Bill Smith's Photography

There are certain dates what will etch into your memory for an eternity, in this case, March 15, 2020, the day when the world I once knew disappeared within a matter of a few hours. If you have been following my photo blog, I was house and dog sitting at my brother's place in Toronto from March 9 to March 14. I was planning to go skiing the following week as sort of a victory lap for the season but take the 15th off to sleep in and run some errands. Things changed when I got an email from the Caledon Ski Club, they decided to call it a season as of 4PM the 15th, I had a gut feeling they would shut the lodges down tight shortly afterward (they did within a space of a week). I raced up to the hill to clean out the family ski locker, I didn't even stop at Goodlot for a beer run, it was up and home. I took the Pentax K1000SE I had in my posession and shot the second roll of Eastman Double X on the way up and home for the Partnership of the Passing Pentax project. I wanted to get...

I was part of a travelling camera project, in this case involving a Pentax K1000SE and the stipulation that Eastman Double X be used as the film stock. I got the camera in the mail at the tail end of February, it was already a month behind and COVID-19 was still an abstract concept. I shot the first roll in early March when I was in Toronto with an independent communicators networking event. I walked up from Union Station, of course stopping by at Downtown Camera for a film top up. Looking back at these negatives from almost two months ago I'm struck how different things are now. I haven't been downtown Toronto since my stay in the Beaches, even then you could feel something was coming, we're just not sure what at the time. I didn't keep the K1000SE long, I shot a second roll which you will see next time and I sent the camera along to the next person who was in Illinois as quickly as possible. I already have a Pentax K2, KX and a pair of KM's so I already have t...