Finding a mill can sometimes be a happy accident!

Sunday December 27th 2009: Today I went for a drive east of the GTA to explore some mills with a friend of mine. Our objective was to first head to Tyrone Mill, where we spent some time working on some HDR captures. I love visitng Tyrone Mill, as it was the first mill I ever visited as part of my mill project. I find myself returning to Tyrone over and over again, as I fell in love with that mill from the very start.

We were heading across sideroad 4 after leaving Tyrone travelling east. After sometime of travelling we passed a sign which made me do a double take. I wasn't sure what I had just seen, but I knew I had to turn around to find out what it said. Now here is the happy accident. The sign read "Fudges Mill, Hallelujah Books Gifts & Crafts". After a short drive down the road titled "Grist Mill Road", we came upon a bonified water powered grist mill! This mill would have only milled grain turned into grain for animals. From my observations, it looks like this mill provided a service to local farmers in grinding and refining grain. The mill still has most of its artifacts intact, making it an awesome visit. The mill is however quite cluttered with a lot of articles of belonging to its previous owners. For example, in the main part of the mill there is a 12' long church pew which was obviously part of the religous articles business that may have previously occupied the mill. I am going to be trying to do some research on the history of the mill, and I will report back as I find out some information. For now, here is a picture of the mill. There are more images to be seen in my flickr gallery.

Update: MILLWORKS in 2010

Announcing my upcoming exhibition in May 2010 at TAN COFFEE - 992 Queen St. W. MILLWORKS 2! The second installation of my historic mill photographic project will be presented at Tan Coffee in May of 2010 along Queen West. The second installation of my project promises to be bigger and better! More information to come.

Queen West Art Crawl

Thank you to everyone who stopped by this past weekend at the Queen West Art Crawl. To those of you who took my card. Please check out some of my images from the Millworks project. The link will take you to my Flickr page. I am hoping to rebuild my website coming soon. In the meantime, you can also email me at lxdesign@rogers.com with any questions. I'd be happy to email you some sample contacts of my work. Custom sizes are available for all of my prints.

MILLWORKS featured on the Ontario Heritage Connection website!

I am very excitied to announce that the Ontario Heritage Connection has published an article about my MILLWORKS project on their website. They have also mentioned that I will be at the upcoming Queen West Art Crawl, as well as mentioning my connection to SPOOM having become a member recently. OHC's mission is to serve as a hub for the exchange of information about Ontario's culture, history, built and natural heritage, archaeology and the environment using the Internet. I would like to thank the Ontario Heritage Connection for showcasing my images and project. Please visit their site at the link below...

http://www.ontarioheritageconnection.org/

Heading North

Hello everyone, with the summer almost at an end, its my favorite time of the year to get out and photograph. This coming weekend I will be heading to the forest ... Haliburton forest that is. With the hope of another moose sighting. We'll see.

Then on monday, I am off on a week long photography trip with fellow photographers Toni Wallachy, Maureen Littlewood, and John Wallace joins us on day four. We are starting from Toronto staying overnight at Tobermory, Manitoulin Island, Batchawana Bay provincial park, Lake Superior provincial park, and Chutes provincial park. I am looking forward to the adventure. In the meantime... I still have the Pentax 6x7 for sale. If you are interested drop me a line! I am not back from my vacation until August 30th.

Stay safe, and happy shooting!

David

For Sale: Pentax 67 Medium Format Camera

Hi everyone, thank you to all of those who dropped by this past weekend at the Guild Alive with Culture event at the Guild Inn in Scarborough. We had a very hot and sunny weekend, and talked with lots of folks who dropped by the booth. A big thank you to all of those who supported the art sale.

I have decided that I have 1 too many medium format camera's... and I am selling my Pentax 67 medium format camera. This camera is capable of producing some excellent images! The 6x7 format is 3 times larger than that of 35mm film, for superior resolution and quality. The camera comes with the 90mm normal lens, non-metered prism, and original manual. I am asking $400 for the camera. If you are interested, please feel free to contact me via email.

Thank you everyone, and happy shooting!

The Guild Alive With Art

This coming Saturday August 15th and Sunday August 16th, drop by the Guild Inn park for the "Guild Alive with art" artists sale. The sale runs from 10am to 6pm on Saturday and Sunday, and you will be able to see a collection of images from both my MILLWORKS project, and images of the Guild Inn Park. Special discounts for those who mentioned seeing my blog advertisement! Look forward to seeing you this weekend.

