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One of the most rewarding and frustrating parts of working with traditional film mediums is developing the film yourself. This often allows for faster turnaround and greater control. However, when things go sideways, you can only blame yourself. I started developing black & white film myself over ten years ago now for two reasons. First, I was inspired after attending my first Photostock event, where I saw all the fantastic work people were doing and had the opportunity to chat with my good friend Matt Marrash. Second, my local lab had reduced its processing to a single day of C-41. The owner (Joan) took meRead More →

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The folks at the Film Photography Project have once again reached into their bag of tricks and brought out the latest addition to their line of monster films, in this case Jiangshi 400. The name Jiangshi honours the jumping vampire (and ghosts) of Chinese legend. The film itself comes from China and is relatively new to the North American market. While rated at ASA-400, most signs point to the fact the film responds better when over-exposed by a stop at ASA-200 and pulled in development, so I’ll be shooting all four roll at that ASA-200 mark. Although like many films out of China the emulsionRead More →

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In: 1812:Revisited
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Through the balance of 1813, neither the Americans nor the British made any significant gains to achieve victory. The biggest issue was with the overly cautious commanders on both sides; Major-General William Henry Harrison failed to exploit the rapid retreat by the British Army after their defeat at the Battle of the Thames. He chose to establish a loose beachhead along the Detroit River. Similarly, the Americans had only briefly pushed their advantage in the Niagara region but ended up only able to maintain a small occupation force in the region bolstered by over-enthusiastic traitors. On the British side, Major-General Francis de Rottenburg had nearlyRead More →

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We wanted to stay close to home this year for our main summer vacation. The one place my wife and I had been talking about visiting is Kingston, Ontario. As a city, it is one of the older urban centres in Ontario. It is home to numerous historic sites, not to mention some stunning architecture and natural landscapes. We only spent three full days in the city, but we got to see a lot in that time. We visited Old Fort Henry, took a river cruise on the St. Lawrence through the 1000 Islands, and explored the Pumphouse Museum. We then spent some time inRead More →

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I went into the city with a grand plan; in fact, I had this entire post already written and was ready to commit. But then the day came when I was going to execute the plan, and everything didn’t seem right. By the time I got to the train station and stood in the mass of people all waiting for the next train, it all didn’t feel right. I knew what I wanted to do, but there was that looming threat of rain and even thunderstorms. I did not want to get caught in a sudden downpour and have no place to shelter. I alsoRead More →

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I enjoy working with interesting and odd films, and while we’re blessed with a tonne of modern options that are sharp and fine-grained, that wasn’t always the case. You often traded sharpness for increased grain to allow for faster films. And there are still some older stocks that represent that trade-off. I hadn’t even heard of Kodak Recording Film 2475 until a follower on Instagram messaged me about the film stock, wondering if I had ever shot the stock. I had not, and they graciously offered to send me some rolls. I expected to receive some bulk-loaded film but received factory-loaded cassettes instead. After findingRead More →

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I haven’t had an F2 in my collection now for almost three years now, but when I was in Toronto in December and walking up to meet my friend Bill I got the idea that I would like to do a video review on the Nikon F2. It was the last professional mechanical camera released by Nikon and is a rock solid performer. And of course, Bill has a tonne of F2s in his toolkit so all I could do was ask and he loaned me out this lovely black Nikon F2 Phototomic (DP-1 finder). So I took it out at the start of FeburaryRead More →

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In: 1812:Revisited
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The simple matter was that neither the Americans nor the British were ready for a renewed conflict in North America. The British were fully committed to the invasion of Europe in the Peninsular War, secured Portugal, and invaded French-occupied Spain when the war broke out in North America. While many in the United States wanted to teach the British a lesson, they were not in the best position to fight a war. Even as the declaration of war made its way through the US Congress, the plans and preparations for the war were being made. The American plan was a coordinated three-prong assault across theRead More →

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Last year, I participated in a ‘hidden project. Usually, when I do a photography project, I have regular blog posts and a Flickr album all related to it. But not this one; this was another group project called 12 Months On Film; it ran on Instagram and was moderated by the Film Shooters Collective. The purpose was to get cameras off shelves, film out of fridges and enjoy photography. The guidelines were simple, shoot a different camera each month, you could use different film stocks, developers or all the same, but the camera had to be different each month. A rather nice change from theRead More →

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Well, here we are at the end of another year, and you know in the rearview, 2024 was a good year. I felt that I was putting out posts and content at a more sustainable rate. I also felt that I was not always pressed for time each month in producing reviews. I got to check out some new film stocks, add some new favourite cameras, and explore some familiar and new places. The Best of 2024 This year, I consciously chose to reduce the number of reviews I did over the year. It was starting to get challenging to keep everything moving and outputRead More →