Andrew is an artist and “maker” in Toronto. So many amazing stories!!
Both images taken with my Sony A7ii and Helios 44 lens (as always for this project.)
The Only Cafe Portrait Project: Andrew Smith
Category: Portrait of the Artist
Only Cafe Portrait Series: Paul
Paul is a member of a photography group I have joined. Great guy!
Only Cafe Portrait Series #6 (Jess Hobbs)
My first out-of-towner for the project! My very talented photographer/videographer friend Jess Hobbs is in Toronto this weekend for Toronto Film Shooters / Classic Camera Revival podcast events, so of course a shoot at The Only Cafe was mandatory!
Portrait of a Podcaster
Today’s post features recent portraits of my friend Paulette Michayluk, who along with Bill Smith and I make up the team behind the Defend the Darkroom podcast. Paulette is a talented printer and artist in her own right as well.
Sony A7ii, 50mm/f1.4 Nikkor lens (Pre-AI)
Three Mail Portraits: #3
The third portrait in this set of three, also from last weekend. I really feel I caught the moment here.
Voigtlander Bessa R2M, 50mm/f2 Heliar Classic lens
Kodak TMax 400 film
Getting the Expression
Every now and then a candid portrait clicks. 🙂 Taken at a recent meet-up of Toronto film shooters.
Nikon N90s, Helios 44/2 58mm/2 lens, adapted for Nikon
Ilford FP4 film, developed as positive by DR5Â
Hamilton Supercrawl 1: Portrait of a Stranger
This past Saturday evening I went with photography friend Leon to the Hamilton Supercrawl Street festival to do some street photography. It was a rainy evening, but people were still having fun. The streets were filled with artists selling their creations, and the artisan below saw my Rolleiflex TLR camera and started asking questions about it, so naturally I took the opportunity to create a portrait of a stranger. The Rolleiflex is the perfect ice-breaker in this situation.
Rolleiflex 3.5E3 (Xenotar lens)
HP5+ at EI 800, developed in Legacy Pro EcoPro 1+1 for 14:15
Perfect Expression
Last weekend I had a photoshoot with my good friend (and very talented musician and composer) Jo-Anne. While I was using my Hasselblad kit for most of the work I did take some 35mm images using my Nikon N90s and 50mm/1.4 Nikkor lens. I used Rollei RPX 400, pushed to EI 1600 using Tmax developer. I was very happy with the expression I was able to catch.
Homage
I had the pleasure of working with friend and frequent creative collaborator Jennifer Bettencourt this past weekend. In addition to being a talented model, Jennifer is also an accomplished fadista, or singer of Portuguese Fado music. The shoot was inspired by Fado legend Amália Rodrigues, a we were going for a fairly formal look, with some intensity.
Rolleiflex 3.5E3 (Xenotar lens)
Tri-X, developed in Ilfosol 3 1+9
Depth of Character
Finally back with a new image! This is my good friend Sylvain; a couple of weeks ago I enjoyed meeting up with him and other good friends just outside Montreal. This image was created with my 4×5 Speed Graphic and 1860’s Petzval lens.
When Sylvain saw the image, he said he thought he looked “serious.” The word that works for me is “thoughtful”; like everyone at the gathering, Sylvain is a person of great depth and creativity; he lives up to the caption on his T-shirt. This lens has a very shallow depth of field, but I think it captures depth of character.
HP5+ developed in D-76 stock solution
My Third Eye 