The whole gang is back together around the round table (virtually)! Back earlier in the year John was clearing out some of his boxes of strange M42 lenses and came across four ‘fourth party’ lenses and decided that they would make excellent fodder for a future CCR episode and handed them out through random draw to everyone. And today the episode finally hits the air! But we’re not only talking about bad (but not all so bad) lenses, we’re also digging into our photography book library to talk about some of our favourite books on our shelves. From the Junk Drawer The cusp of theRead More →

Despite the title of this week’s entry in the project, nothing actually has died, but I’ll bet it drew you into the post! This week we’re back in Halton Hills at another historical site. You will remember back earlier in the project; we visited Georgetown, Ontario, a part of Halton Hills, today. This week we’re a bit north of the historic community in another one of those settlements that sprung up, Silvercreek and specifically the historic Scotsdale Farm. I first learned about this place from two good friends, Bill Smith and Andrew Chapman and had a chance to visit under less than ideal conditions atRead More →

Am I crazy for reviewing a camera that you can have for a song? Maybe? But I’m out here to talk about a camera that many will pass over due to age and the slow autofocus speeds. But when it comes to cameras in the history of photography, the F-401 fits in a strange little niche often forgotten next to the more advanced cameras of the day and, of course, the almighty F90/N90(x/s). And while I have given away the F90, and it gets far more use with its new owner, when I saw the F-401 offered up for free, I jumped on the camera.Read More →

Much of my early years of photography were taken up with the Minolta system. From my initial gateway camera, the Hi-Matic 7s to my first SLR the SR-T 102. The next step in my journey would be some level of automation, and for that, in stepped the X-7a. A gift from a church member who was no longer using the camera gifted me the camera and a single lens. But having a set of Minolta SR lenses already, I had an excellent selection of optics. And the camera would be my first experience with a motor drive, go through some of my earliest explorations andRead More →

I can always remember seeing this massive building off in the distance going to and from Guelph when visiting my Opa. When I first got to see the building up close, it wasn’t as big as I thought it was. In fact, it was rather small. I’m talking about the former Guelph Jail. I’ve known it has been abandoned and closed for some time, and back in the day, I always contemplated trying to sneak in under cover of darkness. But things never aligned properly, I did get a chance to see inside during the one Guelph Doors Open event I attended in 2009. TheRead More →

James Lee sits down with former East Coaster, turned West Coast Portrait Photographer, Justen Rosenberg! Justin is primarily a portrait photographer, who also shoots corporate and commercial work with a bit of landscape thrown in for good measure. Ten Year’s Sober, but he doesn’t see that as a crutch but rather helps show duality within his photography, that he can be both happy and sad at the same times. But it is not only in his photography that it helps; it helps him as a human also. It isn’t embarrassing, and he is open with this to help his own healing and help others whoRead More →

When I originally planned out this week of the project, I had a completely different name for the entry, “The Second Wedge”, after Uxbridge’s position in the Second Wedge of the Oak Ridges Moraine and a local craft brewery. But after spotting an interesting statue downtown, which I initially thought was another war memorial, I decided to change the name. It was not another war memorial, not in the cenotaph sense that many communities across Ontario feature in their downtown; this was a memorial to Samuel Sharpe. A Lieutenant-Colonel in World War One, Distinguished Service Order recipient, Member of Parliament, and dead at 45 byRead More →

Let me start this by saying that DD-X and I have not had the best of relationships. The first time I used it I wasn’t happy with my results and decided that I was never going to touch the stuff again. But hey, almost every filmstock and developer are worth a second glance. DD-X, like its Kodak cousin, TMax developer was initially designed for use with the Delta range of films, specifically Delta 3200. Ilford has two versions of this developer, Ilfotec DD which is designed mainly for automated film processors that will use a dedicated replenisher and used in the stock formulation. White DD-XRead More →

Honestly, you can thank Facebook for reminding me of this amazing trip that I took nearly eight years ago when I am first starting to see posts reminding me that this started to occur. It was 2012, several months after my first major Urban Exploration Meetup, since a rather off-putting event in Buffalo, New York. MAMU or the Mid-Atlantic Meetup had been resurrected by DJCraig, who I had met in December 2011 outside an abandoned hotel north of Dayton, Ohio, at a separate UE event VCXPEX. Early in April, I found myself on a twelve-hour drive south, the first time I had ever done suchRead More →

Two weeks in a row outside of Halton Region? Yes, the continuing lockdown has made me go stir-crazy, and you can honestly only find so much to photograph within your own little part of Ontario. Plus, I have to keep a few ideas in the back pocket as backups if something big prevents me from getting out. After doing plenty of these types of projects, you need some ideas as backups. But this week, we’re back into rural Ontario and the community of St. Jacobs, home to an amazing farmer’s market, a tourist railroad, Mennonites, and a cute little downtown. While I would have likedRead More →