There’s always another developer out there to try out, and every time I start to wonder when I’ll need to wind down these reviews, another one pops up. In the case of Fotospeed FD10, I saw it on an Instagram story from a fellow film photographer and started to hunt it down. There are two versions of FD10 out there, Fotospeed and Berspeed; I’m not sure which company made the developer originally or what the developer was made for. But from what I’ve seen online, this is an excellent general-purpose developer for small-scale to large-volume processing. Technical Details Manufacturer: Fotospeed Name: Film Developer FD10 PrimaryRead More →

Back in the Summer of 2013 when APUG was the place to get your online fix of the analogue photography community, I noticed a post in the Toronto local board that there weren’t enough meetups for the film photography community. Which was at the time partly true, sure there had been a couple of FPP/APUG meetups in the area in the past, I had even helped coordinate one in 2011. But there had not been anything since. So I took it upon myself to plan these events, at least four, in a year. The first one dropped in July 2013, had a decent turnout andRead More →

Earlier this year I completed the second major historical photographic project on the Confederation of Canada and the events and places that lead up to the joining of four British Provinces in British North America into the Dominion of Canada in 1867. Over the course of that project, I came across many events and locations that inspired me to try and tell the deeper story. Of course, I couldn’t tell every story so instead, I selected two that I felt I couldn’t tell the whole story due to the timeline for the project ending in 1867. One of these is the railroad through Ontario theRead More →

One of the first History courses I took in High School was Canada in the 20th Century. Most Canadian history texts that are used in schools start at this point. And there’s no surprise. As a nation, Canada came into its own in the 20th Century. Many point the crucible of World War One as the focal point. Others state the post World War Two era leading up to the 100th Anniversary of Confederation. But everything that happened in the 20th Century built on what happened before and the sins of the past were going to come back to haunt. As Canada emerged from theRead More →

In the grander scheme, the Battle of Ridgeway gets all the glory when it comes to the limited history of the Fenian Raids of 1866. And yet a second skirmish took place almost instantly after the one at Ridgeway. The sad fact is that both battles could have been avoided and maybe the whole matter could have been better remembered. But to understand where the Battle of Fort Erie came from, we must first go back to Port Colborne, where we split off last week on the 1st of June 1866. Lieutenant-Colonel John Stoughton Dennis felt left out, a blow to his fragile ego. DespiteRead More →

Sometimes it’s good to keep things fresh and new, and having great success hosting a photo meetup in Niagara-On-The-Lake last year and having gotten a connection with a fantastic photographer in the region Bryan who is about a year into his journey into film photography with the offer to host the group I took the chance. Unlike past photo walks, this time, we had three lovely models along. Nat, Millie, and Carolyn, having worked with Bryan in the past came along to give the group a chance to trial their model photography work in a low-key situation. Now I’ve done some model work in theRead More →

If anyone has read any of my classic film reviews, you’ll know I have a taste for out-of-production films, especially Kodak Plus-X and Panatomic-X. For several years I’ve participated in an event called Expired Film Day. This is an online celebration of shooting film past its due date and it usually is a single day, the 15th of March, but this year the mind behind it decided to give three days to get out and shoot. In the past, I’ve only gotten out and shot a single roll of film on that day, but now that I had three days to play I could getRead More →

The last few times I’ve mentioned Mackinac Island it has been in regards to the island’s roll in the Anglo-American War of 1812, from its initial capture at the opening of the conflict, the fort’s rich history dating back to the American Revolution, and the failed attempt at its recapture by American forces in the summer of 1814. My second trip was less about the history and more about capturing the island’s beauty and showing off one of my favourite locations to my beautiful wife. Our journey started of course on the mainland, grabbing the 9-o’clock ferry across to the island which happened to beRead More →