Friday, September 19, 2008


In my youth I used 35mm film cameras. They were light and somehow the world was at my feet because I owned a couple. With the advent of my largish and heavy Mamiya RB-67 the candid photographs went out the window and I became determined to use good studio lighting or good portable studio lighting. Portability of studio lighting is really at odds and the moment laziness sets in fewer and fewer pictures are taken.

But my friend Grant Simmons from Disc gave me about 30 rolls of Agfa (no longer made) IS0 400 120 film and I have been imagining my ungainly Mamiya as a lightweight and maneuverable 35. I have been taking more pictures. And best of all I have been going against the world trend by processing the film in my darkroom. The smell of fixer while not being the smell of my roses is comforting in the age of the CMOS chip.



Here you see three recent images. In one that's Rebecca and Lauren after school. Lauren is in the first grade and Rebecca is in the 6th (or grade 6 as they say here in Canada). In the second picture the girls are enjoing ice cream at Casa Gelato on Venables. Last week we gloried in being able to enjoy the treats on a hot day that made us forget that summer is really gone.



And in the last picture that's author, actor, fencer C.C. Humphreys giving Rebecca an "extemporaneus but at my request" fencing lesson to Rebecca. The foils were our garden bamboo sticks.