Our co-host Chrissie did something to push themselves out of their comfort zone and decided to take a solo trip to Iceland. Armed with a Samsung phone, Sony A7 and a Polaroid I-2 in an effort to rekindle a passion for photography. Join Chrissie and Alex as they discuss the trip, including the reasons, gear, and of course, the photos. Looking for a good spot to get your gear and material fix check out Burlington Camera (Burlington, ON), Downtown Camera (Toronto, ON), Belle Arte Camera (Hamilton, ON), Pond’s FotoSource (Guleph, ON), Foto Art Camera (Owen Sound, ON). In Quebec, Photo Service (Montreal, QC) and StudioRead More →

The industrial architecture of the early 20th century is interesting because it followed both form and function. Producing a building that could output the product and look good simultaneously. And in terms of defining this, look no further than the former McCormick Candy Factory in London. This beautiful example has white terracotta facings and lots of glass throughout the factory floors; this place was once known as the light palace as there was always enough natural light throughout the factory to help the workers. And even in its abandoned state, it still looks fantastic. Thomas McCormick arrived in Canada West, the modern-day province of Ontario,Read More →

The war had become a stalemate, and peace negotiations reached an impasse. Drummond’s siege remained in place but had been reduced to ineffective artillery fire, and most of his troops were reduced by illness due to the ongoing rain and poor conditions in the camp. Drummond’s requests for additional troops had been granted, and elements of the 4th and 82nd Regiments marched with heavy siege artillery to Niagara. On 4 September, the American defenders of Fort Erie did attempt to dislodge the British attackers. The short skirmish resulted in several deaths, including the traitor Joseph Willcocks and many of his Canadian Volunteers in the shortRead More →

I guess you could say that this post comes out from a short I released on YouTube last month about why photo walks are important and that you should go on photo walks. When the average person hears the term ‘photo walk’ they tend to think of a group usually medium or large. And I’ll admit, large groups of strangers can be a bit iffy. But a photo walk doesn’t have to be in a group, you don’t even have to have another person with you. My good friend and fellow photographer, Michael Hurley, goes on solo photo walks all the time. In fact, he’sRead More →

Here in North America, we’re fortunate to have several camera and photography stores dedicated to keeping film shooters like us happy. However, today’s guest recognised a need for such a store in the city of Porto, Portugal. Fourteen years ago, Pedro started a small shop dedicated to selling cameras, watches and other antique technologies. Calling it Máquinas de Outros Tempos or Machines Out of Another Time. Today, they sell cameras and film the hungry population of the city, and business is good. In addition to sales, they also handle film developing and scanning. Every camera sold is refurbished by an in-house technician. But that isn’tRead More →

It feels weird writing it as color instead of colour but as it is the proper name of the camera I will have to struggle through. The Polaroid Colorpack II is one of several rigid body pack film cameras to come out of Polaroid through the late 1960s and into mid 1970s, there has been several different models to carry the Colorpack name and all seem to share similar specifications. It’s been a while since I used this camera, and I think I ended up donating it to another photographer as this was one of the first pack film cameras that I ever got. ItRead More →

There’s no denying it; this lens is a monster. I have some big and heavy lenses in my tool kit, and while this one is undoubtedly smaller than my 70-200/2.8G, it is the largest and heaviest of my manual focus kit. It is also often overlooked compared to later versions of the lens, which means that it’s an excellent, affordable lens, no matter what other people say about the number of aperture blades. The lens itself comes from a long lineage, released in 1977. Designed initially by Saburo Murakami and released in 1964, the Auto Nikkor-P 300mm 1:4.5 used a five-element design but struggled withRead More →

It’s always good to get out from the familiar especially with a photo walk group. While the Toronto Film Shooters has always been centered around Toronto, Ontario and a majority of the events take place in different parts of the city. The group has on several occasionally spread their wings and headed outside the normal area and into different parts of the province. We’ve had events in Guelph, Unionville, Elora, and even Niagara-On-The-Lake. So at the end of September I decided to host a bonus event in Dundas, Ontario. A small historical town, today a part of Hamilton, Ontario on a Sunday afternoon. While BillRead More →

While I’ve always known that Fujifilm produces chemistry for film development, I had always assumed it was primarily aimed at colour processing. Since they still manufacture (possibly) mini-lab processing systems for labs to develop C-41. But black & white chemistry? Then I received an email. A reader graciously offered to mail me some developers that were difficult to obtain in North America. I initially thought of Europe, but then a lovely package arrived from Japan and inside were two pouches of Fujifilm Microfine and two pouches of Fujifilm SPD. Well, I was touched, but Microfine was a name I had seen before on the massiveRead More →

Dear Chicago, I like ketchup on my hotdogs, sorry, I do, but I don’t when I’m in Chicago. I’ve done a shot of Malört, it was interesting for sure. I’ve visited a bunch of cities of various sizes throughout the US, but the one that I honestly thought I could live and survive in was Chicago. There is something about the city that attracted me, I felt comfortable here. And that’s saying something because I don’t like big cities. The first time I visited it was almost as if I was returning to a friend. My first tastes of the city came from the showRead More →