Photography by Leonard Whistler

ChatGPT Keychain Image

I just started using the free ChatGPT plan and uploaded the image on the left and applied the 3D Keychain Figurine Design filter - the finished image is below. The filter created a cartoonish figurine keychain on a wooden surface image. I am very impressed with the final results.

ChatGPT Keychain Image

Daily Selfie

Last month, on January 15, 2026, I added a new webpage to my website - Daily Selfie. I hope to add a new selfie every day. I created a web application that makes it easy to upload a selfie with title, date, and location from my smartphone to my website in seconds. The location information is only visible as a tooltip during mouse-hover over the image.

You can visit the Daily Selfie page at: Daily Selfie.

Vancouver's Centennial (1886-1986) 100 Marker

This seven-foot-tall granite marker is located at the South end of the Granville Street Bridge at West 4th Avenue. It was installed in 1986 to commemorate Vancouver’s centennial year.

1986 was also the year Vancouver hosted Expo 86. Preparations for Expo 86 included building the first line of Vancouver's SkyTrain rapid transit system called The Expo Line.

Metal Log Ashtray

While I was in Grade 11 at Centennial Senior Secondary School in Coquitlam BC, Canada, I took Metal 11 in 1977. One of the projects was making a metal log ashtray, which, after 49 years, I still have - even though I don't smoke. The other projects included a hammer, a 4-piece fireplace poker set, and a 1-ton manual come-along winch with a steel cable.

The metal log ashtray could be described as a welded metal sculpture; the welds give the metal a tree trunk appearance. I enjoyed the 80-minute 5-month class, but I only achieved a low P (pass) grade.

Metal Log Ashtray - Metal 11 Project

My Guestbook

I created a new page on my website. It's a guestbook where visitors can leave comments. One of my hobbies is website coding, and to code the guestbook I used HTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript and a MySQL database.

Feel free to leave a comment if you like. The guestbook is at: My Guestbook.

Happy Monday from Vancouver

Happy Monday from Vancouver BC, Canada. This morning, I visited the Dunsmuir Food Court, located in the Bentall Centre at 1055 Dunsmuir Street in Downtown Vancouver. I had a ham sandwich and mushroom soup at Anita's Kitchen, then a coffee at Starbucks.

The Dunsmuir Food Court is a 5-minute walk from the Burrard SkyTrain Station.

Website Archive 1999

26 years ago, in 1999, I got interested in developing my own photography website. I bought a Netscape Navigator Gold 3.0 book, and it included a small section on creating web pages with ease. I registered lwphoto.com and uploaded my first website, coded mostly in HTML with some JavaScript. I have archived my first website at: Website Archive 1999.

Most of the photos were taken with a Canon Elan II E 35mm film camera and Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 USM lens, except for the Panoramic Collages section, which I used a Nikon Coolpix 950 digital camera. The site is difficult to navigate, and the HTML coding is very sloppy. I let my original domain lwphoto.com expire in 2003, and now I use leonardwhistler.ca.

Below is an animated GIF from 1999 I used on my original website. The background is a drawing I drew of the artist studio I lived in at the time in Vancouver BC, Canada.

Lonsdale Quay Market

Today I visited Lonsdale Quay Market in North Vancouver BC, Canada. Lonsdale Quay Market is located across Vancouver Harbour north of Downtown Vancouver. The best way to get there is a 15-minute ride on the SeaBus from Waterfront Station.

Lonsdale Quay Market is a waterfront market with over 80 stalls and shops offering fresh seafood, baked goods, coffee, international eats, artisan crafts, and souvenirs. It's also a good spot for a panoramic view of Downtown Vancouver.

The Fly (1958 film)

The Fly is a 1958 science-fiction horror film starring David Hedison as scientist André Delambre. The movie is based on the 1957 short story of the same name by George Langelaan.

The film tells the story of a scientist who built a transporter machine to transport a person from one location to another. But when he goes through his transporter machine a fly is inside the machine with him and his atoms are mixed up with the fly's atoms. He emerges from the machine with the fly's head and fly's arm, the fly emerges with a human head and human arm.

The Fly is one of my favourite movies, and I had fun recreating the ending when the fly with the human head was trapped in a spider's web.

My version of The Fly's ending scene

Original ending of The Fly (1958 film)

Hello from New Westminster

Today I visited The New Westminster Quay at New Westminster's waterfront, just a short walk from the New Westminster SkyTrain Station. I am standing in front of the 32-foot high "World's Tallest Tin Soldier".

The New Westminster Quay is a great place for a stroll along the boardwalk of the Fraser River, or sit and watch all the river's activity. There are numerous restaurants and cafes outside and inside to take a break. There is also an inside market, with numerous vendors selling their goods, and a food market.

