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 MaxxumRead More →

A few weeks ago, an event that I first attended in 2012 had its final form. Back on the 20th and 21st of June, a group gathered to celebrate the life of Bill Schwab, who had passed away in 2025 while doing what he did best: leading a group of keen photographers to explore the world. Bill was the brains behind an event called Photostock. It started as a small gathering in the woods on his property in Michigan, far from the dirty industrial south, but in the far more beautiful northern parts of the state. And while I’m a fan of an event becomingRead More →

Sometimes you need an easy spot to take photos. And while for many years that spot has been my own downtown in Milton, Ontario. Another option would be Guelph, Ontario, but downtown has been getting a bit rough with folks living on the streets. Plus, the last time I was there, I found drug paraphernalia in the open. So I wanted to get out in early June and settled on another favourite, Dundas, Ontario. I first learned about Dundas during a Doors Open event, and then it fell away from my mind until the pandemic. Dundas presented something different: it was also close to homeRead More →

The main reason behind this epic road trip was to fill in a bunch of gaps in my War of 1812 project. I was on the tail end of the project and wanted to fill in a bunch of gaps before I got married in 2017. And there were two areas that I had not yet explored and wanted to because they offered up parts of the conflict that are often forgotten or not even presented here in Ontario. While the majority of the war took place here in Ontario, there were also a series of battles along the East Coast. So I plotted theRead More →

It’s always fun to revisit trips on anniversaries. Last year, I posted about the ten-year anniversary of my epic three-week trip to Europe to participate in the 200th Anniversary Reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo. And I was recently thinking about the last time I did a big trip, and after someone favourited an old image from my NOPEX trip back in 2011, I realised that this year marked the 15th anniversary of that trip. So, for a bit of context, NOPEX, or “Northern Ontario Products Exposition,” was a week-long car-camping trip through Northern Ontario with my good friend James. The groundwork had been laidRead More →

One of my long time favourite events to attend is Doors Open Hamilton. If you’ve been following my writing for a while you’ll know that the Hamilton Doors Open event was my first taste of these architectural tours. Where buildings open their doors to the public, even those places that are often closed off. Of course, the group that introduced me to the event was the Urban Exploration community. Which shouldn’t surprise you, a group dedicated to taking a look behind closed doors, suddenly had open access without too much chance of getting in trouble. That being said, there were several events where explorers tookRead More →

My first experience with downtown Oakville was in 2002, at the PYPS Fall Convention hosted by Knox Church, where I was on the committee that ran the event. I had a blast, but like any PYPS event, I didn’t stray far from the church itself. In fact, most PYPS events we didn’t stray too far from the church. There were a couple of times when we ventured further afield, but those were few, and my focus was on the PYPS event rather than the area around me. Since then, I have gotten to know the historic areas of Oakville well, having been coming and goingRead More →

Within the Canadian Mythos of our nation, there are several events, call them fixed points in the timeline, that have been arbitrarily assigned to build the Canada we live in today. These points are, of course, all post-contact with the Europeans, but that’s a discussion for another time. You can look at the arrival of the French and the founding of Quebec City and Montreal. The French and Indian War that established British rule, the American Revolution, the two attempted invasions, and the arrival of the Loyalists. The War of 1812, which saw the American invasions repeatedly tossed back. The Canadian Confederation in 1867. WouldRead More →

When it comes to places I’ve photographed in my local area, the city of Brampton isn’t one I often visit for photography. Now, to be clear, I have made several trips to Brampton for photography, but mostly around Sheridan’s Davis Campus. But the historic downtown I’ve only visited twice, the first time was for a PYPS Winter Weekend and the second time to test out a new-to-me Olympus OM-1n. So when I was putting together a plan for this year’s 12 Months on Film, I wanted to include places I’d been only once or twice, and Brampton, though it didn’t make the initial cut, endedRead More →

I love winter. Well, a specific type of winter, the winter we had this past winter. And while we’re all here now, looking forward to spring, I wanted to look back at the winter that was, because I had a lot of fun this year. So what made this winter better than, say, the past two that we had? Well, first off, we got snow early, back in November 2025, which was awesome. And sure, we did lose all of it over the rest of the month and into December. But we did get some back in December, only to lose it again. But weRead More →