I had a lot of fun last year working through some of my cameras and picking a different camera and film each month and shooting them for the enjoyment of photography. Often I would tie the roll to a YouTube video, specific blog post, developer review, or a podcast episode, but sometimes it would be for the fun of photography. These were always posted to Instagram and I worked again in collaboration with the community of folks through the 12monthsonfilm account. For 2025 I’ll admit there were repeat cameras from last year, but I did make a point to include some new arrivals and those coming to me on loan. And like last year, here are some of my favourites from this past year!
January | Undercity
I started off the year with a trip into the city, but I made the point to explore a section of the city that I have rarely spent time in and never photographed before. The PATH network is not designed for tourists or visitors to the city but rather for those who work in the downtown. It’s a series of tunnels that run under many of the tall towers and used by the folks who work in those towers to easily move between them, access food and other services without having to leave the comfort of the interior spaces. You can easily get lost down there if you’re unfamiliar. But it made for an interesting photo story. Since I was working inside I went with my Minolta Dynax 600si Classic, the 50mm f/1.4 lens and a roll of Kodak TMax P3200 which I rated at ASA-1250 and developed in Diafine. I also wrote a dedicated blog post for this month, you can view it here: Undercity | Toronto’s PATH Network.
February | An Ode to the F2
For February I had the chance to use a borrowed Nikon F2 Photomic. I had one of these cameras many years ago but traded it away to another photographer because I wasn’t using it. But after visiting my friend Bill in December 2024 I got the idea to run a video review of the last mechanical professional SLRs from Nikon. So I took the camera into McCranney Valley to use the one lens that I got after I traded away my F2, the 24mm f/2.8 loaded it up with Kodak TMax 400 behind a yellow filter and developed in Kodak D-76. It was amazing to have this classic camera in my hands again. I wrote a full post about my return to using an F2, you can view it here: An Ode to the F2 | Nikon’s Last Pro Mechanical Camera.
March | TFS Downtown Wander
While my original plan was to attend the March Toronto Film Shooter’s meetup in March, but again the dates did not really pan out, so instead I went ahead and organised a bonus walk for the Toronto Film Shooters Group. We met up at Dineen Coffee in downtown Toronto and headed out on an almost five kilometer walk through the Old Town and through the TMU and UofT campus. The weather was pretty terrible, but I was ready to go with the rain. I had my F65 loaded up with the 28mm lens and a couple of rolls of Ilford HP5+ which I developed in Rollei Supergrain. The combination of everything resulted in some amazing images from the walk! You can read the full blog post: Hitting The Streets or watch the YouTube video I made of the event.
April | Ultra-Wide
I had a hard time picking out something for April. The month ended up being busy and offered only a few chances to get out and photograph something interesting. And spring in Ontario can be tricky as the weather doesn’t always cooperate. I struggled and over-thought what to use this month and where! With the weather acting funny and Easter being late I took advantage of a nice early day in the month and grabbed my Maxxum 9 the 20mm lens and roll of Ilford Pan F+. Oddly enough the day before I exposed this roll we had a full blast of snow, thunder, freezing rain and rain! I ended up using some of the images in my review of Crawley’s FX-37 and also a post praising ultra-wide angle lenses over on Substack!
May | Doors Open: Hamilton
Doors Open Hamilton has always been my little photographic gift to myself, as it always happens right around my birthday. I did not attend in 2024 because I didn’t feel it; I had to return in 2025. My usual location choice for Doors Open events is churches. Oddly, this year, there wasn’t a single church on the list, so I picked out five locations but only got to see four, as one had been dropped after I had planned everything out. Thankfully, I got to three new locations this year, including one old favourite. The three new locations were the Hamilton Craft Studios. This early 20th-century fence factory had been transformed into a large wood and textile studio space. Magnolia Hall, the former St. Mark’s Anglican church turned event space, and the King John Building, a pair of mid-19th Century commercial buildings, turned into a single building. And finally, the Cotton Factory is now a happening space with almost all the studios filled. I went with my Nikon F5 and the 14mm f/2.8D lens shooting handheld this year. I got a roll of Tri-X 400, which I under-exposed to ASA-1600 and developed in Diafine. The trouble was that the negatives ended up relatively thin. The film was not as well stored as I was initially led to believe, as the images looked like the film was heavily expired. The combination would also work better with a longer development time, or being rated one stop slower at ASA-800. On the plus side, it does give a grungy, post-industrial, very Hamilton feel. You can see all my photos both digital and film over on the blog post: Doors Open | Hamilton 2025.
