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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 →

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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 →

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The air certainly had a chill to it and if you didn’t know the date you might have laughed if I said it was the end of April. But it certainly didn’t feel like the end of April, it felt like the fall. I should have gone back up to the condo and gotten a sweater but I decided to soldier on. Despite the fact, the official Spring Toronto Film Shooters meetup was the next day I decided to scrap my initial plan for the day which was shooting solo in Elora and headed into the city for an informal TFS meetup in the beachRead More →

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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 →

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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 →

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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 →

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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 →

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If you remember back to my review of the new release of Kodak TMax P3200 I mentioned that I wanted to give the film stock a better chance at impressing me, the review is a chance to see how the film behaves in different developers. I’d give it a chance to show me what it can do at 1600, 3200, and 6400 but all developed in Kodak’s TMax developer. The 3200 images are from the original review, so I made a point to get another two rolls and shoot them accordingly and then develop them both in TMax Developer. Please note, I use the termRead More →

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There are many figured in our history that changed the course of Canadian History, think Sir John A. MacDonald, William Lyon MacKenzie, Robert Baldwin, Louis LaFontaine. However, all these men owe their contributions to a single person, Robert Gourlay. Gourlay’s presence in Upper Canada would ignite the spark of reform here in Upper Canada. Upper Canada in the early 19th-Century was a vast rural backwater. Urban centres were few and far between cities that we know today were little more than muddy villages in the middle of the vast forest. The undeveloped nature of the Province gave those in control, the colonial elite, access toRead More →

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The Anglo-American War of 1812 had decimated the defences of Upper Canada, by war’s end all the major fort’s constructed in the pre-war era had faced destruction throughout the war. Fort York and Fort George in York (Toronto) and Newark (Niagara-On-The-Lake) respectively had been destroyed in 1813, Fort Erie and Fort St. Joseph in 1814. The British knocked down Fort Amherstburg in their retreat in 1813. The only major fort to survive the war was Fort Henry in Kingston only because it defended the Royal Navy dockyard. And while the British had captured two major American forts during the war, Fort Niagara and Fort Mackinac.Read More →