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Showing posts from 2011

Family Shot

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Back in October an old dear friend Anne Headon reached out to me via Facebook with a favour, she wanted some family portraits taken with her partner Glenn and son Will. I have known Anne since high school and I'm friends with her older brother David. Turns out her partner Glenn and I grew up in the same part of Montreal (Montreal West/Western NDG), it felt great meeting someone from the old neighbourhood who remembered landmarks and I wound up making a new friend from this photo shoot. From what I took that day in the fall I think this image captures the joy of this family and Will is the spitting image of his dad.

Walking Up Hazleton Avenue

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Photography in December in my part of the world is a fleeting opportunity with the late sunrises and early sunsets. I was fortunate to have a nice afternoon walking around Yorkville in Toronto last Sunday. I like the residential part of Hazleton Avenue with it's late 19th century architecture. If you have to ask how much the row houses are, you can't afford them. Camera: Series E Rolleiflex with a 75 f3.5 Zeiss Planar Lens. Film: Ilford HP5 400 processed in Xtol 1+1.

Hilton Falls On

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Took a morning walk in the woods to scout out a future Oakville Camera Club outing. The original thought this would be the winter photography outing but I think this would work better as a late May/early June photo walk instead. Camera: Series E Rolleiflex with 75 f3.5 Zeiss Planar Lens Film: Ilford Delta 100 processed in Tmax 1+4 developer.

Wandering Around Downtown with a Leica in Hand

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Camera: Leica M4-2 with either a Canon 50 f1.4 or Voightlander 35 f2.5 Color Skopar Lenses. Film: Legacy Pro 400 processed in Xtol 1+1. Location: Downtown Toronto very late afternoon on a Sunday late last month.

The Nines at the Rivoli

Taken at the International Pop Overthrow at the Rivoli, Friday November 11. An audio taste of the Nines: I met the lead singer Steve Eggers back in university years ago and have been a big fan of the band since the early 1990s. I wish the Nines play a bit more often because most pop music these days is dreck.

Cannington On.

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Cannington Ontario is roughly an hour's drive North East of Toronto and my family settled there in the 1830s after coming over from Forres Scotland. George Smith was a merchant with his son (my great grand father) William George Smith taking over in the latter half of the 19th Century. It's a real small town and I can see why a bunch of Smiths (my branch of the family) moved down to Toronto before WW I. I went back up to explore, I think I was the first one back in two generations. It's nice to visualize where your family put down roots and later leave. The Smiths were a prolific bunch and have a lot of relatives spread out over Durham region and other parts of Ontario. Some I have met and others I have not.
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There's something cool shooting with Nikon F's and this one makes number three for me. This particular camera basically sat around a dry storeroom for almost 40 years and never got used and the meter works just nicely with Wein cells.
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From Friday's hike up at Forks of the Credit Provincial Park after lunch. Camera: Rolleicord IV Film: Fomapan 100 processed in Xtol 1+1.
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I have been using Vuescan as my software interface with my Epson V500 since I got my Macbook Pro back in July and with my black and white workflow, it's amazing. With colour film, still trying to get it just right and I think I'm getting there. This past weekend the Oakville Camera Club had an outing up at Forks of the Credit Provincial Park, thankfully the rain held off until 1 PM. It was fun even though I was leading a large group of photographers and one Australian who was scared she would get lost. The fall colours I found this year to be muted, partially because 40% of the leaves were already down after a storm that went through and it was a dry Summer.
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Spring Miriam From the Friends of Bill Project, an open ended portrait series of friends and colleagues shot on a variety of gear and film. In this case: Mamiya C220f, 105 F3.5 Sekor lens (great for portraits). Film: Kodak Tmax 400, Tmax developer 1+4.
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Wow, City Days and City Nights opens this Saturday at 1 PM at Sovereign House in Oakville A little background on this project: I tapped my friend Les lengyel who was part of the In the Shadow of the GTA Greenbelt project last year and my brother Alex to do something really different in terms of subject. Everyone loves landscapes in the countryside but there is beauty in the city too. The goal of City Days and City Nights is highlight the urban landscape not to make a grand statement but to show when you start looking around you will see some interesting stuff, sometimes in the morning other times late at night. I hope to see you there, for further information and directions please visit the City Days and City Nights site.

Mono Cliffs August 2011

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You can never keep me away from Mono Cliffs Provincial Park for too long. Camera: Asahi Pentax Spotmatic F, various Super Multicoated Takumar lenses. Film: Legacy Pro (Fuji Neopan) 400, Xtol 1+1. Scanned with Vuescan interface and tweaked in Aperture.
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The July Night Photography Outing on Toronto Island with the Oakville Camera Club. Ok, we had the best of intentions when we planned this night shoot from Toronto Island back in the dark depths of winter. Who knew Taylor Swift was playing the Air Canada Centre and parking went from the usual $10 flat rate to $30. We got to Centre Island and migrated over to Olympic Island and I got this: Toronto Island security came along and kicked us off Olympic Island with the reason being it was closed for an event. All I could see was the remains of an event with a stage being torn down, what ever, we migrated over to Centre Island and I then captured the skyline in all its glory: That was the easy part, getting off Centre Island was a challenge after 10 PM. It seems there was a large Indian cultural festival and the City of Toronto in it's infinite wisdom did not schedule extra ferries to get people off the island. We spent an hour and a half in line, it got annoying when Western Ha
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Harbourfront 2011 I had a chance to do a solo photo walk of Harbourfront before the July Oakville Camera Club photo outing on Toronto Island where we shot the skyline at dusk and after nightfall. I love Harbourfront, busy in the Summer and bitter cold in the winter and there's always something going on. Camera: Nikkormat Ftn, Nikkor O 35 f2 lens. Film: Ilford Delta 400 processed in Tmax 1+4.