David

2012 or BUST!

This is a special announcement! 5 of my images will be appearing in the Toronto Newsgirls Boxing Club exhibit titled "2012 or BUST!" appearing for the entire month of August at The Grapefruit Moon restaurant at 968 Bathurst Street. Here is a description:

"2012 or BUST!"

Please come and check out the awesome Newsgirls Photoshow at the Grapefruit Moon Restaurant for the whole month of August! The Grapefruit Moon Restaurant, 968 Bathurst north of Bloor, has generously given us their entire wall to display 40+ photos of our fabulous female boxers in action. You gotta check it out! It's awesome! And their food is awesome! And affordable. If you don't know the Grapefruit Moon, this is your chance to impress a date with good food and good times.

Boxing in the 2012 Olympics is looking good for women. It won't be announced until the Fall but if all goes as planned, CABA (the Canadian Amateur Boxing Association) will be announcing that boxing, the only Summer Olympic sport that does not allow women's participation, will finally be letting the women in.

July Update

Hello all, I haven't done any updates for several weeks! My appologies. I have been very busy shooting more images for my MILLWORKS project, and talking with several owners of the mills. Generally, they have been very interested in my project, and have been very supportive in allowing me access to photograph the mills. Thank you to all of the mill owners and operators that have allowed me to do so.

I have been speaking with the owner of Tyrone Mill, and will have some of my greeting cards and 5x7 / 8x10 prints available for sale in the mill coming soon in the next few weeks. I am currently selecting images that will be for sale, and hope to have them delivered in the next 2 weeks to the mill.

I am also looking into applying for an artists grant to continue working on my Waterfalls project. The grant money would be used for travel to northern Ontario to see some of the waterfall locations which are more difficult to get to.

thanks for reading, hope you are all having a wonderful summer, and thank for for visiting www.sweeneyimages.com!

Film Fanatic?

I would not call myself a film fanatic.. as clearly I am not, owning a D700 and D90 as my main camera's, but recently a friend of mine decided to call is completely quits on all of her film she was storing in her fridge for the past 3 years or more. So with close to 75-100 rolls of film in the bag, I decided it was time to upgrade my film body from a lowly Nikon F50 to the amazing and faboo F100. The camera is fantastic, and I am looking forward to using it over the next couple of months shooting mostly slide film.

Aside from the F100, I just spent Wednesday June 22nd evening at the Guild Inn park. I am proud to say, I didn't take a single digital image that night. Instead I was armed with the Cambo 4x5 and Pentax 67 Medium format camera. I did 6 exposures on 4x5, and the better part of 1.5 rolls in MF. A fun evening, and always a joy to concentrate on shooting film. I hope film will be around for a lot longer that most think... and it never dies.

Upcoming Projects:

With MILLWORKS coming to an end, the project is not over! I actually continued shooting mills all throughout the month of May, having visited locations such as the Barber Mill in Georgetown, Hillsdale Mill, Coldwater Mill, and more. What's coming up for MILLWORKS?

June 13th and 14th, MILLWORKS project was on display and prints were for sale at the Beach Arts & Craft Show in Kew Gardens. August 15th & 16th 2009 - David will be selling prints and more from the MILLWORKS Project at The Guild Alive With Culture, at the grounds of the Guild Inn in Scarborough. MILLWORKS will also be featured at David's booth at the Queen West Art Crawl coming up in September on the 19th and 20th.

I not only have framed and unframed prints available at the art sales, but greeting cards as well. I can also print and frame any custom size you may be looking for. If you would like more info on the upcoming shows, please feel free to contact me.

MILLWORKS EXTENDED!

This news just in... Millworks has been extended until June 10th at TAN Coffee - 992 Queen St. W. The next artist coming into TAN will not be hanging until 2 weeks from now, so I was given more time for the exhibit! Thank you to Marilyn Eng at TAN coffee. Please stop by to have some amazing coffee, and view the Millworks exhibit.

Last Week: MILLWORKS!

Hello Everyone,

this is the final week to come by at TAN Coffee (992 Queen St. W.) to see my latest exhibit MILLWORKS 1.0 running in conjunction with CONTACT Toronto.

The show will officially come down on the evening of June 1st. Thank you to everyone who has dropped by, and I have been overwhelmed by the positive response. I will be mounting another exhibit featuring more images from the mill project.

