One of the best parts about working at a college is that we have a Christmas shutdown, which gives me some extra time off at the end of the year, which usually starts the day before Christmas Eve. But this year, with Christmas taking place in an awkward spot, the shutdown began on the 20th, which landed me an extra full day off on Monday. I decided to head into Toronto for photography, filming, and meet up with my good friend Bill! I also took the chance to film a POV-style On-the-Road video that will hit the YouTube channel in February. I wanted to keepRead More →

Back in 2023, I came across an exciting developer, Compard R09 Spezial, after some digging I discovered that R09 Spezial had nothing to do with Rodinal despite the name. It was Agfa Studionol, and when I wrote that review, it was mentioned to me in a comment that Bellini Foto produces a version of Studionol, Hydrofen. It took a bit of work, but I got a couple of small bottles of Hydrofen to write a review of the currently produced version of Studional. And true to my word in my review of R09 Spezial I made the point to do the majority of rolls usingRead More →

Well it’s the end of the old year and the start of a new one. Which means it’s time to look back at last year’s favourite shots from the Frugal Film Project and look ahead at what I’m doing this year for the project. It’s hard to believe that I’m going into my third year of the project, but I feel I’m hitting the groove and not feeling that I need to do more each month. I’m also glad that I can still continue to run the project and I have some interesting ideas for this year and a camera that breaks the theme fromRead More →

Well we’ve reached the end of another year and for the final entry for what may be a couple years break from the Frugal Film Project I decided to go with an old favourite, the historic city of Galt. While the name is not known outside of the city of Cambridge today, but it was the largest muncipality that forms the modern city of Cambridge today and is by far the most unique as it has a lot of offer to a photographer with a great deal of historic buildings in the city centre. So I figured it would make for a great final entryRead More →

Well, here we are at the end of another year, and you know in the rearview, 2024 was a good year. I felt that I was putting out posts and content at a more sustainable rate. I also felt that I was not always pressed for time each month in producing reviews. I got to check out some new film stocks, add some new favourite cameras, and explore some familiar and new places. The Best of 2024 This year, I consciously chose to reduce the number of reviews I did over the year. It was starting to get challenging to keep everything moving and outputRead More →

Developing your film at home is both rewarding and frustrating at the same time and to add on an extra layer of complexity there is a lot of developers out there that you can use, especially in the black & white field. While certainly not as much as there used to be, there is still an excellent selection of developers to suit almost every person’s need, without having to dive deep into building your developers from base chemicals. Ultimately every photographer has a different taste but if you’re starting out with home development the choices may seem a little overwhelming so I’ll be breaking downRead More →

I will be honest, I’ve been trying to get out to Westfield Village all year because this year marks the 60th Anniversary of this hidden gem of a living history museum. While it isn’t staffed as often thanks to the changes that came down the pipe but they still maintain the property and make it accessible to the public while keeping site staff to a minimum. But I’ll let you in on a secret, I like the village when it’s quiet, it lets me soak in the history of the place. Like many other living history museums around Ontario, Westfield Heritage Village is a builtRead More →

I’m coming back for more, especially after being pleased with the results I got from the Formulary version of Kodak D-19. Like Formulary, Flic Film’s MQ-19 is a perfect clone of the classic high-contrast, fast-acting developer D-19, and while I am limited by what film stocks can be developed I did manage to find a few more options to run through the developer this time around include a few classic films that I did not include in the first time around. Like any good review, having a second chance with a developer gives a better chance to explore other options and get a better pictureRead More →

November 2024 marked a special birthday, that being Kodak Tri-X! Tri-X is one of those iconic films from Eastman-Kodak that has made a mark on both photography and photographers with a classic black & white look, contrast and versatility. Ever since I first shot Tri-X, I loved the results. While I don’t use it that often, primarily due to the cost of a roll of the film, I got a roll with my AM/FM membership re-subscription and decided to take it out to the historic town of Dundas, Ontario, with my Maxxum 9 and the 20mm f/2.8 lens I rated the film slightly over atRead More →

Like many film photographers we have a tendency to collect not only cameras, lenses, and accessories but also film. And recently I was looking at the massive collection of film sitting in my storage area and thinking that I should shoot this all now before it all gets so expired it is no longer useful to anyone. In this post I’ll be sharing my selection of black & white films that I had laying around in my collection although one C-41 roll did get included but because I decided to develop it in a traditional B&W developer it got stuck into this post. The firstRead More →