All’s Quiet | End of Year Photowalk

There’s nothing better than getting out for a small photo walk to help close out the year, and while technically, this walk took place before Christmas, this is my final post for 2023! Most Classic Camera Revival hosts try to get together for a social event at the end of each year. We tried last year, but the weather didn’t cooperate the day we picked. So this year, we wanted to take advantage of it. On 17 December, the gang (most of us) gathered in beautiful Dundas, Ontario, for the host-only end-of-year walk. I packed my Dynax 600si Classic to test the era-appropriate 28-80mm kit lens for the walk. I loaded it with Derev Pan 400, rating ASA-320, and my Rolleiflex 2.8F loaded with CineStill BwXX at ASA-200. Both rolls I developed in Zone Imaging 510-Pyro.

At this time of year, the weather is always weird, but we’re a group that tends to go out no matter the weather, from hot summer days to cold winter ones. The weather up until Wednesday last week looked decent for Sunday. Yes, it was overcast, but it wasn’t raining. There was a chance, but that rain wasn’t scheduled until evening. That all changed, and suddenly, it was raining. But that doesn’t stop us; I’ve taken some of my favourite photos in the rain. We started with a lunch at Shawn & Ed Brewery; if you still need to go to their converted curling rink to check out the kitchen and tap fare, it is certainly worth the trip. If you’ve never visited Dundas, Ontario, the historic town is today a part of Hamilton, Ontario. While Dundas predates the founding of Hamilton by several decades (the first Europeans settled here in the late 18th Century), its importance waned after the opening of the Great Western Railway. The town is laid out in the typical grid style; no surprise there as both men credited with ‘founding’ the town were military men. So, I devised a route to show off the former town hall and explore the beautiful residential sections and stunning 19th-century downtown along former Highway 8.

Knowing that the weather would only worsen, we headed out anyway and hoped for the best. I did have a route planned out in my head, but with the rain predicted to only get worse, we started by walking through the downtown first along the beautiful downtown. We weren’t the only ones out in the bad weather, and many more people were out than I had expected. A group of carolers hiding under an awning, a group riding in a horse-drawn wagon and shoppers. The downtown is filled with stunning 19th-century buildings and plenty of places to hide to get some respite from the rain.

As the weather started to turn for the worse, we headed up and along Melville, one of the lovely residential streets filled with large Victorian homes and several historic churches. While the street is tree-lines, it offered little in the way of shelter from the worsening rain. Thankfully, I was getting close to the end of both rolls by the time we turned back around. By the end, both my cameras were soaked, but they took the rain well, even the Dynax 600si. Thankfully, the grid layout worked in our favour, with being back where we started at Shawn & Ed. And as the rain worsened, it was time to get to-go beers and head home.

This isn’t my first time around with Derev Pan 400. I reviewed the film in 2019, and during that review, I realised that the film worked best in a Pyro developer (although not included in said review). So, this time, I took the same approach and exposed the film slightly over at ASA-320, developed in my current favourite pyro developer, 510-Pyro, and used the times listed for Rollei RPX 400. And the results of both roles turned out beautifully, combining the latitude of both films and the wonders of 510-Pyro to bring out the best in each. You can find all the images from the day over on Flickr.

What’s Coming for Next Year
Usually, I do an entire post on what I’ll be doing in the new year here on the blog. But I have yet to have a chance, outside of the Frugal Film Project posts, to share simple photography, a walk, or anything like that. It’s all been technical, but that also drives the viewership. At the end of this post, I wanted to lay out what will change. For the past couple of years, I’ve been running on a weekly schedule, a set of posts that show up each and every week. In 2024, I’ll be moving to a monthly schedule. That means I’ll only be putting up one review per month (sometimes two, but no more than that); reviews take a lot of effort, giving me some breathing room to get the best reviews online. You’ll still get the monthly Frugal Film Project post. Classic Camera Revival will drop twice a month. To make things even better, the next two years will be special for the CCR; next year, we will be celebrating our tenth season and, the following year, our tenth year on the air! I have some new features that will take advantage of some of my vast back catalogue of images. And Photochat is returning every month. I’ll also only post two weekly blog entries on Tuesdays and Thursdays. New YouTube Content (two videos a month) will drop on Wednesdays.