Bill Smith's Photography

The Toronto Film Shooters Facebook Group held their fall meet up at the Toronto Islands back on November 3. The weather was prime November by the water, if you dressed for it, you would be comfortable. The vibe outside of Spring and Summer is totally different, the ferries to Centre Island and Hanlon's Point are offline for the season, so if you wanted to visit the west side of the island chain, you had to walk. You don't think Toronto Islands for hiking in the fall, yes it's pretty flat but oddly enough, it works. The obvious thing, the crowds aren't there and the only challenge is dodging goose shit in spots. Due to the lighting, I didn't load up my only roll of fresh Ektachrome, it was a Kodak Portra 400 kind of day, where latitude is required. Camera: Minolta XD, MD Rokkor X 50 f1.7 lens. Film: Kodak Portra 400

I haven't been to Toronto Island in ages, not since the disastrous night photography shoot from Olympic Island years ago. A few lessons learned from last time, first off, don't go in the afternoon, the line up for the ferry will stretch all the way to Queen's Quay, go in the morning, earlier the better for the decent light. Next tip get off either at Hanlan's Point or Ward's Island, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE wants to go to Centre Island. Once you're done, you will want to go home, don't go back via Centre Island Ferry Terminal, it will be a zoo. It was a weird day lighting wise, when I left the house it was overcast, I decided to run with Kodak Tri-X 400 and I was going to process in Xtol at the other end, that would cover everything. By the time I got to the Toronto Island Ferry Terminal, the cloud cover started to break. I wanted the clouds to pop and put a yellow filter on the 50mm lens and got some great skyline shots. Walk just east of the Ward...