If you are interested in an image from the MILLWORKS exhibit, please contact me, as the work is for sale, and available as framed prints, matted 5x7's, or greeting cards. Custom framing also available for larger sizes, or prints on canvas.

Haliburton Forest weekend.

While my Millworks Exhibit is still on display at Tan Coffee at 992 Queen St. W. until the end of the month of May 2009. I spent this past weekend up at my wife's family trailer in Haliburton Forest. We had a great weekend opening up the trailer for the first time since the fall. The bugs stayed away, as it was either too windy or cold for them to come out. It only got nice and sunny on the holiday monday as we were leaving. I got to spend time photographing the wolves at the Haliburton Forest Wolf Centre (I am a member), and driving around the property looking for waterfalls. There were lots of waterfalls and rapids to see at Haliburton Forest with the rivers and lakes swollen as they are this spring. I got some great images from this weekend.

The ride home was wonderful too! I took a new route, and explored a new mill which somehow I completely missed the last time I was in Kinmount. The Austin saw mill is in the midst of a restoration project. It looks like they are doing a great job too. I will be following this project throughout the summer everytime I go up to the forest. We also stopped in to Tyrone Mill on the way home to drop off some post cards from the Millworks project. The image featured on the post card was taken at Tyrone Mill. I will post some images soon.

4x5 back up and working!

I am happy to announce that today, I finally got around to replacing the ground glass on my Cambo 4x5 monorail camera. So for any of you who read this and know me well. You will see me shooting with the 4x5 soon. Its a conversation piece for sure! Now... off to the store to pick out some film.

Attending SPOOM this weekend.

I am really looking forward to tomorrow - Saturday May 9th. It will be my first time attending a SPOOM event. SPOOM is the Society for the preservation of old mills (Canadian Chapter). This is a north american wide organization which holds events, throughout the year. The emphasis is on the preservation of mills. Tomorrow's theme is on the alternative uses of old mills. Two of the mills which we will be visiting (Salem Mill and Birge Mill) have been turned into private homes, while maintaining some of the milling history in the buildings, incorporated into the home. Most of all, I am looking forward to promoting my exhibit on right now at TAN Coffee - 992 Queen St. W. and giving out post cards. Also on the list of possible mills to visit in the Grand river region is Hortop Mill (seen left). I will give a report on how the day went.

MILLWORKS is open!

Today is the day, my first exhibit on historic mills is open at TAN Coffee (992 Queen St. W.) in Toronto. Please come by to see the images that I have hung for the exhibit. The shop closes daily at 9pm. I would like to thank Toni Wallachy for coming and helping me hang the work last night. She was a big help with making decisions about how to hang the work. I would also like to put in a plug for QSQ - Queen Street Qreative, who did my canvas printing. They did a fantastic job, and pricing was reasonable! Check them out at http://www.qsqinc.com

Millworks opens tomorrow!

Millworks 1.0 officially opens tomorrow at TAN Cofee @ 992 Queen St. W. in Toronto (North east corner of Ossington & Queen). I am excited about the exhibit, as this is the first public showing (aside from flickr) of my historic mills project. All of the works are for sale, if you are interested in a piece, please contact me at lxdesign@rogers.com for information. Please also feel free to contact me if you would like more background info on any of the sites that I have visited or would like to see more of my historic mill project.

Chaffey's Mill

I was contacted by the owner of Chaffey's Mill recently on flickr. I was very surprised, as I am sure many owners of the mills have possibly taken notice by now that I am doing this project.

I wasn't sure about Chaffey's Mill, as the two times that I was there, nobody was home. Anyhow, I am glad I did get the picture that I did, as I was informed that the roof is going to be redone this year with a new copper roof. Chaffey's Mill is a wonderful site, also coupled with a lock part of the Rideu system.

MILLWORKS is coming!

Are you getting excited to see my new exhibit opening at TAN Coffee at 992 Queen St. W. this coming Friday? Well, I certainly am. Last night I got a lot of work done in preparation for the show, and I am looking foward to hanging the show on Thursday. I hope that everyone who comes to see my work, will like the images. I tried to choose a cross section of images which best represents my project. I hope this will be just the beggining, with future opportunities to exhibit more of my work from this project. I am also happy to announce, that my friend Toni and I were recently accepted into the Queen West Art Crawl for 2009. We will have a 10'x20' booth displaying our work again, with images available for sale in greeting cards, prints of different sizes, and framed works. If you have any questions or are interested in seeing some samples of my work, please feel free to contact me anytime at lxdesign@rogers.com

CONTACT is coming!

