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Publisher, Parliamentarian, and Traitor, the strange case of Joseph Willcocks started in 1773, born in the Republic of Ireland, at the age of 27 the young man found his way to the town of York in Upper Canada. He soon found employment as the private clerk of the receiver general, Peter Russell, but it would not last, as Russell was not pleased with Willcocks’ advances towards his half-sister. But that did not stop Willcocks, who found another patron quickly in the form of the colony’s chief justice, Henry Allcock and with his influence was appointed to Home District Sheriff. However his views on the landRead More →

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I was always iffy about shooting 620 cameras, since when I first got into film photography finding 620 film was difficult, but the cameras were everywhere and many found their way into my collection. And to make matters worse the take up spool was missing. But let’s back up a bit and discuss, exactly what is 620 film? It was a film that was first introduced by Kodak in 1932 and continued being produced until 1995. But here’s a secret, it’s the exact same film stock as 120, same size and same backing paper, but it was the spool that was different. So if youRead More →

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I was remiss in posting about this year’s Photostock back in June! As with last year, it was a fantastic time, more so for me this year, as I stayed at the Birchwood to party it up with the group late into the night. Late nights and early mornings. Three things make Photostock great. The Place, the People, and the Community. So the photos I took reflect the first two items, the Place and the People. The third one can be shown in the photos. However, video drives the point home. This group of photographers shoots a wide range of cameras and techniques, yet weRead More →

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So after Friday’s winter storm, Saturday dawned bright and clear, so I loaded up three cameras and went to Hamilton. I slowed down my shooting for these shots, one, maybe two, each place I stopped with the Rolleiflex. I carefully looked at each area and pre-visualized what I’d want the final print to look like. Using a Pentax Spotmeter V, I metered for shadows I wanted the most details in, then underexposed by a stop (Putting the shadows in Zone IV), focused, and shot. Then make notes on the exposure. It was like shooting large format (I saw a guy with a 4×5 out andRead More →

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By the end of summer 1814, the jig was up for the American invasion. While they had managed to strike at the British and nearly pushed them off the Niagara peninsula again, the new commander-in-chief of the British forces in Upper Canada was going to have none of that. Following the quick movements, it all turned around at the Battle of Lundy’s Lane and General Drummond managed to push the Americans back to their beachhead at the now heavily fortified Fort Erie where the Americans had started not a month earlier. And Drummond would begin his siege that would lead up to one of theRead More →

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Ontario is beautiful, there’s no changing that, but sometimes you leave and go someplace else and only find that the same beauty you so like in the north can be found elsewhere, that’s exactly how I felt when I drove through Northern Michigan. I feel the state gets a bad rap because of places like Detroit and Flint (New Jersey is the same way), but there is incredable beauty to be found in the northern part of the state. You will be treated to miles of wooded areas, quant villages, friendly people, and sunsets…well sunsets. The beach and port at Cross Village. A quick stop,Read More →

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Fort York, Toronto’s taste of the 19th-Century. Against all the odds this little haven of Toronto’s colonial history has survived multiple attempts to sweep it away with the Gardner Expressway and even a Streetcar line. And while it seems a little odd to find a fort this far back from the lakeshore, you have to remember that over 200 years ago the lakeshore and the area we know as Toronto was a far different place. When Sir John Graves Simcoe received his appointment as the colonial governor of Upper Canada one of his early actions saw the colonial capital, the capital at the time, Newark,Read More →