PHP / MySQL ORDER BY clause

MySQL does not support
alphanumeric natural sorting

If you have set up a website database with MySQL or MariaDB you may have come across the problem with the MySQL ORDER BY clause not sorting some data as you would expect (example: "item 1", "item 2", "item 10" instead of "item 1", "item 10", "item 2"). MySQL sorts data using a lexicographical (character-by-character) sorting order, and since 1 is lower than 2, the number 10 will come before 2.    >>>>>>>

In the example below, the data from DBcolumn1 is sorted by using the ORDER BY clause, but due to the character-by-character sorting, the output highlighted in orange is in the wrong order. This can be solved by adding padded leading zeros to the numbers (example: "item 0001", "item 0002", "item 0010").

DBcolumn1
Drop-in X4 ND 6 Stop filter
Drop-in X4 ND 3 Stop filter
EF 24mm f1.4L II USM lens
Drop-in X4 Clear filter
EF 100mm f2 USM lens
Drop-in X4 Autumn & Night Sky filter
Drop-in X4 ND 10 Stop filter

Drop-in X4 Autumn & Night Sky filter
Drop-in X4 Clear filter
Drop-in X4 ND 10 Stop filter
Drop-in X4 ND 3 Stop filter
Drop-in X4 ND 6 Stop filter
EF 100mm f2 USM lens
EF 24mm f1.4L II USM lens

Alphanumeric natural sorting solution
using padded leading zeros (0010) with PHP

MySQL does not natively support "natural sorting" (also known as alphanumeric or human-friendly sorting), but you can use PHP to pad the numbers in a string from a database column with leading zeros and UPDATE that data to a second database column using the PHP preg_replace_callback function.

This will require two MySQL query while loops. The first loop to UPDATE DBcolumn2 with the padded leading zeros, and the second loop outputs the results.

PHP preg_replace_callback function
to UPDATE DBcolumn2

The PHP preg_replace_callback code below is implemented inside a PHP / MySQL database query while loop. During each loop, padded leading zeros are added to the numbers in the string from DBcolumn1 and updated to DBcolumn2 using the MySQL UPDATE statement.

<?php $DBcolumn1 = "Drop-in X4 ND 3 Stop filter"; $pattern = "/(\d+)/"; // Pattern to match, one or more digits. $DBcolumn2 = preg_replace_callback($pattern, function($matches) { $number = (int) $matches[0]; // Pads with leading zeros to 4 digits. return str_pad($number, 4, '0', STR_PAD_LEFT); }, $DBcolumn1); echo "$DBcolumn2"; // Drop-in X0004 ND 0003 Stop filter ?>

Final results

MySQL will then sort the data from DBcolumn2 using the ORDER BY clause and display the data from DBcolumn1. New data can be inserted or edited into DBcolumn1 as usual, and DBcolumn2 is updated automatically every time the webpage is loaded.

DBcolumn1	DBcolumn2
Drop-in X4 ND 6 Stop filter	Drop-in X0004 ND 0006 Stop filter
Drop-in X4 ND 3 Stop filter	Drop-in X0004 ND 0003 Stop filter
EF 24mm f1.4L II USM lens	EF 0024mm f0001.0004L II USM lens
Drop-in X4 Clear filter	Drop-in X0004 Clear filter
EF 100mm f2 USM lens	EF 0100mm f0002 USM lens
Drop-in X4 Autumn & Night Sky filter	Drop-in X0004 Autumn & Night Sky filter
Drop-in X4 ND 10 Stop filter	Drop-in X0004 ND 0010 Stop filter

Drop-in X4 Autumn & Night Sky filter
Drop-in X4 Clear filter
Drop-in X4 ND 3 Stop filter
Drop-in X4 ND 6 Stop filter
Drop-in X4 ND 10 Stop filter
EF 24mm f1.4L II USM lens
EF 100mm f2 USM lens

Thanks for reading. I hope you found this blog post helpful.

AstrHori 50mm F1.4 Tilt Lens

I recently bought an AstrHori 50mm F1.4 tilt lens with a Canon RF mount for my Canon EOS R camera body. It was only 180 USD from Ebay.

The tilt lens alters the plane of focus for an artistic effect. The plane of focus is moved up or down, left to right, using the focus ring. It has an aperture range of F1.4 to F16, but for the best image quality I use F4 to F8.

You can view some pictures I have taken with this lens in the AstrHori 50mm F1.4 Tilt Lens portfolio.

AstrHori 50mm F1.4 Tilt Lens