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Post by unclebill on May 30, 2007 5:17:59 GMT -5
Shot with a Minolta XE-7, with a MCx Rokkor 28 f2.8 lens with Forte 400 film processed in HC110 Dil. B on Saint Patricks Day on the edge of Kensington Market Toronto On. The print was optically enlarged with Ilford Multigrade IV 8x10 Pearl finish paper.  |
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Post by unclebill on May 30, 2007 13:41:09 GMT -5
It looks way better in real life, My scanner can only scan prints in colour (hence the almost sepia look). Toronto still has streetcars and they are planning to expand the track network over the next decade.
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Post by Randy on May 30, 2007 16:16:23 GMT -5
Wonderful shot Bill, I always liked Toronto.
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on May 30, 2007 20:02:24 GMT -5
Nice, Bill. This is my sort of picture. I love these 'moments in time' pictures. They are tomorrow's history - the buildings, the vehicles, the clothes - make sure you put a date on whatever you keep the neg in. I'll bet that within a few short years it will all have changed.
No offence to people who take wonderful portraits and landscapes, which I'm no good at though I admire them greatly, but IMHO this type of picture will live longer.
When I first came to live in Ashford, 35 years ago, it was still a thriving old market town with ancient buildings and a huge busy Victorian railway works on the outskirts. I always meant to take lots of pictures of it but never did.
Then the local council ripped a lot of it down, built a five-lane ring road round the town centre to relieve traffic congestion, and pedestrianised the centre. It made walking in the town very pleasant, but had the long-term effect of isolating the town centre and driving trade and shops away (we once had four good camera shops - all gone bar Jessops) because there were far too few car parks and far too few pedestrian crossing points. I always meant to take lots of pictures of the 'new' ring road, too, but never got around to it.
Maybe I was always "waiting for the light to change". Or probably I didn't take them because things became too familiar.
Now the railway works has gone, the main market has moved to a site about three miles out with no buses to and from it, there's a new modernistic Ashford International high-speed rail link station (Paris in four hours) and the local council is busy tearing up the ring road, making part of it two-way traffic again and says it is going to 'revitalise trade in the town centre' by tearing some of it down and building a massive multi-storey Shopping Mall.
What's left of the old ring road will become what the council calls 'shared vehicular and pedestrian roadways' whatever that means. Most people think it means pedestrianised with access for taxis, emergency vehicles, cars with 'disabled' passes and delivery trucks only. I wonder how far away the car parks for visitors will be?
I'm sure John has seen similar changes in Manchester.
This time I am at least taking pictures of machines tearing the old ring road apart, which is causing massive traffic delays.
But all is not lost for ever.
Fortunately the Ashford Society has several keen photographers among its members, and over the years they did, and are still doing, what I always intended to do.
Another member spent years collecting dozens of picture post cards and other photographs showing views of Ashford from Victorian times onwards, and has published them in two books. So at least the town's history over the past 100 years or so has been preserved by photography.
Has your town's history been captured in pictures? It's not too late to start!
Or am I getting too nostalgic and grouchy in my old age, and kicking against progress just because it's 'new'?
PeterW
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Post by doubs43 on May 31, 2007 0:15:55 GMT -5
Peter, your advice is exactly right. Especially for a young man or woman who may spend the rest of their lives in one area. Common sights and events of today will become tomorrow's curiosities and forgotten history unless someone records it.
How many here have read about restoration projects where old photographs are actively persued to make sure the details are correct? Someday, those photographs could be the ones you took today.
Walker
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Post by unclebill on May 31, 2007 13:16:33 GMT -5
I keep all my negatives by date in a binder. Don't worry I have a record keeping system of sorts.
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