If there's one thing that just about anybody knows about me, it's that I love (really really really love) making photos.
From the moment I was first given a camera for Christmas, held it in my (probably) sticky little hands, and released the shutter, I was cursed hooked.
My first-first came from a great aunt, and it was one of those keychain 110 cameras that were, well, I won't say popular, but very common. While I never did get to use it to expose any film, I spent a whole lot of time happily clicking away and pretending to use it.
The following Christmas, I received a Kodak Ektralite 10, which thanks to its low price and ubiquitous advertising, seems to have been a very common first camera for those of us in our 40s and 50s. I ended up using it to make photos on a couple of rolls, but my allowance did not allow for both plentiful film (and development) and candy.
Notwithstanding my love for cameras, brightly-coloured simple carbohydrates often won in those days!
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Almost without fail, with the change in the season, every November and December, I really slow down in my photo-making. The cold I'm not yet acclimatized to, the greatly diminished day light, that it's often snowier (pretty!) or rainier (ugly!) than I'd want it to be all conspire to keep me indoors.
So while I want to be out making photos, I'm also less likely to be doing so. In a way, since I am staying inside more, it's that I want to want to be out somewhere making photos. Instead, my Ottawa becomes much smaller.
Determined, last year I really tried to push myself. And I did. I wanted practice in film developing, which I had just learned to do at the end of September.
...unfortunately, looking back at the results, that fact is very apparent.
I was not inspired.
All I know, is that with January's cold, I hope that we get a bit more of the sun!
December 17, 2025