Bill Smith's Photography

The bottom photo became a popular print, one sold on the last day of a group show I was part of, and on another occasion was the subject of a bidding war at a charity auction. The one I have left is framed and in my front hall. The Summerhill Train Station now LCBO store is a tough building to shoot without a perspective control lens, I also knew a lot less in 2008 than I do now. I made up for it by focusing on the details. Camera: Olympus OM-1md, Zuiko lenses. Film: Fuji Pro 160S.

It was a hot Summer evening and with a small group of people we went out to learn the ins and outs of night photography, I was brought in as a co-instructor as the person leading the course was from out of town and while in Toronto on a semi regular basis needed someone to scout locations to shoot and act as a mentor. I shot on my Olympus OM-1md, the mirror lockup was easy to use and Zuiko glass, you just can't go wrong with that. I used Fuji Pro 160S, that was a nice film to use with decent latitude, I'm just wondering what I would have gotten if Cinestill 800T was on the market and I was shooting medium format. I didn't really discover TLR's until the following year. So, pure speculation. Maybe I should go back with my Mamiya C220f and some Cinestill 800t and revisit some of these sites when the lockdown ends. What you see below was from July 2008, another calm before the storm moment. I started work the following week with a community relations project that woul...

One of the bonuses of babysitting my brother's camera equipment while he and his family moves house is I get to play with some really cool toys. In this case a Leicaflex Sl, Leitz's answer to the Japanese SLR juggernaut in the 1960's, alas for them, loo little, too late. That being said Leica SLR lenses are really nice glass and it's a shame they never made them in third party mount for example Nikon F, Pentax K mount, etc. In this particular set, I went out on a damp Sunday morning with a black Leicaflex SL and got a chance to put a 21 F4 Super Angulon through it's paces along with the 35 f2 R Summicron that I used as the prime lens on the camera. The film used was Fuji Pro 160 S rated at 100 ISO.