Misty Mountain Ridge

I stopped to take a picture of this ridge that wasn't there when I drove by an hour before. It's really smoke from burning brush that someone is clearing that's trapped under an inversion, with warmer air on top making a kind of lid for the smoke beneath.

 

Johnston Hall, University of Guelph, Infrared, c. 1998

Johnston Hall, University of Guelph, c. 1998, Konica Infrared 750nm 35mm. Grass and leaves are light and sky is dark because it's infrared. 

 

Chinese restaurant or bar, c. 1993

The image reminds me of the bar scene in the Kubrick move The Shining. I think this was a Chinese restaurant in Toronto, maybe on Spadina, sometime around 1993. Ilford HP5+ film, developed after about 30 years. 

 

Your own infrared Jesus

♫ Your own infrared Jesus ♫ (With apologies to Depeche Mode)

This is another old film I just had developed at Boréalis Laboratoire Photo, in Montreal, a lab that still develops, scans and prints film. They did a good job, even though this film is more than 30 years old. It's Konica Infrared 750 nm, which had been stored at room temperature since it was taken, so having anything on it is surprising! Probably Mississauga, early 1990s. As I remember the guy didn't think he was Jesus but was just trying to spread his message. Note how the grass is white and the sky is dark, since the film is 'seeing' in a wavelength of light that is not visible to people. The focus point is different from visible light because it has a longer wavelength, so 'Jesus' is a little blurry.

 

Handsome Toronto Man

 This is part of a batch of films I just had developed. It was on TMAX 100 35mm film and by far it was the one that still had good image quality after 30 years of latency. I think this might be from around 1994. The E-6 slide films were mostly without any image left at all, the C-41 Ilford XP2 were badly faded, the Japanese Konica Infrared black and white were bad and the Ilford HP5+ were a bit better, but the TMAX 100, both 35mm and 120, were still worth developing even after 30 plus years at room temperature!

I can't remember who the man in the photos is - I think he must have asked me to take portrait photos of him since I'm with him in more than one location in Toronto. He probably was someone from my Toronto Japanese Language School class that was held on Saturdays at Orde Street Public School. I'm hoping that they'll get to him! 

By CN Tower

Iconic Toronto - GO Train, 

Canada Trust Tower, now the TD Canada Trust Tower at 161 Bay.

Douglas Coupland balances on can

Canadian novelist Douglas Coupland balancing on can at night on the street outside a barber shop in Guelph. He had just spoken at the Bookshelf Cafe. He said he liked walking around cities he was in and asked whether the water he was drinking when he was speaking at the Cafe came from anywhere near the Fibreglass Canada plant near the river. Sometime in the 1990s.

 

Kids on dam in Speed River, Guelph, early 1990s

 I think this is Royal City Park, Guelph, but I really can't be sure. These are from a box of films I found and had developed - I was all over southwest Ontario, west of Toronto. I used black and white until I had to use colour negatives for the Star, so I just forgot about these films.