I love that Ontario has a pile of wonderful small towns to explore, and many still carry through their wealth of heritage structures, and I’m glad I’ve been able to feature several of them here this year. While many are communities that I’ve been to many times, today we’re in one that I’ve only visited once before, the town of Paris, Ontario. The first time here, I was passing through on a New Years Eve on my way to a party in St. Thomas and only stopped for a brief time. But it kept on being in the back of my head. So here weRead More →

When I first decided to review Rollei Low Contrast developer (RLC), I doubted my choice. The list of available films remained short and some I could not find to purchase for the review. And most of the films on the list were technical films, which don’t always suit my photography. But I went ahead anyway after coming up with a decent list and getting my hands on a roll of Kodak Technical Pan and seeing the results from my good friend John Meadows. RLC is a strong developer if you have a contrasty film, fine-grained, and super sharp because the developer will make sure youRead More →

If you’ve been following my photography for some time now, you’ll know I have a strange enjoyment of photographing doors. I think it traces itself back to my first trip to Montreal. Either way, with it being the start of term at Sheridan, I needed a theme that I could do casually across the full seven days of the week. Usually, I do my best to get the entire roll shot in a day, but I decided to give myself seven days shooting five frames each day. So let’s break on through (to the other side). (See what I did there). I honestly don’t knowRead More →

When I first started working with the Maxxum system, there were two lenses recommended; the first is the 35-70mm f/4 (which will get a review next year) and the 70-210mm f/4; these were both parts of the original lineup of lenses in 1985 and have stood the test of time. Affectionately known as the ‘beer can’, a name was applied to several different lenses of the same type. While it might not be a fast lens (f/4), it still produces fantastic results, and despite the solid metal construction, the lens remains a well balanced long lens for outdoor use and one that works perfectly withRead More →

When it comes to slide film, Fuji Sensia introduced me to the medium, but it was Astia that made me love slide film. Sitting neatly in the worlds of Velvia 100 and Provia 100, Astia is often an overlooked member of the Fujichrome family, with more people going towards Velvia for rich saturated colours or Provia for a more natural tonality. But Astia was a happy medium between the two; you get a stronger contrast than Provia and more natural colours than Velvia. Astia quickly became my go-to slide film for trips and events where I wanted the magic of slide film with a bitRead More →

And we’re back to Halton Conservation Areas! It’s been a bit of a silent goal this year to try and include every conservation area in the Halton park system. And now that fall is starting to set in; it is time to get back to that goal! This week we’re over at Mount Nemo, another park located on the Niagara Escarpment, but rather than in Milton, this one is located in Burlington, on the other side of the protective shoe that the Niagara Escarpment forms around Milton. Located here is a wonderful surprise; an old limestone quarry and some supporting buildings still stand in ruins.Read More →

I never considered the village of Waterdown a good spot for photography, sure I knew about the trail and the waterfall at Grindstone Creek, better known as Smokey Hollow. But a chance morning to get out and do some photography landed me in this historic village, and I immediately knew that I had to include it for this project as more than the waterfall makes for good photographs. The area where Waterdown eventually grew has been occupied by humans as far back as 7,500 BCE. Still, the first known peoples were the Chonnonton Nation, one of the many civilizations known collectively as the Neutral Nations.Read More →

I always seem to want to come back for more. One of my first experiences with a Soviet camera was a Smena 8m, this was a gift from my good friend Michael Raso, and the camera was interesting, to say the least. There wasn’t anything bad with it; it was pretty unique and produced excellent images. It was hard to work with, too much to do, too fickle, and I wasn’t getting to know the camera well enough. So I passed it onto another photographer who went on to use the camera to produce awesome results. There wasn’t anything wrong with the 8m; I thinkRead More →

My first introduction to Brantford came in the form of the film Silent Hill where the city’s depressed centre featured as the downtown of the titular Silent Hill, a fictional mining town that ended up in a supernatural cataclysm after a coal fire broke out. Brantford, in reality, has a far more complex history where the dark colonial past and rich indigenous heritage are seen like never before in Ontario. I’ll admit, this week was hard, made harder by recent dark elements of Canada that were brought to light for us on the colonial side of history. The earliest known human settlement in the GrandRead More →

Connections, its something that we have found that many of us have a great need for. With the past year and more of stay-at-home orders, reduced social contacts, especially those outsides of the virtual world, the need for human contact has grown even more. So this week, we’re back among people to celebrate a small group within Milton (and beyond) that provided a great many people, myself included, some form of social contact and allowed for the formation of a social group. That group’s name is Connect, and for Week 33, we celebrate that group and its ending. Eight years ago, a friend of mine,Read More →