William Lyon MacKenzie, not to be confused with William Lyon MacKenzie King (remember that for later), is more myth and legend that man. Cloaked in a persona often of his own making, MacKenzie was at the heart of the Upper Canada Rebellion, his push towards radical reform and public speaking skills caused many to flock to his cause. His use of twisting the facts, overblowing situations and the ability to turn men against each other and himself forced the issue in 1837. But much of what we know of MacKenzie is often more myth than fact, which has like much of Canadian history of theRead More →

One of the biggest things in film photography these days is taking old ‘dead stock’ and respooling it for regular photographic use, and the most recent addition to these boutique films is Street Candy ATM 400. As the name suggests, the film is aimed at street photographers (or those who identify as street photographers), and ATM means this is a former film used in surveillance cameras on Automated Teller Machines. And since most modern ATMs use digital technology to fill the need for security surveillance. While originally available only in Europe it’s been recently brought into North America through the Film Photography Project. It certainlyRead More →

When it comes to 160-Speed film, to mee it seems like a bit of an odd duck, 100, 125, are pretty standard, but 160 I’ve only seen colour films rated that way. But enter Silberra Pan160, a touch faster than it’s 100-Speed Cousin, but not as fast as the 200-Speed. It must be a Russian thing moving from the GOST scale. Either way, I like Pan160, probably a little more than Pan100. It’s sharp, but grainy, fantastic contrast, and responds well to contrast filters, especially a pale yellow. And while there’s still plenty of supply issues to us here in North American, and the 120Read More →

If there is a single figure in the lead up to the Upper Canada Rebellion, the opposite of William Lyon MacKenzie, a Tory among Tories, that figure is Sir John Beverly Robinson. There is no better example of a loyalist and the perfect man to head up the Family Compact and pull the strings of the Provincial Government for many years. While having no love of power, he was a man of strict ideals, and for that, he took the role seriously and refused to allow anyone to deviate from his moral compass. John’s family’s legacy traced back to the Robinsons who were among theRead More →

If there is a singular group that I had a clue about going deep into this project, that group would be the Family Compact. And how you view them relies on your view of Canadian History. To some they are the antagonist of this particular branch of Canadian history, to others, they represent Canadian loyalty to the British Crown in the rebellions. But for me, they now stand as the opposite side of the same coin during the Upper Canada Rebellion. The Compact represented the colonial elite, the new ruling class. They controlled every aspect, every part of the government, the law, and the church.Read More →

Back at the end of 2017, the film photography groups across Social Media began to talk about a photographic media producer in St. Petersburg in Russia called Silberra. While Silberra is not a new company they launched their Crowd Funding Campaign to expand their film manufacturing, introduce new film stocks, and expand their markets outside Russia and Eastern Europe. And while they encountered a pile of setbacks, but after waiting for nearly a year, we finally started to see some of the film starting to hit the market. Silberra Pan100 is the one film that I liked right off the mark, having done a first-lookRead More →

It’s fun to change things up every so often. And what better way to do it than adjust when the Spring meetup for the Toronto Film Shooters! This year our spring meetup saw several changes from the normal flow of the event. First off it happened on a Sunday; secondly, we had a company host the event, Burlington Camera and the reason behind these two things was so that it fell on World Pinhole Photography Day! And while the weather had been looking terrible even as late as Thursday, when I arrived at the Burlington Camera parking lot, the sun was shining, and while chillyRead More →

There’s a certain axiom when dealing with history, it comes from the reimaging Battlestar Galactica, all of this has happened before, all of this will happen again. The rise of the reform movement and the radicalisation of elements of the reform movement merely in response to extremism on the opposite end of the political spectrum. And yes this is where we get messy and political. While Upper Canada saw a great deal of expansion and improvement under the governorship of Sir Peregrine Maitland and Sir John Colborne, not all were happy with how the Colonial Parliament operated. These complaints were brought to light when RobertRead More →

There’s always a certain amount of excitement when a new film hits the market, and I couldn’t hold it in and wait to discuss CatLABS X Film 80 in its full review. So having not picked up a camera the whole Easter Weekend, I was, that Monday getting the shakes and needed my chemical fix. Having obtained the brick of film the week before and having ten rolls available to me, I figured why not check out a single roll. So I loaded it up into my trusty Rolleiflex 2.8F with a Green-1 filter just for kicks. As soon as the film came out ofRead More →

Ever since I started doing the scanning of my film my workflow has remained static, an Epson flatbed film scanner, the V500 first and the V700 currently. It worked, I got decent quality enough to get lab prints of my film scans up to 11×14 and be able to share around Flickr, 500px, Facebook, and Instagram. Now a dedicated film scanner is a different animal from a flatbed like the Epson. Names like Imacon, Plustek and Nikon I knew about, but they always were outside of my price tag. And as a photographer who shoots multiple formats and doesn’t have a lot of desk space,Read More →