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Any modern historical narrative is incomplete without the inclusion of the human cost to any historical event. The Welland Canal, despite being a thing, impacted the human condition in the corridor where the canal runs. It took a great deal of human effort to build all three canals. Not only is there the cost of human lives but also impact on the communities, land, and political landscape. One thing that you have to remember, the Welland Canal came in the days before labour laws and protections for workers. In many cases, the men who did the dangerous work did so without safety equipment, medical attention,Read More →

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When you think of all the developers out there, D-76, D-23, HC-110, DK-50, Rodinal, these are all designed specifically for developing standard black & white films, but there is another developer that often flew under the radar mainly because it proved so industry-specific that the home photography wouldn’t even think of using the developer in their own processing. That developer is D-96, originally created by Kodak for use to develop black & white motion picture film. But the average photographer cannot get small quantities of D-96 but that’s where Cinestill stepped in releasing their own version of D96 along with the Film Photography Project. IRead More →

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Since the first arrival of European settlers to the American continent, the drive to develop a local economy and industry. The new continent proved a wealth of raw material through timber, fur, and minerals. Open untouched space allowed for large farms and rivers teamed with fish. The first industries in the area were all related to the extraction and processing of these raw materials. The business owners made a fortune and grew into a new world nobility. Electricity remained decades away, and these industries relied either on animal power or better, water power. Water power relied on running water to drive massive wheels which turnedRead More →

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Last month when I reviewed the classic 105mm f/2.5 Nikon lens I mentioned that I’m a big fan of the 105mm focal length. And while I could use the classic lens on my modern cameras, the smaller size looks funny on my larger autofocus cameras, namely the Nikon F4, F5, and D300. On my first trip to New York City and a visit to B&H Photo resulted in the purchase of this beauty. And immediately did a photoshoot in Central Park with a friend and her then partner. a new version of the classic lens that has more than a few tricks up its sleeve.Read More →

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While the construction of the canal inspired a great deal of urbanization of the Niagara Region, but not all towns came into being because of the canal. Even before the canal came to the region, the area attracted a great deal of colonization in the days during and following the American Revolution mainly by Loyalists. Officially today they’re called United Empire Loyalists, and they formed the core of the original European population in Upper Canada, created out of the Province of Quebec. Quebec had been under British occupation since the end of the French-Indian War, and the government was maintained to match that of NewRead More →

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Every so often a film stock will come up out of nowhere and surprise me, and today that film is FilmWashi “D”. Like all films that come out of FilmWashi, Washi D (as I’ll be calling it from now on) they take films out of their normal use and repurpose it for regular photographic duties. In the case of Washi D, it saw creation as a Russian surveillance film. The purpose of the film and what secrets it was designed to capture remains a mystery but because the film has the title ‘project: Sputnik’ on the label makes me think this film would be loadedRead More →

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By 1836 the Welland in its current form remained woefully behind the times. Compared to the canal systems along the St. Lawrence River, the military Rideau Canal, and the under-construction Trent-Severn waterway, the Welland Canal remained little more than a cheap imitation to the technology of the day. Technology had moved on, and most ships now used steam power rather than sail power larger ships, especially those with side wheels and greater drafts and displacements prevented the larger modern cargo and passenger vessels from fitting through the canal. To simplify the problem, the Welland Canal had outgrown its usefulness. But the need for a canalRead More →

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If you think you’ve seen this camera reviewed before you would be right, after a fashion. The Polaroid 600 SE is a variant or derivative of the Mamiya Universal. While not an exact copy of the Universal, the 600 SE is designed to only accept Type-100 Pack Film rather than a choice of either Roll Film or Pack Film, and because of this only uses three lenses from the entire Press lineup due to the required image circle for the larger film size. Sadly it does retain much of the awkward functionality of the entire Press lineup but I figured I should give it anotherRead More →

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The province that we know of as Ontario today looked a lot different some two hundred years in the past. There were no superhighways, factory outlets, or any major population centre every hour along the road. Trips were measured in days, not hours, and unless you were wealthy and in the merchant class, you rarely left your home settlement. The major cities numbered populations in the hundreds maybe thousands if lucky. And in Upper Canada (Ontario) the major centres were York (Toronto), Niagara (Niagara-On-The-Lake), and Kingston. The first major push to bring new immigrants into the backwater of Upper Canada was underway after the Anglo-AmericanRead More →

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If I had to choose between Microphen and Perceptol, Perceptol would win every time. And it all has to do with how the developer works. If you know me, I’m a fan of the old school, not only do I shoot and develop my own film, I like older film stocks, older developers, and that classic look. And while it’s easy for me to whip up a batch of D-23, there’s just something that Perceptol does that makes it the perfect mix between new and old. If Microphen is your fast-moving friend, Perceptol is one that takes a little more time. While I wouldn’t useRead More →