Nikon F5 – AF Nikkor 14mm 1:2.8D – Kodak Tri-X 400 @ ASA-1600 – Diafine (Stock) 3:00 + 3:00 @ 20C
Nikon F5 – AF Nikkor 14mm 1:2.8D – Kodak Tri-X 400 @ ASA-1600 – Diafine (Stock) 3:00 + 3:00 @ 20C
Nikon F5 – AF Nikkor 14mm 1:2.8D – Kodak Tri-X 400 @ ASA-1600 – Diafine (Stock) 3:00 + 3:00 @ 20C
Nikon F5 – AF Nikkor 14mm 1:2.8D – Kodak Tri-X 400 @ ASA-1600 – Diafine (Stock) 3:00 + 3:00 @ 20C
Nikon F5 – AF Nikkor 14mm 1:2.8D – Kodak Tri-X 400 @ ASA-1600 – Diafine (Stock) 3:00 + 3:00 @ 20C
June | A Good Fort at Point Henry
It’s family vacation time and this year we’re making a point to do as much in our home province as possible. There’s so much to see in Ontario and so much of the province I want to share with my family. So for June we headed to Kingston, Ontario. Kingston is one of the oldest cities in Ontario with a rich history that traces back to New France. But the focus of the June roll was Fort Henry. This is a 19th Century masonry fort that was build to defend not only the Royal Navy Dock Yard but also the entrance to the Rideau Canal. The Canal, a product of the Anglo-American War of 1812 was designed to move military supplies away from American guns on the St. Lawrence River. While renewed conflict never happened, it came close on a few occasions. The Fort never fired a shot in anger. Since the 1930s it has been a living history museum. For the Fort I went with my Mamiya m645 the 45mm f/2.8 lens and Lomography Potsdam and developed in Kodak D-76. You can see more about the trip over on the blog or read the post about Fort Henry over on Substack.
July | A Decade On Air
2025 marked the 10th anniversary of the Classic Camera Revival podcast. Now I had fully planned to run an event at the five year mark but everyone knows what happened five years ago. So I wanted to wait until the next big milestone and that was ten years! The event was held in Toronto with an appropriate tour of various breweries in the city (and a couple distilleries) which took us from Lower Jarvis all the way out to Leslieville! The weather however had other plans with temperatures above forty and ended up cutting it short after only two stops beyond the starting point. But with twenty people in attendance or more, I never did a count, it still was a lot of fun! For the event I took along my Canon EOS Elan 7 and the 40mm f/2.8 lens my original plan had been to use Ilford FP4+, but with the release of Kentmere 200 I switched to the newest film stock and developed it in Ilford Perceptol. You can read all about the event over on the blog: A Decade of GAS | CCR’s 10th Anniversary Brewery Tour & Photo Walk, listen to Episode 204 of the Classic Camera Revival or watch it on YouTube!
August | Celebrations
It’s not every day that a good friend gets married. This year my friend James tied the knot but before that happened, we got to celebrate at his bachelor’s party in Toronto. For this month’s roll I took along a Pentax MZ-S with the 43mm f/1.9 lens. A beautiful combination a gracious loan from another good friend and photographer John Roberts. I shot Ilford HP5+ which I rated at ASA-1600 and developed in Fujifilm SPD. It was a pretty low key event, lots of walking through downtown Toronto, a tatoo parlor and a tiki bar. I’m really happy with these results and you can find the rest of the photos from the day over on Substack, plus they also appear in the review of Fujifilm SPD and the video review for the Pentax MZ-S.
