Ian Austen

A biege and white stucco wall with apparently glue on wooden trim that neeeds fresh paint. Stainless steel letters spell out HOTEL. There is a small rectangular window with a blue curtain.

More from Montreal Road in Ottawa's Vanier neighborhood. I don't want to know what lies behind that window. (Fuji GSW690II, 65mm f5.6 Fujinon SW, Fuji 400H)

Oops. The alt: a beige stuccoed brick wall surrounds a shop widow with photos of meals and a mostly obscured restaurant name. A bunch of color full flowers are getting some sun in a tiny corner of the window which is quite grime covered.

Montreal Road, in Ottawa's Vanier neighborhood. (Fuji GSW690II, 65mm f5.6 Fujinon SW, Fuji 400H)

The concentrate is BW&G

I once used only Xtol. The results are pretty much the same with BW&G. But you don’t have to mix 5l of stock solution that might suddenly turn into water before its expiry date. And BW&G, like Rodinal, is long lived. So no more Xtol for me.

It is a brilliant lens. I don’t hold its excessive weight and awful Ilex shutter against it.

@panamstyle.bsky.social they are old friends. But I’m away from my office so I can’t immediately pull the photo.

Sometimes clerks find out and shout at me! Very nice photo Eddie

Two men are crossing paths on a temporary staircase going up a partly snow covered, steep hillside. Somewhat disconnect steel mesh fences surround them.

The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switerzland is a bonanza for companies that rent temporary steel fences and stairways. The only firms that obviously do better are the owners of the black Mercedes vans that clog the streets. (Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss 38mm f4.5 Biogon, Kodak Tri-X)

Perhaps it's just cut out to lighten the base plate. Deardorffs have a big round hunk of metal with a measly 1/4 in tripod hole in the center and the company's name cast into the metal.

A woman with a large tote bag is talking on a phone with one arm raised in gesture. She is standing on snow in front of an off white cube, which was a hot chocolate stand on the other side. A dark modernist one story building with mirrored windows. Further back is an ornate, white old hotel withe many balconies. In front of the woman is a curved stone wall leading down to a road. A black Mercedes van is in the left of the frame.

Davos, Switzerland during the World Economic Forum last month. Don't be fooled by the lack of humanity. The road at the top of the frame was packed with pedestrians and cars. The van in the frame was participating in monumental gridlock. (Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss 38mm f4.5 Biogon, Kodak Tri-X)

A payphone in front of a wall with mixed colored bricks. It has a lot of graffiti and stickers on it including one that reads "BEEN THRU HELL". There is snow on the sidewalk in front of it. There is a Bell phone pictograph mounted on the building and another sign indicated, in French and English, that office space is available for rent in the building along with a phone number and a URL for the Westmount Medical Building. Another sign is torn so all that's visible is the word "garage." There is a tunnel lined with lights to the left and above it is the street number 5025.

Westmount, Sherbrooke Street, Montreal. The "BEEN THRU HELL" sticker certainly applies to this phone. There was no dial tone and the LED display was dead. (Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss 38mm f4.5 Biogon, Kodak Tri-X)

A small white child's push car that resembles a Mercedes GLC SUV sings on a cobbled sidewalk with shrubs and trees behind it. It has a folding roof with plastic windows. A scooter is parked nearby.

Suburban Gyeongju, South Korea. Yes, that's a Mercedes-Benz branded push car (Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss 38mm f4.5 Biogon, Kodak TriX)

A single bright light illuminates a rectangular concrete column. Three large chunks of stone as set in front of it with construction bollards closer to the camera. A tarp on a construction fence read: LIKA Real Estate. A car is in the distance on the right.

