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In: Between Darkness & Light
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I love a good old prison, and when it comes to prisons, Brushy Mountain is everything that you would expect from an American penitentiary built in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. It’s imposing and frightening, and it has many ghost stories attached to it. What makes this spot even better is that it has been reopened as a tourist location that embraces the fact that it was one of the worst places to be jailed. Part of the post-war reconstruction in the failed and defeated Confederate States of America included the rapid industrialisation and expansion of modern infrastructure. Part of that reconstruction includedRead More →

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I knew, I just knew that one day I would end up here with a large format camera. You could say I was influenced by the Film Photography Project and one of their hosts specifically. The Crown Graphic was one of three large-format cameras I owned and used; it was also the one that ‘fit’ my style of photography best, and the one I used the longest before I left the format. While not the largest format I used, 4×5 was the sheet film format that I used the most. If I had to lay the blame for my getting into large-format photography, I wouldRead More →

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The 1990s and 2000s were a weird time for film photography and film cameras. Digital was starting to arrive as a medium, and often the first digital cameras were adapted from film cameras. But there was also a push to chase nostalgia, and several companies put out what can only be described as premium options. Sure, you have the standard names like Canon, Nikon, Olympus, and Minolta. However, the biggest player in this push for premium is Kyocera. Kyocera had come in, purchased a couple of historic brands, Yashica and Contax, and began producing cameras and slapping these names on them. Kyocera produced cameras fromRead More →

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When I started working on this series, I knew I needed to include a TLR on the list. But the biggest question is which TLR to include, as I’ve had three in my toolkit, all of which have had some impact on my photography. But after some thought, I settled on the Rolleiflex. The reason is that it’s been the longest-serving medium-format camera in my toolkit, and one I’ve been using before it was cool in this film photography resurgence. Does that make me a hipster? Yes, it probably does. At least I don’t wear a beanie. The Rolleiflex is not my first TLR; itRead More →

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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 →

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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 →

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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 →

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Honestly, I have mixed feelings and memories about this event. It was that I wasn’t in the right mood or the fact that I was getting sick. But looking back at these photos, I can’t help but wonder why I even decided to go to VDPEX. Detroit has always been an interesting spot to explore. It was home to a great deal of abandoned buildings, and while today it has made a comeback with a tonne of restoration work, in 2014, it was just getting started. The whole place left me feeling weirded out. But always one for an adventure, I loaded up my carRead More →

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In: 1812:Revisited
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By 1814, both sides were starting to tire of the war. For the Americans, they had been facing no actual movement. The Royal Navy was causing havoc on the east coast. The British held Mackinac Island, Fort Niagara, the District of Maine, and Prarie Du Chien. The Americans only held Fort Erie, having been turned back in their Niagara invasion. They were under siege and had some control of the western edge of Upper Canada but nothing beyond the settlements of Sandwich and Amherstburg. The possibility of peace negotiations had started in 1813 but were soon shut down. However, with long lines of communication betweenRead More →

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The war had become a stalemate, and peace negotiations reached an impasse. Drummond’s siege remained in place but had been reduced to ineffective artillery fire, and most of his troops were reduced by illness due to the ongoing rain and poor conditions in the camp. Drummond’s requests for additional troops had been granted, and elements of the 4th and 82nd Regiments marched with heavy siege artillery to Niagara. On 4 September, the American defenders of Fort Erie did attempt to dislodge the British attackers. The short skirmish resulted in several deaths, including the traitor Joseph Willcocks and many of his Canadian Volunteers in the shortRead More →