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It was called the Hamilton Secret Locations Meet; in late 2006, a group of explorers headed out to Hamilton. These days, the city was a hotbed for exploration; there was plenty to see both downtown and in the industrial sectors. While the old Stelco plant had been demolished, the local group discovered a new location in the industrial sector. The name was initially kept secret to help keep it out of the public eye. The first place we went to was not the main Firestone plant but rather the boiler house that supported the plant. I can now see why because the boiler house wasRead More →

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Among explorers, there is always a favourite type of location to explore, photograph, and visit. Some love abandoned houses, others prefer industrial buildings, and then there is the institutional. Here in Ontario, we don’t have too many surviving institutions from the 19th and 20th Centuries; there are some, but most were all torn down or replaced with modern hospitals. So a chance to check out the Muskoka Regional Centre was one I was not going to miss when I met up with strangers from the Internet to drive nearly two hours north to Gravenhurst for a rather epic exploring adventure and eat at a questionableRead More →

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There is always a plus of having inside information; you must be careful when exploring former government sites, especially those used by both the military and the police as training locations. So when I got word that a former Cold War radar station was open for exploration, I jumped to head up to the Barrie area to check it out. Sadly, the base had been an adult occupational centre longer than a military base. While there were still plenty of military buildings around, there were only a few clues to the base’s history. Almost as soon as the Second World War ended, a new ColdRead More →

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It’s been a long time since I thought about the Darnley Grist Mill. It wasn’t until I saw a memory pop up on Facebook that I was heading out to kick off the start of my War of 1812 project, which included a stop at the Darnley Grist Mill. I ‘discovered’ the location in a book with a list of different sites related to the Anglo-American War of 1812. Oddly enough those shots never went into the project despite the connection of the mill to the war. But despite touching on the subject of mills and local supply lines, I never used those images. HavingRead More →

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I know that place, I muttered to myself while watching season 2 of Star Trek Discovery. The tell-tale support pillars were instantly familiar to me, as I had seen them many times before; there was no doubt that those were the generator supports from the massive Richard L. Hearn Thermal Generating Station in Toronto’s Portlands. I knew that Discovery filmed in Ontario and the GTHA (Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area), having seen the white church from Balls Falls and the Niagara Escarpment near Milton, all featured in both Season 1 and 2 of the then-latest Star Trek series. Hearn was my first extensive exploration and one thatRead More →

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There’s nothing better than getting out for a small photo walk to help close out the year, and while technically, this walk took place before Christmas, this is my final post for 2023! Most Classic Camera Revival hosts try to get together for a social event at the end of each year. We tried last year, but the weather didn’t cooperate the day we picked. So this year, we wanted to take advantage of it. On 17 December, the gang (most of us) gathered in beautiful Dundas, Ontario, for the host-only end-of-year walk. I packed my Dynax 600si Classic to test the era-appropriate 28-80mm kitRead More →

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If there is the closest thing to a universal developer in the film photography world, that developer is Diafine. If you’re thinking, “Wait, aren’t all developers universal?” You are right; a B&W developer will develop many different film stocks. But it doesn’t often happen that two other film stocks, shot at different speeds, can be developed simultaneously. There are some examples of cross-over, but only a few. Diafine uses three main development times and a couple of unique combinations. These are shared across many different film stocks that allow you to develop multiple rolls shot multiple ways in the same tank. You can also shootRead More →

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What Was I Thinking… In the world of film developers, there are many options for almost any film type and situation, and then there are the weird ones associated with closed imaging systems. And then there are developers like Formulary FX-2. I enjoy working with the strange, trying to use them to crack a tough film stock or figure out where a developer will fit within my film-developing kit. And through these reviews, I have found several that will be useful going forward. Developers like FX-39 II, Atomal 49, and R09 Spezial have now found spots in my kit as excellent film development tools. AndRead More →

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This is only the second time I’ve reached a significant milestone in my ongoing reviews, the magic number of one hundred. And to be clear, I’ve done one hundred film reviews, not reviewed one hundred separate film stocks. And that’s because I’ve reviewed some rebadged films; sometimes, I knew it was a rebadge and then made a point not to go after that film stock again, notability ORWO films. I reviewed the four motion picture-specific films from ORWO as their Lomography rebadge. But in the case of Fomapan 100, I reviewed that first as KosmoFoto Mono 100 and then again as Fomapan 100. Agfa AviFotoRead More →

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I had a lot of fun looking at the dedicated line of Foma developers this year. Yes, they produce a couple of clones but have three developers unique only to their company. LQN crossed my desk after someone suggested that it is the dedicated developer for Fomapan 200. And having struggled with Fomapan 200, I wanted to give this one a shot. I initially thought I would have to get it shipped by the slow European route. I soon discovered that my local source of rare developers had some in stock, so I got a bottle. LQN is the sibling to Fomadon LQR. But unlikeRead More →