A Hidden Gem, the Guildwood Estate

 A few weeks ago I meet up with fellow Classic Camera Revival hosts Alex Luykx, John Meadows and James Lee at the Guildwood Estates on brisk but very sunny Sunday morning on the first weekend of Spring. 

I've never been to Guildwood Estates, it's located towards the east end of Scarborough south of Kingston. There used to be hotel at one time but that got torn down with the main building remaining being an event facility that was booked solid with weddings in the before times. But that's not why we went. The Guildwood Estates is also home to archtectural details from buildings long gone in downtown Toronto. In the 1950s the city went on a tear pulling down old office buildings in the financial district and slowly replace them with new sky scrapers from the international or modernist school. Nothing wrong with modernism but a lot of old character. 

Guildwood Estates is the echo memory of these old buildings what were part of Toronto's landscape prior to 1950 and a metaphor of something else that's going on my life right now I'm not ready to talk about just  yet. Medium and long term, things will be ok, short term not so much. 

Enough of that, I'm changing the subject. Eastman Double X, a daylight 250 ISO black and white motion picture stock that you would me familiar with if you saw the opening sequence of James Bond's Casino Royale with Daniel Craig. I exposed at box speed 250 ISO and processed in ID-11 1+1, just blew my mind much the same way ORWO UN 54 did. I know I should process in D96 but D76/ID-11 works just as well. Yes I got some more and if I make it back up to Muskoka I planning on taking some with me. 


Camera: Nikkormat FT2, Nikkor SC 50 f1.4 lens. 

Film: Eastman Double X, ID-11 1+1. 



60 King St. West Guildwood Event Facility Gates to Nowhere Former Building Entrance_ 39 Imaginary Greek Ruins Guildwood Arches to Nowhere Two Guildwood Arches to Nowhere Snubnose Column Lone Column_ Fossilized Flywheels Two Three Architecture Reliefs_ Three Architecture Relief One_ Three Architecture Relief Two Three Architecture Relief Three Building Decoration

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Barnack Madness, What Was I Thinking?

Image
 My last adventures with Scewmount Barnack Leicas didn't end well, on the few occasions I tried my brother's IIIf and IIIg, I botched the loading and got 36 exposures on one frame. I was quite content to just shoot with my M3 and M4-2, even though I wanted to get a IIIg because Alex got dad's from the estate.  Logic has no place shooting with a Barnack Leica, if the cliche film photography slows you down, working with a III series body is an exercise in zen. First you have deal with bottom loading, wind the film advance before adjusting shutter speed and be careful where you point your camea as bright sunlight can incinerate a rubberized silk shutter cloth instantly.  That said, Joan at Burlington Camera had this red dial Leica IIIf from the mid 1950s with a pre war Elmar 50 F3.5 lens, on the used shelf, I saw it, handled the camera, and put it back. In a fit of camera GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) a few weeks later I came back in and bought the camera. I wonder if Joan...
Read more

Second Roll of Aerocolor IV (Flic Film Elektra 100)

Image
 I bought a bunch of Flic Film Elektra 100 after shooting a roll of Santa Color 100 late last fall down in Niagara on the Lake  with my good Canon New F-1. I packed a two rolls gifting one roll to my brother Alex before heading south on vacation for a week. This time around my second adventure of Kodak Aero Color IV at a different time of the year.  Again, I shot at "box speed" at 100 ISO only this time through my Nikon F3/T. This time I loved the results even more, not just because it went through a different camera system. I think back late last November there was more infrared light in the spectrum due the time of year thus influencing the colour cast of the Aero Color 1V. Shooting the second roll in late March gave me a lot more the look I adored. Due to the polyester base Aero Color IV is easy to scan, you can almost colour correct during the scanning process, reducing your work flow a bit at the other end in Lightroom. Again being a polyester base, you want to load...
Read more

The New Addition to the Fleet, the NIkon FM2T

Image
 I didn't need a NIkon FM2T but I got one. I already have both a chrome and black Nikon FM2N bodies but being not only an analogue photographer I'm also a Nikon collector. Ok, the FM3a's are getting a little out of hand in the used market. As you have read over the past few months I've been on a gear acquisition tear this is more a prize. James over at Casual Photophile wrote a great pieec back in 2019 on the camera , and pretty much shares what I think, yeah, you don't really need this camera but if you're a Nikon collector you want one. The FM2T was only made from 1993 to 1997 and is a rare beast in the grand scheme of things compared to the FM2n which was made from 1989 to 2001. What the FM2T is a lighter and tougher version of the FM2N. with a titanium outer housing, like a regular FM2n it feels great in my hand. This particular example was spot on with the meter and did not take one bad photo at all.  Film wise I ran with Ilford Delta 100, I'm just tryi...
Read more