Rowley Hospital

This is another shot from the ghost town of Rowley.  I'm told that this building was once the hospital, and then later an apartment.  I'm not sure if that's true, as it seems to be a rather large hospital for a town of this size.

This shot actually belongs to my daughter Helena, who was along on the Monochrome Guild's Fall trip back in October.  I thought she was rather bold to want to go on a five day photo trip with four old guys, all well over 60.  Helena is 17, and despite the age difference, seemed to really enjoy the trip.  The school teachers were on strike at the time and there were no classes, so this afforded her the opportunity for a getaway.

I helped her to set up the camera and meter the scene for this shot, but she came up with composition.  This one was taken on October 20th 2025, at about 5:00 in the evening.  It was a sheet of Ilford FP4+ 125, rated at 100 iso and developed in Perceptol.

Helena used my Ebony view camera and my Fujinon 125mm lens, with no filter.  The exposure that I came up with for her was 1/4 second at F32.0.  There was a road sign right in front of the building that really detracted from the composition.  We managed to pull it out of the ground for the shot, and then put it back afterwards.  No one was the wiser... until now....

Bank

This is another shot from the Monochrome Guild fall trip.  But unlike some of the previously posted images, this one was shot on 4x5 film... not 8x10.  This is the bank building in the tourist/ghost town of Rowley.  I'm not certain, but this one may have been constructed, or at least modified, as a movie set.  The 1980's film Bye Bye Blues was filmed here, as well as in Edmonton.

This scan is a sheet of Ilford FP4+ 125, rated at 100 iso and given normal development.  I processed on Jobo Processor in Ilford Perceptol developer, 1:1, for 11:45 minutes.  In the past I found that the anti halation dye on this film stock did not wash out very well. Since I switched to running it on my Jobo, with constant agitation, the problem seems to be resolved.

I shot this on October 20th 2025 at about 4:15 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony view camera and a Fujinon 125mm lens, with no filter.  The exposure was for 1/8 second at F29.0.

Shrine

This is the last 8x10 scan that I will be posting for the next little while.  I have to develop and scan some additional images before I can post anything else.  This one was taken on the recent fall trip by the Monochrome Guild.  I shot this at the end of our morning drive on October 22nd, when Helena, Gord and I went out exploring.

A local resident has erected this shrine on the banks of the Red Deer River, near East Coulee.  It changes all the time as he seems to be constantly adding stuff and moving things around.  I spoke to him at one point a couple of years ago and he said it was a memorial to his parents, who passed on some time before.  Many social media posts refer to this as a native burial ground.  Nothing could be further from the truth as this is actually ground zero of a couple of old coal mines.

This is a scan of a sheet of Ilford HP5+ 400 8x10 film, rated at 320 iso and developed in 510 Pyro.  I shot this on October 22nd 2025, at about 11:45AM.  I used my Chamonix810V view camera and a Nikkor 240mm lens.  The exposure was for 1/30 second at F41.0.

Rowley

This is a scan of another of my recently processed sheets of 8x10 film.  This one is Ilford HP5+ 400 rated at 320 iso.  It was given Normal development in 510 Pyro, 1:100, for 7:45 minutes at 24C.  I ran this batch on my Jobo processor.

This is a shot from the recent fall trip with the Monochrome Guild, down to the badlands of southern Alberta.  On our way down to Drumheller we made a stop at the town of Rowley.  It's sort of a ghost town, though there are a number of permanent residents.  It was the location for the movie Bye Bye Blues, shot here in the 1980's.  Now, in recent times, it is a bit of a tourist attraction and they have a monthly pizza night as a fundraiser.

This photograph was taken on October 20th 2025 at about 3:45 in the afternoon.  I used my Chamonix810V view camera and a Fujinon 450mm lens.  A #25 Red Filter increased contrast a bit, and created some separation in the sky.  The exposure was for 1/15 second at F25.0.

New Series

These are the first four pieces that I have completed in my series of sketches of Old Hotels.  These are all based on photographs that I took for the Beer Parlour Project.  I have decided to share these on the project website, even though they are not spectacular, and I'm still learning.  I'm generally happy with these, and hope that my technique improves as I continue.  

I looked back at some of the other works of old buildings that I completed, mostly back in 2021.  It seems that they are a little better, and perhaps I need to get a little more serious about things.  I got distracted and neglected this project, from 2021 until late 2024.  Even since then, I am not working on it as consistently as I should.  Like other things I am involved in... like photography, and trying to learn the guitar...  you have to keep at it regularly to stay in practice.  

The first piece here is the Elk River Hotel in Hosmer, British Columbia.  It was visited by the Beer Parlour Project way back in 2022, and became our episode BP3.0.  Sadly the owner passed away a short time after our visit and the hotel closed.

