Bill Smith's Photography

It's time 2014 got shown the door, while my year was pretty good in the grand scheme of things, most of my friends and colleagues had in one form or another a tough year.  Some of them it was career setbacks or relationships going sour, others bad life events, the majority it was a loss of a loved one.  If you suffered a bad case of horrible year, regardless what happened, repeat after me, "2014, I'm kicking your sorry ass to the curb, and don't come back!" I wish you all a safe Happy 2015, it's a clean page, what are you going to put on it?

I'm back on familiar ground and happy to have a camera in my hand for a change. This past weekend I was up in skiing at the Caledon Ski Club, unlike last year when we had real winter, it's looking a lot more like a brown/green Christmas with a bit of half melted snow for accents. Exploring the back roads of Caledon On before and after skiing is going to be the activity over the next few months. Now if we can only get a nice dump of the white fluffy stuff.... Have a Merry Christmas and a safe happy New Year! Camera: Olympus OM-1n, Zuiko 50 f1.8 lens Film:  Ilford HP5 400, HC110 B.

I confess I'm a camera collector as well as a user. One of my systems is the Pentax or M-42 screw mount system, I own a Spotmatic F, a pair of SVs, a S1a and an Asahi Pentax model K from the late 1950s (not to be confused with the K1000) which is a rare beast. So my brother (and worst enabler) told me an independent Leica Repair tech out of the US mid west was selling a batch of overhauled Pentax Spotmatics for $40USD. Granted this was before the Canadian dollar started melting in currency markets so it came to about $55Cdn with postage, how can you go wrong? The Asahi Pentax SP was considered the first SLR camera to offer through the lens metering (TTL) in the mid 1960s and I would consider it the VW Beetle of cameras. Now here's the deal with the Pentax screw mount lens family, their optics were on par with Leica and Zeiss. It the day comes I add a digital body to the camera kit, it will most likely be a Sony A7 MkII with an adapter. Camera: Pentax Spotmatic SP, Super M

I do headshots for Linked In and other social media platforms. Camera: Hasselblad 500 C/M, 80 f2.8 Zeiss Planar Lens. Film: Fuji Pro 400 H.

What you see below was from my first and only time at the bottom of Cataract Falls inside Forks of the Credit Provincial Park. There's a story behind this set, seven years ago I met with some members of the Toronto Photography Meetup Group and we hiked into Forks of the Credit Provincial Park, one of my favourite haunts. We were told, it would be not a too hard a climb down, famous last words. The climb down was tricky but the climb back up with a camera backpack and tripod without climbing ropes was downright scary. Park staff have now blocked the path to the access point along the rail line and have made it clear that climbing down is not tolerated. I take those warnings seriously. I decided it was time to re-scan the negatives this time with a decent scanner (an Epson V600) into TIFF files for better editing and re-sharing. Camera: Olympus OM-1,  Zuiko lenses Film: Ilford FP4, HC110 B.

More from the November hike up at Forks of the Credit Provincial Park. Camera: Canon AE-1, FD 35 f2 lens, (Thorium element version), Film: ORWO UN 54, Xtol 1+1.

I really have not done a whole lot of hiking this year. My hiking buddy has a lot going on her life both personal and a career wise so when I have been going out, it's by myself and that's ok there are times I need my alone time to think and to just get away for a few hours. This is my last roll of ORWO UN 54 for now, I buy it in 100ft lengths and I have another can of it on order. In the mean time I'm revisiting Fomapan 200 which I used a few years back and found it an interesting black and white film to shoot with. I'll talk more about my experiences with the new film when I get a chance go out again and shoot. We're in that part of the year where daylight is disappearing fast and the weather is crappy, not quite fall anymore, not quite winter either. Camera: Canon AE-1, FD 35 f2 lens (the one with the Thorium laced glass) Film: ORWO UN 54, Xtol 1+1

Feels so long ago with the recent dusting of snow on the ground and a forecast for more. Camera: Asahi Pentax Spotmatic F, S-M-C Takumar 28 f3.5 and 50 f1.4 lenses. Film: Ilford HP5 400, HC110 B.

As mentioned in a previous post we had two models come up with us to Algonquin Park this year. I have worked with both Alicia and Xenia in the past and they are both great. The last shoot we did was in the Beach in Toronto a year ago and had a totally different feel. I still have to work on the use of reflected light in Xenia's shot. Camera: Nikon F2A, Nikkor Ais 50 f1.4 lens, 200 f4 lens on the last image. Film: Kodak Portra 400

All great trips and long weekends have to come to an end at some point, while the trip back down 35 is uneventful, I have fallen in love with the  Muskoka and the Algonquin Highlands landscape and have to get back up here more often than once a year. Camera: Nikon FE, Nikkor Ais 35 f2 lens. Film: Kodak Portra 400.

The difference a year makes. Last October it was a flat grey morning, this year bright sunshine and mid afternoon, lights the rapids differently, not to mention the fall colours are brighter. Camera: Nikon F2A, Nikkor Ais lenses. Film: Kodak Ektar 100