It’s been such a dull winter in Toronto. No real cold, no snow and very little of that beautiful winter light that comes with cold temperatures or snow on the ground and in the trees. I am looking forward to spring and mourning the winter that didn’t happen at the same time. I haven’t taken photos since last fall, or very few, and I blame the weather for that (and a few other things).

In preparation for spring and as an attempt to motivate myself to shoot more, I took an inventory of the film cameras I own, most of them gathering dust on a shelf, in my bedroom closet. I used to shoot with all of them and play with various film stocks, but in recent years I have tended to always reach for my Canon AE1 Program, my Contax Aria and sometimes my Hasselblad 500CM, but I have totally neglected my Rolleiflex, Polaroid(s), Pentax K1000, Pentacon 6, Mamiya 645, Natura Classica, and a few others.

I didn’t join the 12 Months of Film project, but I want to start using my cameras again (at a more moderate rate than I used to a few years ago, because film has become so expensive). I am planning on doing that this spring. We’ll see how it goes.

In the meantime, here are some of my favourite shots, from the last 15 to 20 years, taken with a variety of my film cameras.

Valerie