The second piece here is the Fife Lake Hotel in Fife Lake, Saskatchewan.  It was visited by the Beer Parlour Project in the summer of 2023, and became our episode BP15.0.  The owner of 50 years sold the hotel about a year after our visit and it remains in operation under new ownership.

The third piece here is my most recently completed one and is of the Peers Hotel in Peers, Alberta.  It was visited twice by the Beer Parlour Project in the fall of 2024.  These were episodes BP20.0 and 20.1.  Our second visit was a memorial for a local resident that had passed away shortly after our first visit.  That was the last day of operation for the hotel and it remains closed.

The last piece is a detail shot of the side entrance of the Victoria Hotel in Bruderheim, Alberta.  The Beer Parlour Project visited twice, in December of 2023 and then again in February of 2024.  These were episodes BP9.0 and 9.1  The hotel remains in operation with the same ownership team that was in place at the time of our visit.  This seems to be a rare occurrence.

Leaning Porch

On October 22nd, on the Fall Photo trip with the Monochrome Guild, Gordon, Helena and I went out for a morning drive.  Arturo wanted to sleep in, and Nigel had to take part in some online meetings.  The three of us headed southeast from East Coulee, down to Dorothy.  It was a rather frosty and cool morning, as we weren't really used to winter conditions yet.  The light was spectacular, and we took advantage of the opportunity to take a few photographs.

I shot this one on 8x10 film and processed it a couple weeks ago, together with some of the other images that I've recently posted.  This is a sheet of Ilford FP4+125, rated at 100 iso and developed in Perceptol 1:1, for 11:45 minutes.  I ran this batch on my Jobo processor.

This is an old farm house near Dorothy.  I was drawn to the old kids bicycle beside it.  I shot this at about 11:00 in the morning on October 22nd.  I used my Chamoix 810V camera and a Nikkor-W 240mm lens.  I added a #8 yellow filter to increase separation in the cedar shingles on the wall, lighten the value of the grass, and lower the value of the sky.  The exposure was for 1/8 second at F36.0.

High Water

When Margarit and I were out in Nordegg earlier this fall, we took a drive up to Abraham Lake.  The reservoir is filled beyond capacity this year and is overflowing into the trees.  In recent years it seems this has been the norm.  I suppose they are attempting to reserve as much water as possible to slowly be released over the winter for power generation...?

This shot was taken at Preachers Point, and these poor aspen trees are usually on high ground.  I shot this with my 8x10 view camera on October 2nd 2025, shortly after 3:00 in the afternoon.

This is a sheet of Ilford HP5+400 rated at 320 iso.  Development was on my Jobo Processor in 510 Pyro Developer, 1:100, for 7:45 minutes at 24C.

I shot this with my Chamonix810V view camera and a Fujinon 450mm lens.  The exposures was for 1/2 second at F90.0.  I utilized that tiny aperture in order to hold depth of field from the foreground sapling. the the background trees.

Bucket

Here is another 8x10 scan, this one quite a bit more recent.  This is a Kodak T-Max 100 negative, shot at 80iso.  I processed it on my Jobo Processor in 510 Pyro, 1:100, for 8:00 minutes at 24C.

This image was taken up at the Nordegg Historic Mine site, on May 20th 2025, at about 2:30 in the afternoon.  This is the miner's shower in the wash building.

I shot this with my Chamonix810V view camera and a Nikkor 240mm lens.  The exposure was for 2 minutes at F45.0.  Light conditions inside the building were very low, resulting in that long exposure.

Roxy Theatre

This is another newly processed one.  A sheet of Ilford FP4+ 125, rated at 100 iso and developed in Perceptol 1:1.  I ran this one in a recent batch on my Jobo Processor for 11:45 minutes at 24C.

This is a scan of a sheet of 8x10 film, exposed with my Chamonix 810V view camera and a Nikkor 240mm lens.  The exposure was for 1/8 second at F29.0.

I took this shot on October 15th 2021, at about 1:20 in the afternoon.  This is the old Roxy Theatre, down in the Crowsnest Pass, in the town of Coleman.  It had a been shut down for a number of years, and somewhat abandoned, but in recent years it has begun to undergo some renovations.

Learning to Sketch

Shortly after I retired, back in 2020, I attempted to take up watercolor painting.  I quickly discovered that I'm not very good at it.  Perhaps with more practice I might improve....?  But my paintings soon evolved into colorized sketches, and in 2021 I came up with these.  I've always been pretty good at drawing, and was the top male art student in my grade in Junior High, and then moved on to architectural drafting in High School.

