Bill Smith's Photography

I did a photowalk on my last day in the Beaches with my friend and fellow Classic Camera Revival co host John Meadows   and we wound up talking what might happen if the pandemic were to get worse, well, next week, it did. but what are you going to do but keep at least 6'/two metres away. We also talked about the photography community, doesn't matter the medium film, or digital is on the front line documenting history what happened just before and now during the great shut down. During this dark time and I'll be pushing this, support your local indie businesses that have e-commerce portals, in particular camera stores when possible. I know Downtown Camera in Toronto as of writing this (it might and most likely will change) is still doing mail order colour processing. I plan to send a few rolls to them for development and order some film as well. I'm also re-sealing a new to me black Olympus OM-1n, more on that in a later blog post. Don't worry I still have plenty ...

The week before the big lock down was a weird time, kinda like the phoney war in the early weeks of  World War Two. I noticed there were slightly less people about but bars and restaraunts were doing a steady business. At least the established ones, I had dinner at Beaches Brewing Company two days before they closed down, first off Queen St. is a lot like Lakeshore Road in Oakville, dead in the winter. Two, the Covid 19 scare was just starting to sink in. On a Tuesday night it was me, the bartender, the line cook or two in back and the manager/owner, after dinner, a a party of six rolled in, that was it. The brewpub closed it's doors on the Thursday and went back to contract brewing, turns out the landlord was greedy, and probably leveraged. That space is going to be empty for a while. (Update since writing this, Beaches Brewing Company came into a new agreement with their landlord and for now are surviving for now). Camera: Minolta XD-11, MD Rokker lenses. Film: Ilford HP5 40...