September | Campus Details
September is always a time when I find it hard to get out a practice photography but also having the need to get out an practice photography. Mostly because it’s start of term and things are busy. But it also means that I can take some time to get away from the desk. In this case I went out early in the morning to catch Sheridan’s Trafalgar Road Campus before things got too busy. While it’s easy to focus on the big picture I decided to do something a little different and focused in on the details around the campus, keeping the aperture open and the focus in close. Adding to this challenge was my choice of camera, the Rolleiflex 2.8F loaded up with Ilford Delta 100 and developed in Adox D-76 ECO.
October | Down By the Bay
I honestly didn’t have anything planned out for October and went with the flow. I like to get these rolls shot early in the month, so a trip to Burlington, Ontario ahead of a haircut saw me wandering through the historic downtown. Now there’s always a lot to see in Burlington, mostly historic homes and other landmarks. It was a great way to kill some time and pratice with a waist-level finder for a 35mm camera. For this month I packed my Miranda Sensorex and the 35mm f/2.8 lens loaded with OG Fujifilm Acros 100. You can see more from the trip over on Substack: Down By the Bay.
November | Remember Them
In the past with these projects for the month of November I want to put a focus on Remembrance Day. In Canada, 11 November marks a day to remember all those who served and died in the line of duty in military service. The date 11 November was chosen as it marked the end of World War One, well the day the fighting stopped. In Canada this is technically our second day of remembrance the first taking place on 2 June called Decoration Day. Although since the creation of the 11 November date, the Decoration Day ceremonies have fallen out of the national eye but is still remembered in some communities and some regiments within the Canadian Army. This year I went into Toronto to attend the ceremony in the downtown at the Cenotaph outside Old City Hall. I’ve been wanting to attend something other than my local ceremony or the one at work for many years. Before the ceremony I took the chance to walk through the University of Toronto’s St. George Campus which also has several memorials to the Canadian war dead for World War I and World War II and also for the Fenian Raids. For this I went with my Nikon Nikkormat FT2 with the 24mm f/2.8 lens and a roll of Ultrafine Finesse 400 which I developed in ZoneImaging 510-Pyro. You can see all the photos from the walk and from the ceremony over on Substack: Remember Them.
December | Return to Royal
Well I made it through the year again, and ended the year with a chill solo photo walk through the old city of Guelph, Ontario. I like the historic old city of Guelph, it has a lot to offer and I like seeing how things have changed over the years I’ve been visiting. These days there are a lot more restored buildings and a bit more vibrancy to the downtown. There is of course the massive shadow of the Basilica of Our Lady up on the hill but also a wealth of commercial buildings. I also took the chance to explore some of the surrounding residential areas. And ended it by popping into the Spring Mills Distillery to see what they had going on and to chill by the fire in the bar. For this month I took along my Pentax MX with the 28mm lens loaded with a roll of Kentmere 200 which I developed in 510-Pyro. You can see the rest of the photos and the ones from the other cameras I had over on the Substack: Return to Royal.
These past two years that I’ve participated in 12MonthsOnFilm I’ve been all over the place in terms of themes. I would just think of something interesting and apply it. While that’s been good and creatively freeing I want for 2026 to be a bit more targeted. It’s been a while since I’ve done a photo book and this year I want to be able to put something together with all these images. So while I’ll still be following the rules of the project and my own personal additions to those rules I will also having an over-arching theme. I’ll be visiting twelve locations that have been important to me in the past. How the book will look, how many photos from each spot will be included will all be up to how I feel each time. So while I’ll have a singular theme, I’ll leave everything else up to how I feel at the time. But you should expect some favourite locations of mine to be included.