Project:52 – Week 52

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Alex

The Numbers match.

I can’t believe it, fifty-two weeks of analog, an entire year, 365 images posted to the blog for the project…I feel…sucessful, I actually did it. Yet, oddly sad the project is done.

In it’s own way, it was…fun, not a burden.

So to end it off I ventured out into the cold night and wandered through downtown Milton, had to give my hometown the final spot in the project. Milton’s downtown features all those wonderful late 19th century early 20th century buildings and thankfully many still standing however there are a lot still missing. Being Christmas Eve I took in some decorations of the historical homes in and around the core of ‘Old Milton’ and yes, I used Kodak Portra 400 for the final week.

Rolleiflex 2.8F – Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm 1:2.8 – Kodak Portra 400, Shot at ISO-1600, no push in Development.

Project:52 – Week 48

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Alex

For the past ten years Milton churches have been putting on a living christmas pagent I have been several times, and even volunteered to be a person in the pagent. So for the tenth year I decided to take my Bible Study group along and a film camera for Week 48! So let’s take the journey to tell the story of the birth of Jesus.

Nikon F4 – AF Nikkor 35mm 1:2D – Kodak Portra 400

Project:52 – Week 47

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Alex

I love backroads and sunday afternoon drives and taking the senic route. Sure it may take you a little bit longer to get there, but sometimes the journey is more important than the destination. So coming home from a party I decided to load up the newest member of my camera family with some film and took the long, stupid, and conviluted route home, just to see what I could see.

Bronica SQ-Am – Zenzanon-PS 150mm 1:4 – Kodak Tri-X 400 (400TX)

Milton Help-Portrait – Event 2

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Alex

This was my second year at the Darling House for Kids in Milton for Help-Portrait. This home in the rural areas of Milton is designed for families with children who have medical conditions as a space for them to be a family. This year I wanted to try something different (in addition to doing the portraits), I wanted to give them something but without using a computer and printer. Something unique, one of a kind, something that they may not have even seen before, or if they had, hadn’t seen in years.

Yep, that’s a Polaroid, an Automatic Land camera from the late 1960s. I loaded it up with some new Fuji FP-100c film and went to town. It was a gimmic, something that would draw their attention and give them that print. Working outside made using it much easier to work with the people and the camera. I would pose the family, shoot the polaroid and give the pack to some of the members to keep warm while we did the digital images, and then I’d ask for it back and peel off the freshly cooked print. Their smiles kept me warm working outside in the slightly chilly air.

Brent (above) put together an awesome video of the event which you can find on Facebook.

Help-Portrait – 2011

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Alex

We don’t want to take your photo
We want to give it to you.

I was really looking forward to participating in Help-Portrait again, and to make things for 2011 more awesome we were running two events in Milton for the year. There were actually two last year but the groups remained seperate, so to increase the number of volunteers the two groups combined to make one awesome group. The first event was lead by George (who ran last year’s second group), at Milton Bible Church, and what a day it was, we were pretty much go-go-go from seven thirty in the morning until five that night. I don’t think my laptop or camera ever saw so much constant action.

How many volunteers does it take to run a computer?

With an awesome team of photographers, computer operators, makeup/hair, and volunteers from the host church the event rocked, it was, as I’m so fond of saying, Brilliant.

Hair, Makeup, and other Volunteers

The Refreshment team

I also didn’t realize that I could take a wicked family portrait, and being able to hand over a print, framed, and a disc of the rest of the photos right to the person the very same day, really was what it was all about. I could say I took away some boosting of my talents as a photographer, but really I took away more a sense that I just helped out a bunch of people. The woman who lost everything in a fire, the young couple, the newly single mom, the soon to be mom. And many others.

Oh Hai, it’s me!

That’s really what it’s all about. Not about portfolios, getting my name out there, or anything else for me. It’s about them.

George and his Wife Tammy – Event heads

Tom and Savanah – Events Heads – Darling House

Next up, Event Number 2 which hits the Darling House for Kids on Saturday! And thanks to my wonderful friend Wu, who gave us use of her Instax Mini 7s, and a bunch of film which all these were taken on.

If you want to get involved, start here: Help-Portrait | Dec 10th, 2011

Project:52 – Week 34

Posted on September 4, 2011 by Alex

Hitting the streets of my hometown of Milton for Week 34, specifically the farmer’s market which runs from May to October, I figured it would be a great place to try out some street photography. The market provided me with a lot of subjects to photograph, making it a very successful Saturday morning for me.

A smile is a great way to start the day

I’ll take one of those…

Contemplation

Discussions

Oh Hai there

Oh those were the days.

The Man

Nikon F4 – AF DC-Nikkor 105mm 1:2D – Ilford FP4+

Project:52 – Week 31

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Alex

Going a little crazy for week 31….

In a recent trip to Toronto’s Lomography store I came across their Fisheye camera, a cheap plastic fisheye lens camera, and compared to other cameras they have so I picked it up, having caught the toy camera bug from my Holga (c/o the FPP). The results were well interesting to say the least, I was literally just shooting from the hip, not bothering with any rules or that nonsense, just going out and photographing for the sake of photographing.

Lomography Fisheye (Version 1) – Fuji Superia X-Tra 400

Project:52 – Week 26

Posted on July 11, 2011 by Alex

The half way point already, can you believe it! And the project is still going strong! Week 26 is dedicated to two awesome friends of mine, Jay and Kat, who have opened my eyes to the wonder that is rail and transit systems. Something I’ve always been interested in, but they’re both just over the top, but in a good way. So I present to you the Halton County Radial Railroad museum, celebrating light and electric rail systems from the region. Located just on the outskirts of Milton they have a massive collection of both working and under restoration rolling stock from across the country, many of which you can ride on using the track system the property has on it.