5 Frames of Snowstorms and Coyotes

Scarborough, Ontario. January 25th, 2026. Minus 20 Celsius. It’s a blurry, flurry, bitterly cold day. There’s a snowstorm raging, but it’s calm inside. Suddenly, the sound of a cup of tea being set back on the table with more conviction than appropriate for a Sunday afternoon. “Let’s go out for a walk!”, she says.

Twenty minutes later, I find myself knee-deep in perfectly crunchy, blindingly white snow while my face is being scrubbed with ice-cold snowflakes. We passed a sign stating we’re walking into a ‘Coyote Hotspot’ area. Who knew… a coyote invasion at the end of our street. Let’s hope the mongrels like snow as much as I do and are wisely staying home huddling around a nice warm wood-stove fire.

Snap back to reality and of course there are no coyotes, no cozy wood fire, and certainly no nice walk in the park. This is pretty much my definition of ‘crap’. Thank goodness I brought a camera build just for this (crap, eh)! I’d like to refer to this great post by YEER31 right here on this website – a post that partly convinced me to do some more research and venture out to acquire this camera. Thankfully, eBay came through and since about a year or so I’m a very happy owner of a mint ‘Guv’ (Konica Genba Kontaku 28WB). Which I hardly ever use – because it’s not often required to bring such a workhorse to the scene, but today was one of those days.

While mobilizing for the trek into the great white outdoors, I had grabbed a 2022 roll of ‘Shanghai Light 400 ISO’ film from my expired film stash. I don’t have great memories of using Shanghai films; especially their old GP3 has disappointed me in th past. But this one came in quite a nice box, so I gave the Shanghai Jian Cheng Technology Co. another try. Aesthetics easily convince me, you see. The results were…okay – for a cheap film in a point-and-shoot camera.

The walk itself…was largely forgettable. It reminded me that my Gen X bones require more regular workouts to do this kind of thing ‘for fun’ without over-exerting myself. The snow was knee-deep and higher at times. The wind was punishing. But the camera worked like it should: silently, fast, and without a hitch even while covered in snow…though I suspect it had some trouble focussing with the amount of snow blowing around it. I yet have to find a better way to make use of its wide lens, but for unplanned, to-heck-with-the-weather outings, you just can’t go wrong.

Thanks for reading!

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