.May 2025.

May was a helluva month–got the groove back and boy did time slow down. I love when that happens. When you throw yourself into your art and time starts to stand still in the best ways. It’s funny looking back at the first quarters’ trials and tribulations; the seemingly long grey days while March & April flew by. Now we’re here, standing on the edge of summer and all I had to do was push through and overcome myself.

I’ve got a great bunch of photos this month for yas! Living so close to High Park allowed me to experience the Sakura from their budding beginnings to their beautiful blooms, and of course their fated fall. I wanted to shoot them a bit different than what I generally see so I picked up some Harman Red and my other fav film stock Zombie–for its saturated grains. For those who are unfamiliar with film, Harman Red is a red scale film stock giving the entire frame a very red through yellow hue. What makes this one special is that Harman took their Phoenix film and reversed the film in the can. Imagine pulling an entire roll out of the can, flipping it, and inserting it upside down. I felt this would be fitting giving the abundance of pinks and whites of the blossoms and would be fun to see the results. I also then calibrated the colours in post and it gave some very interesting greens and blues. You may also notice some orb like shapes, this is due to the film pressing against my cameras back plate since it is reverse film, it is sensitive to touch.

The sentiment this month was getting back to what made photography fun and immersing myself in anything I found interesting, I took the edge off of being so street focussed and applied my style to anything and everything–parks, golf, disc golf, cottaging, Maple Leafs Square, etc. I even had to battle avoiding the cliché palm tree photos in Mexico, where I was pleasantly confined to a resort but made it work. Cause hey! I haven’t taken those photos yet, and one thing I’ve learned is there is no shortcuts; you have to take those same photos as everyone else to move through the flow and onto the magic around the corner.

Notable photos for me this month are the humming bird, kid chasing duck, jeans against tree (not with bike), black Leafs jersey with CN reflected behind, Tyler putting DG (wide angle), all the BW of Mexico, and the colours… Hands down fav film stocks now are Colour Plus, Tmax (love pushing this film) for its contrast and low to high grain complex, and of course Zombie.

Enjoy!