Celebrating the New Year
We left LAX on December 28th. Our destination, Buffalo, NY, where we pick up our car to drive the final leg of the trip, ending up in Niagara on the Lake, Ontario Canada. We were invited to spend a few days to celebrate the New Year with our good friends Reggie and Bruce. 
They had been working feverishly to put the finishing touches on their newly renovated farmhouse. I was looking forward to leaving the 80° heat in LA and spending some time in a beautiful place with real winter weather.
A few months before this trip we were in Toronto for the International Film Festival. The movies that Becki and Reggie had last worked on were premiering at the festival. The studio graciously sent Becki and I got to tag along as her +1. We attended the premiere, partied a little and visited with friends. We also took a ride with Bruce to see the farmhouse in progress. I am still amazed at the amount of work that was done and how well it all turned out. Everything was perfect.
I brought my Rolleiflex 3.5f on the trip along with 10 rolls of film and great expectations. Well, it was cold. It snowed. We had a warm fire inside along with great food and plenty of academy screeners to watch. The conversation and the company were simply too good to consider taking off by myself to shoot some film. So, I came home with most of the film unexposed, but I’m sure I had a better time for it.
The photos below were shot on Tri-X at box speed and then developed in HC-110 (1+49). Shooting black and white in the snow presents a few challenges. There is loads of contrast when the sun is shining and losing detail in the highlights is easy. When cloudy, pictures can become a dull grey mass with no deep shadows or bright highlights. Given all of this, shooting black and white film in the snow has given me some of my all-time favorite images. Here are a few photos taken when we actually left the house and ventured out into the cold. Enjoy.
