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After the failure of the wheat trade, the economy of Oakville needed a new anchor. The established agricultural infrastructure allowed many farmers to switch to fruit crops, mainly strawberries. But heavier industries did contribute to Oakville’s economy beyond shipbuildings and milling. Manufacturing was one of the biggest industries next to farming to shore up Oakville’s economy. Lumber and lumber products such as barrels, ships, and baskets were significant players. Foundries would produce metal parts for carriages and ships. But Oakville became home to the largest producer of kerosene. Abraham Gesner, a Canadian scientist, developed a method of distilling coal oil in 1846. This produced aRead More →

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Not all my lenses are the best out there, and I have had some stinkers in the past that have come across my desk. Now in some cases, I have not reviewed these, but this time I need to get this one off my chest. Meet the Tamron 100-300mm lens; this is a budget lens in every sense. Tamron has produced some excellent optics, sometimes under their name, but quality optics are all the same. This lens is not one of them; there are a lot of issues with the build quality, optical quality, and even the features of this lens. But if you canRead More →

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When it comes to reviewing cameras, I love reviewing the cameras that have impacted photography or are relatively cool and unique. And this camera is one that I have referenced a couple of times in the past as being part of a significant stepping stone in Canon’s journey towards an autofocus camera. While autofocus first hit the markets in point-and-shoot cameras, building an AF system for an all-in-one camera is easy; putting it in an interchangeable lens SLR is another ballgame. When Minolta jumped right in with the A-Mount, Canon took a more cautious approach even before Minolta launched the Alphas. The AL-1 was aRead More →

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When it comes to projects like this one, there is always an anchor subject, a building or a place that I want to capture on silver in large format in case something happens to that building. A slice of time preserved in some level of permanence. My project on Milton was the old P.L. Robertson plant, and for Oakville, it is the Oakville High School. The education system in Upper Canada followed the patterns of the English education system. But that should not be a surprise. If you grew up reading stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder or visited a living history museum, often a showpieceRead More →

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Have you already reviewed this film? The answer would be yes and also no. ORWO Wolfen NP100 is a film that is a variant of the cult favourite motion picture film, UN54+. However, the folks at Filmotec have added an anti-halation and anti-static layer to the film stock to make it better for still photography. And that’s enough of a change for me to warrant a full-on review. Now the history of ORWO is complicated; the company was formed from the original home of Agfa in the German town of Wolfen. When World War Two divided Germany in the post-war era, Wolfen ended up inRead More →

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Throughout its history, Nikon cameras have been primarily aimed at the professional market, from their stunning rangefinders in the S-Range to the original Nikon F and beyond. However, the mid-century and post-war economic boom brought a new group of photographers, the advanced consumer. Now, hobbyist photographers have always been around. These new photographers want access to the same quality cameras and optics as the professionals. And while Canon and Minolta were certainly starting to fill that gap, Nikon wanted a piece of the action. While their initial offerings under the Nikkorex line fell flat, save the Nikkorex F, it was their second attempt, the NikkormatRead More →

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The central railways offered long-distance travel but lacked the local service that many in Oakville and around Ontario needed. Personal automobiles were not a thing, and most roads were still dirt, with only a few paved in any meaningful way. Enter the Interurban railways, also known as radial railways. These small-scale services travelled out from a central station, radiating into surrounding communities. And provided some of the earliest forms of mass transit in the province. The earliest radial railway operators began services in 1890; these systems were used to steam or electrical motive power. Running small, often single carriage trails along a preset route fromRead More →

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The often overlooked Nikkormat line of cameras is an excellent addition to anyone with a large selection of manual focus Nikon glass, both original Auto-Nikkor or the modern AI and AI-S glass. Sold as a consumer camera built to the same quality and specification as the professional Nikon cameras of the era, today, they have more of a cult following. While most people will gravitate towards the improved original Nikkormat FTn or the short-lived FT3, the FT2 is the forgotten middle child and is the ultimate Nikkormat. With backward and forward compatibility, a modern battery cell, over its life, never changed. Thanks to Bill SmithRead More →

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It’s fall vacation time! While yes, my family and I went away to Regina back in the summer. While we did some touristy things, it wasn’t so much a vacation as it was to visit family and introduce the little guy. In October, we went out on a real family vacation. It was the first in a long time for my little family of three. We decided to keep things simple and drove out to Ottawa, Ontario—the national capital of Canada, which is about a six-hour drive from where we live. The valley in which the modern city of Ottawa is located was formed whenRead More →

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Last year I completed a project about Ontario’s railway heritage. Still, one location I had sadly missed was Oakville, as there is no historic railway station in the community, as both Oakville and Bronte had been replaced in the 20th century. But this massive railway viaduct over the Sixteen Mile Creek caught my eye, not only because I’ve travelled over it many times, but because it looked old. The railway was both a boost and a problem for the growing community of Oakville by the mid-century. The railway would open up a faster means of moving both people, mostly goods, across the province. And aRead More →