This is technically my third attempt at getting Guelph into the Frugal Film Project. I attempted once last year but was driven out by rain, and then earlier this year. But it looks like it has finally struck. While I have visited Guelph many times because my Opa lived here until his death, it was the short stint I lived in the city while house-sitting and just starting to explore photography that I took to wandering the downtown. I don’t know if I still have the digital files from those days when the downtown was a rough spot with lots of urban decay and theRead More →

Have you ever wanted to see outside of our visual spectrum? Well then maybe infrared photography is for you! While true Infrared films are long gone, these days we have a tonne of films that can, when properly filtered expose the infrared light. Among these films sits FPP Infrared B&W, the original film stock is unknown, but it does do exactly what it says on the tin, it is a film that can be shot both filtered and unfiltered and produces images that can only be described as magic! For this review, I went with a mixed approach to filtration, shooting the first roll withoutRead More →

June ended up being a pretty big month, with the 80th anniversary of D-Day, some good content across my Blog and YouTube feeds, but the biggest news is that Ricoh/Pentax which has been talking about bringing about a new film camera did so on the 17th. You can find three articles from fellow film bloggers in this post. And a note to my readers, this will be the final entry in the series. I’ve been finding them incredibly difficult to put together, so I’ve made the choice to end this particular monthly feature. 35mmc – Pentax 645 – A Review of a Budget Medium FormatRead More →

We see a little silhouetto of a roll film, and for this episode, we’re a little high, a little low because Ilford matters! Yes, this episode is a rhapsody of Ilford films, and we’re going from Pan F+ to Delta 3200 and everything in between to discuss what we love about Ilford films, how we use them, development, and shooting them! But why are we focusing on Ilford? Well, that’s simple! Ilford has made a constant effort to support the photography community in being able to produce film at scale for the modern market and is often less likely to increase costs. They have optionsRead More →

It’s been a minute since I ran a Toronto Film Shooters Meetup, let alone getting one outside the city. My good friends Bill and John have been killing it with the meetups, especially those inside Toronto. I love getting the group out beyond the GTA. While Hamilton is close, the TFS group has representation across North America. I also love exploring Hamilton with its stunning heritage architecture, so I organised a walk through Jamesville and into the historic downtown core at the start of June. For the walk, I went with a couple of cameras; first up is my beautiful Minolta Dynax 600si with theRead More →

Urban explorers always have a grail location or a favourite type of location. For many in the northeast of the United States, these locations are related to the treatment of mental illness. Now, I use the term ‘treatment’ loosely because of the long and rather cruel methods used in the past. While many were seen as humane compared to earlier treatments, in our modern context, they are rather terrible. Here in Ontario, we don’t have many abandoned mental hospitals. Most have been torn down and replaced with modern facilities or reverted back to their historical form. I had never explored many mental hospitals, and allRead More →

Established in 2013 by MainStreetHost and taken on by Alex Luyckx Photography in 2015, #photochat is a community of photography professionals and enthusiasts who congregate to talk shop and discuss anything and everything photography. After a brief pause through 2023 Photochat is back with a monthly chat model. To participate in our monthly chat (every Second Thursday at 1:00 pm), search the #photochat hashtag on Twitter, Mastodon, and BlueSky Social to see the conversation, or find me at @AlexLuyckxPhoto on Twitter, Mastodon & BlueSky. Include the hashtag in your tweets to answer the questions and talk with the other participants. If there’s a topic you’dRead More →

There’s a whole lot of nerding out happening in this episode; join Bill and special guest Dan Tamarkin of Tamarkin Camera. Dan is the second-generation owner of Tamarkin Camera. America’s premiere Leica Specialist. Started by his father with a roll-top desk, the shop is now in Windy City, Chicago, Illinois. Dan is the go-to guy in the Midwest if you want an honest and real experience buying Leica. But that’s not all; Dan also buys and sells a tonne of other camera gear. Find Tamarkin Camera Online At: Web: tamarkin.com Instagram: instagram.com/tamarkin_camera Facebook: facebook.com/tamarkin.camera YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCt657edYjtaKtvtOQazmA8g Looking for a good spot to get your gearRead More →

While I teased the city of Hamilton at the end of last year, I never went into detail about the city’s history as a whole, mainly because I only sometimes visit the historic centre of Hamilton regularly. But having some time off, I headed back into the downtown to capture the rich architecture of the city centre that has seen a great deal of change throughout recent history and has gone from a city with a lot of blight to something restored and looking far better than when I was visiting regularly. The one thing that makes Hamilton unique is that its success and positionRead More →

It should only be fair that my fiftieth lens review be of a 50mm lens, these are often the first lens that a budding photographer will pick up when getting into the wild world of film photography. And often it is the only lens that they continue to use long after. With my first two SLRs (SR-T 102 and X-7a) the 50mm lens was my go-to choice for most of the time shooting with them. I have since moved on and now am more likely to reach for a 35mm lens, the 50mms still hold a place for my work and I still grab oneRead More →