Happy New Year to everyone!! Many Thanks to all of you that have been returning to read my blog on a regular basis. As a fifty-plus-year-old Red Neck that barely made it through high school I'm surprised and appreciative of all the compliments I get about my writing. Apparently I can do more than take pictures... and I appreciate all the encouragement.
The girls and I have had quite a relaxed holiday this year. I closed my shop for an extended holiday break on December 19th, and I'm not re-opening it until Monday January 5th. I've been in a number of times to check the building, bring in the mail, and respond to a few phone and e-mail messages... But mostly it has been a nice extended break.
We spent Christmas Eve out at my Mom's place, with my brothers and their families. On Christmas Day Margarit's side of the family came over to our place for Christmas Dinner. New Years Eve was pretty low key and we walked over to the neighborhood Community Hall for the fireworks display. It was an early one... at 9:00PM. Margarit and I turned in early, and I think we were both asleep well before the strike of midnight. But, the two older girls stayed up watching all the New Year's Eve shows on TV and probably didn't get to sleep until the wee hours... They won't admit how late they actually stayed up!!
The temperature was cold around Christmas but warmed up in recent days. Yesterday it got up around the freezing point, and today, New Year's Day, it got up to about +3C. Tonight there is a weather front moving in and the temperature is supposed to plummet by the weekend. There is a snowfall warning in effect with the potential for up to 8 inches by tomorrow.
Today my friend Rob and I went out for a drive with our cameras. But, with the mild temperatures we typically get overcast skies and today was no exception. We scouted around for a while and didn't find anything really good. We came across a railway maintenance yard that in better light might yield some better images.
Not finding anything worth shooting we headed up northeast of the City to an old abandoned school house and did some interior shots. I am experimenting with a couple of new developers and I took some test shots to compare to some of my standard film and developer combinations. These new developers are generally highly diluted, and the film is left to stand in the developer with little or no agitation, for extended periods of time... up to an hour. This development regimen is supposed to subdue highlights and support shadow values so it will be interesting to see if it works.
On December 31st Margarit and I headed out for a day trip. We got a bit of a late start as it was a challenge to get our lazy daughters out of bed and fed breakfast before we hit the road. We headed out to the abandoned Monastery north of Lamont. It was early afternoon before we finally arrived and this left us little time for shooting before the short daylight hours faded away. The cloud was a little lighter on the afternoon of New Year's Eve, as compared to what Rob and I experienced today. I have been up to this site on numerous occasions, including at least three previous trips this year. Margarit has never been here before and was quite fascinated by these old structures. We spent a couple of hours photographing and exploring before we had to make our way back home.
This is an interior shot of one of the old buildings at the site. These buildings are all badly deteriorated and are slowly falling apart. The monks that originally established this site were obviously not carpenters as the buildings are all very crooked and misaligned. Notice the wall in this particular room. The plaster is intact and not cracked or disturbed which obivously indicates that the left wall was this far out of plumb when the plaster was applied...
Here are a number of additional shots taken at the site on this afternoon at the end of 2014. Mostly other interior stuff but also one panoramic image of the overall site, including the piano that was recently abandoned in the center clearing. This is definitely a most interesting site to visually explore and Margarit is anxious to return. Perhaps we will plan another day trip the next time we are forecast to get a spell of mild weather.
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