The 2009 edition of CONTACT - Toronto's photography festival is coming soon. The festival runs during the month of May every year in Toronto. This year, I regret that I was a little broke, and wasn't able to afford to pay the fee to enter, but I am very happy to announce that I am still exhibiting a solo collection of works at TAN Coffee in Toronto (992 Queen St. W.) at Queen W. & Ossington Ave.

My show entitled "Millworks 1.0" will be the first time I am exhibiting a collection of images dedicated to my Historic Mills Of Ontario project. A project which I have been very passionate about for the last year. The collection will feature new work, and images which can be seen on my flickr site. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lxdesign/sets/72157604234545704/. I am planning to exhibit both traditional C-prints, as well as canvas prints. I am going to be spending a lot of time this coming weekend to select the images, and I have to get cracking as of Monday next week to produce the prints. Its always a fun and creative process getting ready for a show.

While I am not having any kind of formal opening or reception, I would invite people to come by on Friday May 1st to see my show. I will be available from 4-6pm at the coffee shop to answer any quesitons about the work. I can also be contact by email at: lxdesign@rogers.com

Film Is Not Dead!

Film is not dead... today I went to Downtown Camera Inc. and dropped off 3 rolls of E6 (slide film), and 1 roll of black and white. All shot on my Pentax 6x7 medium format camera. I can't wait to see the results! There is always something magical about shooting film, and getting it processed, opening up the roll, and taking a look at it on a light table. The gratification of nailing the exposure, getting the technical things just right, and coming home with winning images. I can't describe the satisfaction when an image moves you.

I am also anxious to get out and start using my 4x5 monorail camera again. Back in August of 2008, I dropped the holder which houses the ground glass of the camera. This is an essential part of the camera, as this is where focus is confirmed, before sliding in the film holder. Without the ground glass, you can't focus or compose the shot. I got a quote from Vistek to replace it, but the price is not right. I am looking into an alternate supplier.

As much as I love the digital world.... viva la film!

Trip to Brockville & PEC

Happy Easter to everyone! I had a very busy Easter weekend which started on Thursday last week with a very late night drive to Brockville. I stayed overnight with my friend at her parent's house, and we spent the majority of Good Friday exploring mills and light houses from Brockville to Alexandria (just past Cornwall). We saw many good mills during our exploration. Some of the locations were not accessible, so plans for a future trip are definately in the works. Saturday we spent the day heading back towards Toronto, but stopping at many more locations again. One of the towns (Newburgh), turned out to be a treasure trove of mills! Indicated as a small dot in the Historic Mills Of Ontario book, this was definately a hot spot. We counted somewhere in the range of 5-6 mills in this area. Some were ruins, and the remainder are private homes. I am planning to return again, and photograph this collection of mills.

On Sunday, we headed out again. This time, our plan was to head towards Prince Edward County. The plan was to visit Scott's Mill, and the Glenora Mill. The only two locations indicated in the "Historic Mills Of Ontario" book. As it turns out - there are many more than we expected. We found a number of mill locations aside from the Glenora and Scott's mill. The highlight of the day however, was the visit to Scott's Mill. As it turns out, we happened to visit PEC on the same day that the Rotary Club of Picton was hosting a waterfalls tour. Scott's mill happens to be located not more than 500 feet from a beautiful waterfall in PEC. One that I didn't even know about. Most of the waterfalls in PEC are located on private property. The highlight was the fact that the mill was open to the public - something which is rare, as it now belongs to the conservation authority who are working on a possible restoration project of the mill. We had an excellent weekend. I will be posting pictures to flickr in the next few days. I will update the blog when that is done.

Heading east for the weekend

With the long weekend coming up, I decided that it would be a great weekend to get outside and continue the mill photography project. So this weekend, I am heading east with a friend to explore historic mills from Kingston to Cornwall, and north up the Ottawa corridor. There lots of mills in this section of Ontario, with the Rideu river and other river systems providing perfect locations for milling communities in the mid-late 1800's. I am looking forward to exploring this area. One of the mills close to Kingston is the Babcock Mill (seen above).

Welcome To The Sweeney Images Blog!

I am completely new the world of blogging! Welcome to the start of my new blog! Here I will be posting information on my work, what I have been up to, new collection of images available. I look forward to updating you in the weeks/months and years to come.

David