Bill Smith's Photography

I always wish I could stay longer than four days up at Billie Bear, there's always next year. Camera: Rolleiflex 3.5 F Planar Type 3 Twin Lens Reflex Camera. Film: Ilford HP5 400, HC110 B. Kodak Portra 400

Limberlost Forest and Nature Preserve is a great hiking spot, you can do a day hike from Toronto but you're getting up really early and it's a two and half to three hour drive depending where you are in the GTA. Now if you have a cottage or staying in the Lake of Bays/Dwight part of Muskoka it's much more accessable. Limberlost is pretty much choose your own adventure with multiple trails with varying lengths and levels of difficulty. My only wish is the trail heads are more clearly marked but that's the once a year person speaking. Definitely next I'm rolling with just one SLR, one of my Rolleiflexes and maybe a Rollei 35 next year. My mind will change. Camera: Nikon FE2, Nikkor Ai 50 F2 lens. Film: Kodak Portra 400

Limberlost Nature Preserve is one of my favourite spots in Ontario for hiking. What hits when you hike one of the trails is the sound, more accurately, the lack of manmade sound. When you hike on the Bruce Trail, and I love that trail, you still hear civlization, everything from traffic, aircraft making the approach to Pearson International Airport, lawnmowers and other lawn tools. Up here nothing but nature. I'm happy Xenia joined us this year, she's been going back to Southern Russia to visit her parents the past few years and we missed her company. She became our impromptu model on the hike and put up with all the photographers. One thing I should disclose, I did a dumb thing. I opened the back of my FE2 before rewinding it, I managed to close the camera back up quickly and really only lost six photos. Yeah, happens to the best of us. Thankfully I had my FM2n and a tail end roll of Ilford HP5 in it and what I got was just as spectacular. Camera: Nikon FE2, Nikkor len...

I never tire photographing Billie Bear and Bella Lake, at first glance it looks the same but there are differences from year to year, weather, the pace of the leaves changing, and this year I found a beach a half hour walk up from the resort. I shot all this in black and white with Ilford HP5 400, if Kodak Portra 400 is the Swiss Army knife of colour film, this is the black and white equivelant. What I find interesting is Ilford Photo is hinting at a new product introduction for next year. People are speculating like crazy, everything from an IR film to a Panatomic X clone, my prediction is the re-introduction of a 400 ISO colour film. Ilford already makes a black and white C-41 film with XP2, they already have the ability to make it, they also used to make a colour film decades ago. Even though Ilford has positioned themselves the black and white photography experts, introducing a 400 ISO C-41 Colour film will give people a third choice other than Kodak and Fujifilm. We'll see...

Bella Lake is my sanctuary even if I can only get there for four days a year. This year, I walked up Billie Bear road to Antioch Conservation Area, not to be confused with a small liberal arts college in the US. It's one trail that goes to a beach, that off season during the week, you are the only person there. This part of Bella Lake is undeveloped and part of the conservation area and is best described as introvert nirvana, just you the sound of the breeze and the fresh air. I also had an opportunity to try out a new lens, my Nikkor Ais 80-200 F4 zoom telephoto, oh, this is really nice glass. I never really got a chance to use it for portraiture but to isolate and capture part of the landscape, it rocks. The big bonus is there's no lens creep like other zoom lenses of this vintage. This won't be my only Bella Lake post, there's more, lots more...... Camera: Nikon FE2, Nikkor Ai 50 f2 lens, Ais 24 f2.8 lens, Ais 80-200 F4 Zoom lens. Film: Kodak Portra 400 ...