Ian Austen

A tall, old French chateau style hotel with a copper roof. There are no leaves on the trees on a sunny day.

I shot this before my addiction to payphone developed so you need to look closely for the kiosk. The Bessborough Hotel (built by the Canadian National Railway near a no longer existing station), Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. (Leica M (Typ 262), Zeiss 28mm f2.8 Biogon ZM)

John McCallum and Joyce Douglas!

@lloyddavis.ca my apologies. It happens all the time. Copy editing classes were not a highlight of my time at that institution

The front of a narrow hotel has a sign reading Leo Leisure Hotel. The font for the word Leisure resembles a cut up Malaysian flag. A man sits at an enormous desk perhaps made from bamboo that resembles a whale. Behind him, a person is looking out from a staircase. A silver car is very poorly parked out front.

‪It seemed best not to know what forms of leisure can be found in this Kuala Lumpur hotel. But its whale shaped front desk is quite extraordinary. (Leica M Monochrom, 35mm f1.4 Summilux ASPH)

All of Ontario now with the bike lanes. It would take a lot to win me around on the heat however.

It seems less than ideal.

A stretch of road painted red with three painted motorbikes and the words Zon Motoskal. Someone in light colored clothing is on a small motorbike at the far side. Two cars are stopped behind the motorcyclist. A very weathered concrete abutment for a monorail looms above.

I'm not really sure how these motorcycle zones at traffic lights In Kuala Lumpur work. I do know that many of its lanes for bicycles are very ill conceived. The heat and humidity also limit the appeal of riding, even for me. (Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss 38mm f4.5 Biogon, Fuji 400H)

A phone kiosk next to an Esso service station sign. It's two steel protective guards are bent and the Bell logo is missing from its front. A large Canada Post van is parked near it and an apartment building with a curved corner is further back.

Rue Ontario Est, Montreal. The phone's dialtone was feeble. (Mamiya 7ii, 43mm f4.5, Kodak Tri X)

A space into three sets of doors, two of them sliding. Script lettering on the doors at the right, a sliding one, reads "Hotel" and there is warm light inside. A red door mat is in front of the door. At the rear is a brightly lit, red and white striped vending machine. To its left are two exterior doors. Their glass is covered over with images of leaves. The ceiling is white with a few random red or black ceiling tiles.

A hotel entrance in Singapore with a convenient outdoor vending machine. (Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss 38mm f4.5 Biogon, Fuji 400H)

Oh I know. And Japan as well. Unfortunately the Canadian prime minister decided to go elsewhere.

A scene lit by streetlight of a vaguely tulip-shaped payphone kisok without a phone but with a tiny sign reading TELEFON. it is in front of of a light colored stucco building that has narrow but tall and multipaned windows. To the right some steps lead up to double doors also with tall and narrow windows.

‪During a trip that involved flying 30,000 km to, from and around Asia; this distinctive kiosk at the Telekom Museum in Kuala Lumpur is the closest I got to a payphone. The building was the British colonial telephone exchange. (Leica M5 on a tripod, 35mm f1.4 ASPH, Fuji Acros 100)

In the foreground is a bike path with light colored, squiggly bands inset into its surface. A metal and wood dock with cottage chairs and a Canadian flag is just offshore. Across a small lake is a line of trees.

This swimming dock the @ncc-ccn.gc.ca opened in Ottawa this year was very popular. In season, there was rarely a time when people were not heading down for dip when I cycled past it. It's in Dow's Lake, a bend in the Rideau Canal (Shen Hao FCL810AC, 210mmf9Computar, @ilfordphoto.com FP4)

A sandy road leading to a clearing surrounded by tall pines with skinny trunks. An outhouse sits at the far end of the clearing. The sun is peeking through the trees at the right.

Leaf Lake, Algonquin Provincial Park near Whitney, Ontario. It's the trailhead for an excellent cross country ski trail system in the winter. The general absence of cars during the rest of the year suggests it offers less great hiking. (Shen Hao FCL810-AC, 210mm f9 Computar, Kodak TXP 320)

An ornate, cast iron spiral staircase painted white. The floor has equally elaborate white, black and gray tiles. The wall is white with gray columns. A bit of a table and stool are in the frame.

