Crown Graphic – Schneider-Kreuznach Symmar-S 1:5.6/210 – Ilford FP4+ @ ASA-64 – Pyrocat-HD (1+1+100) 8:00 @ 20C
What is home? It’s a question that many people have asked and those well versed in philosophy and have come up with many answers. Is home where you live, or where you were born? Or maybe it’s where your parents live? If you’re looking for that answer here, you’re in the wrong place. This is a project about my home, a town called Milton. The sign that welcomed people to Milton has changed a lot since I first arrived here with my parents; my dad wanted to deface the sign by painting a giant one making the population 30,001. He didn’t, and that sign is no longer around. That sign lay on Highway 25 heading north into town from Burlington. That sign stayed static at least until the town started growing first 50,000 and then 100,000. Now as you can it is even beyond that 110,000. But for most of my life, we were a small community, focused around a neat square. Milton has been featured in many of my projects, fifty-two rolls, reviews, and general photography. But this project will allow me to introduce you to my hometown, the places that are important to both me and the town’s history. From mundane streets, schools, two ancient buildings and historic buildings. What is home? Home is a choice; you can always choose what you call home. I made my choice to keep Milton my home. As I mentioned earlier this is not the image I wanted to capture, I had a greater chance of getting hit by a car if I decided to get the Welcome to Milton sign that stands at Lower Base Line and Highway 25. I decided instead to go for a safer bet, the sign on Guelph line. I also decided to go against my usual method and stop the lens all the way down, I also went with a longer lens, 210mm to better control the depth of field. Initially, I wanted to shoot this at f/8, but because it was such a bright day, my shutter topped out at 1/400″ and the meter was saying 1/500″. I ended up shooting this at f/11 which allowed me to keep the background out of focus while keeping the focus on the sign, rather than the background.