I guess its only kind of natural that I returned to sketching, but this time around I did it with not only graphite, but also ink, and added in the watercolor.  All of these pieces were based on black and white photographs that I had taken.  After I practiced on these through 2021 I got busy building the guest cottage, and promptly dropped it.  But, more recently, with the guest cottage completed, I returned to working on some of these, and started on a series of old hotels from the Beer Parlour Project.  I will share scans of some of those in a future blog post.

The Orator

This is a photograph I took quite some time ago, in June of 2022.  I used my Chamonix 8x10 view camera and a Fujinon 450mm lens.  Like Edward Weston's peppers, I think Bosc Pears show really interesting form, and a lot of personality.  I call this one "The Orator" and I posed them so that the one on the raised platform appears to be lecturing the others.  This was part of a series that included two others... "Victim" and "Gossip".  Perhaps I will post those in the coming days as well.

I recently set up my Jobo Processor and started processing a number of batches of film.  This includes 4" x 5", 8" x 10" and 35mm.  Certain film and developer combinations are well suited to the continuous agitation of the Jobo.  In the case of the 8" x 10" stuff, the processor uses a lot less chemistry than large open tanks with hangers.  And for the color processes, the Jobo nicely stabilizes the high process temperature, around 40C.  I just finished up the last of the 8x10 stuff a couple of days ago, and will now move on to more 4x5 stuff, and then to the color processes... C-41 and E-6.

This particular photograph was taken on Ilford FP4+ 125 8" x 10" film, rated at 100iso, and developed in Ilford Perceptol Developer, 1:1, for 11:45 minutes at 24C.  The film expired in 2009.

Ninety Two

Today is my Mom's 92nd birthday.  She has been staying in long term care for about a year now.  Physically she is in really good health, with no major issues other than occasional back pain.  But she suffers from dementia/alzheimers and her memory is quickly deteriorating.

My brothers and I are going to visit her today, and take her out for a short walk and some lunch.

Update:  November 24th...

I got a copy of this photograph from my brother Greg.  This is my Mom on her 92nd birthday, when my brothers and I took her for lunch to the Muttart Conservatory.  Left to right this is Wes, Greg, Mom and me.

Mount Abraham

I shot this image back on Canada Day... July 1st 2025.  This is Mount Abraham, along the shores of Abraham Lake and beside the David Thompson Highway.  This is a short drive away from my home in Nordegg.  Even though I shot this some months ago, I only just recently developed the film... on October 30th to be precise.

This is a scan of the 8" x 10" sheet of film that I shot on that day.  This was Ilford FP4+ 125, rated at 100iso and given Normal development.  I shot it with my Chamonix 8x10 view camera and a Fujinon-C 450mm lens.  A number 25 red filter deepened the value of the sky, and created some separation in the rock face.  It was late afternoon... almost 6:00PM, when I shot this, so the shadows on the rock were quite prominent.

I developed the film on my Jobo CPP3 Processor.  The developer was Ilford Perceptol, diluted 1:1. for 11:45 minutes at 24C.

For the past couple of years I've been somewhat lazy, and never hauled my big 8x10 camera out all that often.  When I first got the Chamonix camera after my retirement, I shot with it quite a bit in 2021 and 2022.  But in 2023 and 2024 I only shot a couple of sheets each year.  So far, 2025 has been a lot better and I've shot almost 50 sheets of B&W, plus a few color.  I took the camera along with me on the Fall Photo Weekend, and also carried it in to the historic site in Nordegg a couple of times.  Sadly the film is really expensive... but I have quite a bit in stock that I should make a point of shooting, before it gets any older.

Christmas at the Coal Mine

This event was put on by Clearwater County staff on November 8th.  A number of the buildings at the Nordegg mine site were decorated with Christmas lights.  The public was invited to come out for the evening and enjoy the show.  There was a bonfire, hot chocolate, and they even had a projection TV showing an old Christmas movie.  Attendance exceeded expectations.  The site was completely over run with vehicles and there was almost no where to park.  Margarit and I went up to the site shortly after it opened, at 6:00PM.  There must have been 50 to 60 vehicles, so probably close to 200 people...!

This is all the more spectacular when you consider the fact that there is no power at the site.  Everything was run on generators.  It must have been a huge amount of work for the staff to set this all up, and everyone really seemed to appreciate their efforts.  Sadly my phone snapshots don't really do it justice.

Work in Progress

I've been working on this one for a long time.  I think I started sometime back in the spring... or maybe even earlier.  Mostly my art supplies have been lying around at the cottage, waiting for me to get back to them.  It has been such a busy year, with so many projects on the go, that I just never found time to get back to this.  I also never found time to go fly-fishing... for the past two years now.

Finally I got back after this one on the Thanksgiving weekend when Helena and I were out at Nordegg.  The day of heavy snow that we got at that time, kept me mostly indoors, and I finished up the layout.

