Despite the group’s name, “Toronto Film Shooters Meetup,” we tend to host events beyond Toronto’s borders. There have been walks in Hamilton, Dundas, Niagara-On-The-Lake, Elora, Guelph, and Unionville. But this summer I decided to host one in my hometown of Milton, Ontario. And why? Well, it comes down to one major world event, the FIFA World Cup. Rather than make our plucky band of photographers figure out where a quiet spot in the city is to do a walk with coffee and beer, why not host something on a quiet Sunday afternoon in Milton’s historic downtown? For the event, I went with my Minolta Maxxum 7 with the 24-105mm lens (this combo is becoming a favourite for photo walks) loaded with FilmFerrania P33, I also packed along my Nikon D750 with the 85mm f/1.8D lens and the Snapic A1 with a roll of Ilford FP4+ both films are being developed in Ilfotec LC29.
The group started off about a block away from Church at Chudlegh’s Cafe, a nice cozy coffee shop, I had planned the walk around the 9am service at Southside, so I could still attend with my family and then have some fun with friends. The total walk distance I had planned was about two kilometers, Milton doesn’t have that big of a downtown, but there’s lots of interesting things to see all the same. And that’s coming from someone who has spent a lot of time exploring and photographing the downtown. We hung around the cafe for about a half hour before heading out, starting off west along Main Street, before ducking up James Street past Waldie’s Blacksmith shop, then along Victoria. This stretch has some of the nicest historic homes in the downtown and is always worth it. Since the owners, current and past, have spent a great deal of time restoring and caring for these homes.
I took the group all the way down to Bronte before continuing past the old Robertson factory building, which always makes for fun photographs. Then it was along the old rail path back to the Mill Pond and across the former GTR bridge. Through the woods we went popping out in Livingston Park and the beautiful Sproat House, another hidden gem, then it was back down to Main Street via Martin Street so that folks could get shots at the Mill Pond and the first half of historic Milton. We then settled in close to where we started at the Ivy Arms. Now, despite taking the group to Milton to escape FIFA, it wasn’t entirely possible, there was a match on. Thankfully the match didn’t start until 3 pm so we had some time before the place started to fill up. The group was small which did help.
It’s always fun to share places special to you with a larger group. While only six folks showed up, it was nice to have a small group and bring them around Milton. You can find all my photos over on Flickr. If you’re interested in joining the next photo walk you can join our Facebook group for all the updates and invitations alternatively you can follow myself or Bill over on photowalk.me.