There is always a plus of having inside information; you must be careful when exploring former government sites, especially those used by both the military and the police as training locations. So when I got word that a former Cold War radar station was open for exploration, I jumped to head up to the Barrie area to check it out. Sadly, the base had been an adult occupational centre longer than a military base. While there were still plenty of military buildings around, there were only a few clues to the base’s history. Almost as soon as the Second World War ended, a new ColdRead More →

It’s been a long time since I thought about the Darnley Grist Mill. It wasn’t until I saw a memory pop up on Facebook that I was heading out to kick off the start of my War of 1812 project, which included a stop at the Darnley Grist Mill. I ‘discovered’ the location in a book with a list of different sites related to the Anglo-American War of 1812. Oddly enough those shots never went into the project despite the connection of the mill to the war. But despite touching on the subject of mills and local supply lines, I never used those images. HavingRead More →

Established in 2013 by MainStreetHost and taken on by Alex Luyckx Photography in 2015, #photochat is a community of photography professionals and enthusiasts who congregate to talk shop and discuss anything and everything photography. After a brief pause through 2023 Photochat is back with a monthly chat model. To participate in our monthly chat (every Second Thursday at 1:00 pm), search the #photochat hashtag on Twitter to see the conversation, or find me at @AlexLuyckxPhoto on Twitter. Include the hashtag in your tweets to answer the questions and talk with the other participants. If there’s a topic you’d like to see covered in #photochat, hopRead More →

Even though this year’s winter has not exactly been the best so far, with the lack of snow and almost a continuation of the weather we expect through November, the CCR gang isn’t letting that stop them from getting out and enjoying the weather put also preparing for when we finally do get some wonderful winter days with sun and snow. From film to cameras, clothing to best practices, James, Alex and Bill break it all down for when it’s cold outside. Looking for a good spot to get your gear and material fix check out Burlington Camera (Burlington, ON), Downtown Camera (Toronto, ON), FilmRead More →

One of the more interesting parts of B&W film photography is the ablity to adjust how the film behaves. There are many different ways of adjusting how the film looks, you can over or under expose the film, or push/pull the film in development. You also have various different developers to adjust how the film looks and different dilutions. But there is also the ideas of adding coloured filters to your lens to change what light and how much light hits your film. Now it might seem weird to put coloured glass over black & white film, but it can adjust and change how differentRead More →

Last year, there was an explosion of new film releases from a rebirthed ORWO; while some are variants of their popular black & white motion picture stocks, they also showed off two new colour films. There is still a lot of controversy around ORWO, especially in their future and future film manufacturing capacities. This month, I’m covering one of the two colour film stocks ORWO released last year, NC500. According to the ORWO website, NC500 is based on a classic Agfa colour motion picture film stock. The same film stock used to film the 1985 film, Out of Africa. But this is a new filmRead More →

If you’re going to start the year off with a bang, you should go all in! Despite this year starting almost the same way as last year, I decided not to let that stop me. Visiting Niagara-On-The-Lake was initially planned for December 2023. Rain stopped that, so we moved it to January to start the new year. Niagara-On-The-Lake is much larger today, but I spend most of my time in the historic old town where we’re visiting today! The charming historic old town of Niagara-On-The-Lake owes its current existence to two key points in local history: the American occupation and destruction of 1813 and aRead More →

As part of revisiting some of our classic episode topics, this episode traces itself back to Season 2, Episode 13. The idea is that it is more important to invest in a lens system for your interchangeable lens systems; camera bodies are often cross-compatible once you’re in the mount. Camera bodies come, and camera bodies go, but lenses are forever. In today’s episode, each host will discuss a lens system they invested heavily in for their 35mm and 120 systems. While many of us have multiple systems, it would be an incredibly long episode if we all discussed every system. Today, we’re talking about twoRead More →

January is either a busy for quiet month around the Internet. With the cold weather and post-holiday slump all being a part of this trend. But for those who are writing and creating content, January can also be a good time to get back behind the keyboard and work on partly completed work. Here are the blog posts and YouTube videos that caught my eye in January. My Journey Into Photography – Ferrania P30 Review Jim is one of my favourite ‘new’ photographers who is loving exploring as much as he can around film and film cameras. And he finally did his own review onRead More →

When it comes to photography, last year I found that I was out shooting film for the purpose of a review or a YouTube video or something else. So with Christmas in the rearview and a rather tough week back to work it was time to get out and have a family adventure just for the sake of getting out of town for several hours and going for a drive. There are lots of amazing towns through Southern Ontario, many are touristy, but there are some true hidden gems. One of those gems is St. Mary’s, Ontario. I first learned about St. Mary’s through myRead More →