Underneath a tram line next to a railway near the Zurich airport. A spot, to my knowledge, that is not found in any tourist guidebook. (Leica M Monochrom, 28mm f2.8 Elmarit M)

Yes, they don't offer much changing room

A high ceilinged room with windows high up. There are two sets of sliding doors with signs reading "1" and "2" above them. They are flanked by three cylindrical Bell phone booths. A "claw" machine is next to one of the phones A sign above a window looking into where the buses park is largely obscured and read "Bon Appé".

The new-ish Montreal intercity bus terminal is fully equipped with pay phones. (Mamiya 7ii, 43mm f4.5, Kodak TriX)

@peterdurst.bsky.social fantastic. A rare surviving Centurion booth. I have to get up there.

A curved traditional Korean roof looms above a shelf with a several bits and pieces of largely unidentifiable junk under and around it. A small CRT TV sits on top and there is something that may be a solar panel or flat antenna. A lot of cable is loosely bound to a telephone pole. The word garden and some Korean letters is visible above a door that leads to a concrete wall.

Gyeongju, South Korea, once the capital of the ancient Silla Kingdom, is justly proud of its traditional tile roofs. This one has a McDonald's underneath it. It was unclear what this laneway collection is all about. (Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss 38mm f4.5 Biogon, Kodak TriX)

Thanks. I’ve now hit 700

A Bell payphone kiosk mounted on the wall of a brick retail building with a paver sidewalk. There are two prominent stem punk style lamps above it and a small pictograph sign for the phone as well as a no vaping or smoking sign. The entrance to the store has an awning as does its shop window. A white security grill is drawn behind the window,

A strip mall at Terry Fox Drive and March Road in the tech epicenter of Ottawa's Kanata suburb. (Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss 38mm f4.5 Biogon, Kodak TriX)

Don’t go near a Makina 67! I keep it around because it’s sometimes handy to have a MF camera you can shoot at f2.8. (If it’s working.) My only SWC regret is not getting years earlier. Although I have zero interest in the Blad SLRs

If you're in the market for an even more unreliable and much heavier camera but which is also compact and has an excellent lens, ask me about the Makina 67.

I now cure my 645 itch with an A16 back and the VF mask on my Hasselblad SWC. Not only is it reliable and compact, it's a rare 645 that's landscape oriented.

A door that's ajar leading into a lit space. The window framing in the door includes an oval. Above the door is a frosted piece of glass with many large cracks.

The old town in Zurich (Leica M Monochrome, 35mm f1.4 Summilux ASPH)

A partly obscured night view of the back of a large snowgrooming machine. It has at least three large spotlights. The trail it groomed is visible to the left.

A snow groomer at work on a nordic ski trail in a residential section of Davos, Switzerland. The area did not escape the World Economic Forum gridlock. People might have paid to get out of town on the groomer. (Leica M Monochrom, 50mm f1.2 Noctilux M ASPH)

It would be ideal for travel given the excellent lens and the compactness. But I never take it with me because it's so untrustworthy. I found a repair manual after it conked out once. The shutter release is insanely complex, not just a glorified cable release. But the Fuji 6x9s are indestructible.

Peter: a prosaic question. Because my GS645S is addicted to being repaired, I don’t take it out in the winter cold. You clearly do. Is there a cutoff?

A porch attached to the white stucco wall of a church. One side has a screen made of small rectangular pieces of glass set into leading. The panes cast a shadow on the wall.

More from the church in Quarten, Switzerland. (Ebony GP69F, Zeiss 80m f2.8 Planar, Fuji Acros 100II)

My Monochrom M (the original Kodak CCD one) is the only digital camera I've ever loved. And because it has a tiny buffer, it's actually slower than a film M to use!

An entranceway of a white stucco church seen from the side. There are many shadows of trees on it. The entranceway floor is ornately tiled. Beyond the portico is a railing with a currently leafless vine on it. Far in the distance is the side of a mountain.

The main entrance to the church in Quarten, Switzerland. In the background is a very small portion of the side of a very large mountain across a lake. (Ebony GP69F, Zeiss 80m f2.8 Planar, Fuji Acros 100II)