny packed for this journey quickly and exited quietly, closing the door behind. And me - I was too far away for one more hug, for a pat on hand, for kiss, for tears.

 I should be happy for her. Her greatest fear was to be stricken down, bedridden and dependant of someone else for all the little things in life she loved so much. Blessedly, the same brutal force which stroke her down, took her away in only few days. I wish I could be less selfish and stop wishing that she could stay. I wish I could stop missing her so.

 So many words I want to write, so many things I want to tell her, but no words can bring her back. Instead, I will celebrate many years of her love and understanding, and even if the celebration starts with tears, she would forgive me. I know for certain that she left knowing how much she is loved.

 The keystone is gone, but the foundation of love, of the things she taught me and the memories will stand as long as I stand.

 Bon voyage, Baka.