And a relic of colonial Singpore: a 19th c Catholic convent that's now the Chijmes restaurant complex. I didn't have time to climb the stairs to see where they go and no sign left me the wiser. (Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss 38mm f4.5 Biogon, Fuji 400H)

A view into open doors leading to takeout food places with illuminated menus. rows of table and chairs, all yellow, are in the foreground. Overhead is the light colored underside of a stairway.

This restaurant or collection of restaurants in Singapore looked like a modest storefront from the the street but it stretched down most of this block-long interior walkway (Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss 38mm f4.5 Biogon, Fuji 400H)

Many phones have disappeared there over the last year and a half.

@katearmstrong.bsky.social @photoblair.bsky.social that’s great. Although this year has been a happy exception, I spend too much time at Pearson so I’ve shot some of the phones repeatedly in different formats.

A white wall with a dark covered inset containing a single payphone in a space that could accommodate two, maybe more. A insect trapping light is mounted left of the inset. A window opens out onto trees.

The new rest stops on Quebec's autoroute 20 may not have plywood fleur-de-lis above the entrance but they are much better otherwise. This one preserves a tiny bit of their payphone legacy although the space suggests that even more phones were planned. (Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss 38mm f4.5 Biogon, TriX)

TriX is pretty long lived beyond the expiry date if it’s been out of heat. So they were still useable although it doesn’t sound like you were inclined to use it.

That’s a shame unless it was verging on ancient.

Another retailer outdid that with me this week. And, no, that wasn’t my entire order.

A narrow country road with cracked pavement leads out toward the sun with many shaded sections. A large tree to the left sits on the lakeshore.

Wolfe Island, Ontario which sits in Lake Ontario at the head of the St. Lawrence River. For me, a rare color shot in 8x10. (Shen Hao FCL 810-AC, 190mm f6.3 Kodak Wide Field Ektar, Kodak Portra 160)

I went out on a longish walk at 1:30 am to take a payphone photo and it didn't help very much. Although it did at least allow me to escape the sun's frying pan effect.

Thank you

It’s incredible even late at night

A payphone kiosk on an unpainted concrete block wall with a phone book holder dangling underneath. To the left is a poster about the campus security service. There is a entrance to a Mens' room. And a back lit add with a photo of a woman and the words: Un café avec Judith Fetzer. Some candy vending machines are next to it.

A relatively new payphone at the University of Ottawa. (Leica M Monochrom, 50mm f1.2 Noctilux APSH M)

It's a hotel

The side of a buiding plastered in external air conditioning units. Ahead of it are two steel fences In front of them on gravel, mud and a rock are large plastic pails, a traffic cone and a rake. A sign notifies of camera surveillance. In the distance is a tall, glass covered building.

For a soft Canadian like me, the heat and humidity of Kuala Lumpur, even in late October, was, to put it mildly, excessive. (Hasselblad SWC, Zeiss 38mm Biogon, Fuji 400H)

A night photo of a wall mounted payphone to the right of a store entrance. A sign above it read: Welcome to Yuill's Valu-Mart. Underneath are a tidy trash bin and a recycling bin. Two empty plastic newspaper boxes for Bancroft This Week and a bagged ice freezer.

This phone in Barry's Bay, Ontario is on the highway where the payphone madness began over four years ago. I've been past this grocery store many times since but somehow only spotted the phone in August. A friendly watchman was proud of it (Chamonix57N1, Schneider 180mmf5.6 APO Symmar, Kodak TXP320)

Looking down two escalators with yellow warning stripes painted on their treads. There is a colorful row of ads at the bottom.

5/5 While Kuala Lumpur's new luxury malls are impressive and overwhelming (the camera store in one sold only DJI drones and digital Hasselblads), the Wisma Cosway mall holds its own in a more useful, if modest and dated, way. (Hasselblad SWC, 38mm f4.5 Biogon, Fuji 400H)