The weekend of October 26, 27 and 28 was the Monochrome Guild annual Fall Photo Weekend. I have taken part in all of them, dating back over 20 years. Usually we head to Jasper in the fall but this year we switched things up and went to the badlands. I booked Friday off work, and four of us set out in the morning. Mark rode with me and Court and Nigel drove separately. Gord would come out later that evening.
Mark and I grabbed a breakfast sandwich and a coffee and hit the road about 7:30AM. We met up with Court and Nigel in Stettler and ended up having a second breakfast. With this under our belts we were certainly able to skip lunch. We headed to East Coulee and stopped at the shop and unpacked our gear. Then we loaded our camera stuff and hit the road to the east. We went to an old stone house out on the prairie that I had been to before. This was about 40 miles east of Drumheller. It was a hike of about a mile to get into the place. We spent some time here photographing the old stone structure. Unfortunately Court didn't notice a cactus when we were crawling under a fence and ended up with a handful of spines...!
After that we stopped at a nearby junkyard and photographed some old vehicles. I had been here previously as well. But we spent a couple hours and enjoyed the nice day. Sunny and mild and a little breezy, but very nice for the end of October. The days are short though, and by around 6:00 the sun is going down and the light fades fast. With that, the temperature also drops quickly.
We headed back to the shop in the late afternoon and off loaded all of our camera gear. We scouted around a bit before heading into town for something to eat. We stopped at a local pub and enjoyed a couple of beers and a nice meal together. Afterwards we drove back to East Coulee and settled in for the night. We tidied up the shop space a bit so the guys could put out mattresses and sleeping bags. I just crashed in our trailer, which has been stored in the shop for over a year now without moving. We sat up and had a few drinks and visited until Gord arrived at about 10:30. He wasn't able to get out of work for the day so had to drive out afterwards. We visited a bit longer and then turned in at a respectable hour. We had plans to get up with the light, which isn't all that early at this point in the season, and get back at it.
After a year spent mostly working... both at my job and on the cottage... it was really nice to get back to some photography. Despite my efforts in recent weeks I had only shot 68 sheets of black and white 4x5 film up the date of our departure. By the time the weekend ended I had shot forty-eight more sheets of black and white, and three color. It was really nice to get back to it, and it's too bad we are going into winter conditions right away. I still shoot in winter, but it is definitely more challenging.
These three snapshots were taken with my phone. Soon I will find my way back to the darkroom and start processing some film. I still have lots from the last couple of years that remain unprocessed, not to mention this recent work...
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