During our most recent visit to Nordegg in early November, Margarit and I were out at the cottage for ten days, and it was over this stretch that I managed to finish it up.  I worked on it over several days, and finished it on the day that we left for the city.  I have to let the watercolor paint dry at various stages between applying it.  And, I find that as I work on the detailing, I need to step away from it for periods of time, think about it, and then return to work some more.

I'm not very good at painting, so I wouldn't really call this a watercolor.  I work with one of my photographs as a guide.  Then I sketch that out on a piece of watercolor paper.  The next step is to lay in some rather rudimentary and crude blocks of color.  The photograph that I work from is Black and White, so I take some artistic license with the colors.  Then once I have the colors done, I work with pencils and ink to detail in the image.  I use two hardnesses of graphite for shading and light details, and ink pens with various size nibs to outline and provide stronger detail.  I'm generally happy with the way that this one turned out and will soon move on to my next in this series of old hotels.  This one is the Peers Hotel from our Beer Parlour Project outing BP20.0 last October.  Sadly the hotel closed after our second visit, a couple weeks later, and has never re-opened.

Shunda Creek

On Friday November 7th, Margarit and I decided to walk into the falls at Shunda Creek.  In the summer months we usually ride here on the ATV's.  This time we parked along the highway and walked in.  I wasn't sure what ice conditions would be like, and didn't know if we would be able to cross over from the ATV trail.  It turns out the water was very low, and could have got to it from either side.  All the same we enjoyed the walk through the woods and the solitude down by the falls.  It was considerably cooler than it had been the day before, and down by the creek the humidity made it rather chilling.  The skies were mostly cloudy and there was only some weak sun.  And the temperature in the open never really got up above +5, and probably less down by the creek.

There is a large pool below the falls that was entirely covered with bubbles from the upstream rapids.  I can only surmise that the bubbles were not popping due to the low temperature.  The drifted around on the pool, in mesmerizing, swirling patterns.  It was very cool to watch, and I have included a short video at the end of this post.  I also shot it with a long exposure on my view camera, so I shall see if that yields anything interesting.

After spending a couple of peaceful hours here, we walked back out to the highway and drove back to the cottage.  We were cold from the afternoon's exposure, so we got a fire going in the wood stove back home, and spent a relaxing evening enjoying dinner together, and watching a DVD documentary.

Back to Dry Haven

Despite the fact that the forecast was calling for snow, cold and clouds in central Alberta, the weather out at Nordegg on November 6th was spectacular.  I understand it was fairly miserable back in Edmonton, but that the snow did not materialize.  Out here in the mountains, it was sunny and the temperature peaked at +11C.  I even saw a couple of guys playing a round of golf in town.

Margarit and I decided to take another walk along Dry Haven Creek.  Much of the ice and snow that we saw a couple of days prior was disappearing as a result of the sun and mild temperatures.  But we found some cool ice formations along the creek.  And, with virtually no snow left, the gravel bars were all exposed.  Margarit spent a couple hours looking for cool rocks, and found a few.  I spent the time visually exploring the ice formations with my view camera.  It was a great afternoon...!

Even Closer

We are running out of apples to feed them, but the deer are getting even more accustomed to us.  I was able to walk to within about 4 feet of a large doe.  Margarit got just about as close.  They're starting to get a little skittish as the rut is on, and the bucks are not only chasing the does around, but also trying to chase the yearlings away.  This will be the last little treat for them as the apples are almost gone.  After we leave Nordegg in the coming days, there will be no more treats.

Crescent Falls

After our stop at Dry Haven Creek, we decided to take a drive up to Crescent Falls.  The falls are on the Bighorn River, about 6km off the David Thompson Highway.  The campsite and recreation area up at the falls were closed for all of last year for upgrading, and re-opened this summer.  Neither Margarit nor I had been back up there since the renovations.

The parking area up by the falls has been enlarged, and there are picnic tables and new washrooms.  There is a new walking trail that leads from the parking area, down through the forest, to the day use area by the falls.  The steep road down to the day use area from the upper parking area was closed to traffic for the season.  In years past you needed to ford a small creek with your vehicle in order to get to the campsite, down by the river.  A new bridge has been put in.  And there is a spectacular new viewing platform down in the canyon below the upper falls, and just above the lower falls.  It is an elaborate steel structure was multiple staircases and platforms along the way.  I suppose it kind of spoils the view looking down into the canyon, but it affords some spectacular views from within the canyon.

It was quite cool and chilly when we were in the shade, and near the humidity of the falls, which was most of the time.  But when we were in the sun, it was very pleasant.  We spent some time here, and I took a couple of photographs with my view camera.

When we got back to the cottage in the late afternoon we dug out the BBQ and grilled some steaks and salmon.  After dinner we got together with our neighbors Rob and Brenda and visited for a couple hours.