My Third Eye

If I leave film lying around undeveloped long enough, and it’s not labelled, I forget what’s on the roll. This makes for an interesting (and often pleasant) surprise when I do get around to developing the film. Today’s image falls into this category. I had done a couples shoot, but mainly in digital. I did bring along my Pentax 6×7 medium format camera and took a few images, and then promptly forgot I had taken some film shots along with the digitals. When I developed the film a few days ago, I saw this image, and it has become my favourite from the shoot.

I finally got around to developing a roll of Delta 100 black and white film I had shot with “The Beast” (my Pentax 6×7) over the last few weeks. I like this image because it shows a contrast in architectural styles in downtown Toronto. I am also thinking of another contrast: with a roll of film that waits a while before being developed, it is easy to forget what images are on the roll, and hence I get a pleasant surprise. No such experience in the digital world of instant gratification.

This image is a cyanotype of an image I took a bit over a week ago at Niagara Falls, from a spot called Table Rock. I took this image on a Friday morning, very close to the spot where a couple of days later, a young woman would slip and fall into the river and over the falls, to her death.

This picture was taken this past weekend at Fort George in Niagara-On-the-Lake with a new (to me) camera: a Pentax 6×7. This is a beast of a camera, shooting 6×7 cm negatives (400% of the area of a 35mm negative) on 120 film. I’m in love The 6×7 is the love child of a camera and a tank.