It’s always good to get out from the familiar especially with a photo walk group. While the Toronto Film Shooters has always been centered around Toronto, Ontario and a majority of the events take place in different parts of the city. The group has on several occasionally spread their wings and headed outside the normal area and into different parts of the province. We’ve had events in Guelph, Unionville, Elora, and even Niagara-On-The-Lake. So at the end of September I decided to host a bonus event in Dundas, Ontario. A small historical town, today a part of Hamilton, Ontario on a Sunday afternoon. While Bill is doing a bang-up job running the regular events, I love being able to host these bonus events to help shake things up. For the walk I packed along two favourites, my D750 and the 85mm lens and the Maxxum 9 with the 24-105mm and a couple of rolls of Kentmere 400 which I developed in HC-110.
The main goal I had for this walk was to show off the two main draws of Dundas, the rich architectural heritage of the town through both the residential and commercial buildings that make Dundas such a unique location. While many communities have overtime completed urban renewal projects, places like Dundas went through several years of economic downturn, which resulted in those projects not even getting off the ground. So when more communities were actively pursuing preservation projects, Dundas was already one step ahead because most of the historic buildings survived and could be protected. Starting in downtown first from the Collins Brewhouse, I took the group up through the residential sections first. Starting first along Park Street, across to the Dundas Museum, then up, and back along Melville. This allowed the group to see the stunning Central Public School, St. Augustine and Grace Valley Church along with some of the best houses in the area. Then another duck north, across and back across Victoria. Yes, it was a bit of zig-zagging, but it gave an excellent cross section. Then it was back north on Sydenham, west again on Alma, before running straight down on Albert to the downtown.
Since the first part of the walk avoided much of the downtown, Albert spat us out on King Street, which gave us a chance to see the stunning main street, including the repurposed post office, a former Carnegie Library and some of the best commercial blocks I’ve seen outside of Stratford. From there it was out to Main Street and continuing along to catch some more amazing architecture before getting to the former town hall. A beautiful piece of surviving municipal architecture that pre-dates Canadian Confederation. Then it was back along Hatt to get to the final destination, Shawn & Ed Brewery for a couple of rounds before splitting the group up. And yes, we sadly did miss the iconic former Dundas High School, but it is a fair distance away and I didn’t want to drag people out for so long especially on a Sunday afternoon.
The one trouble with these events that take place outside the city is that the groups are often smaller. Which you know is fine because it means I can at least interact with almost everyone who attended. And as much as I like having large groups, there’s a certain charm to having a smaller group in a smaller community. You can check out all my images from the walk, over on Flickr. And if you’re interested in joining in on future walks you can join the Toronto Film Shooters group on Facebook or follow myself or Bill over on Photowalk.me.