Tough Guy

Hank seems to be having a lot of fun out at the cottage with me.  He is very demanding of attention, and there is no where to go to escape from him, so he's been hanging out with me the entire time I've been out here.  The fresh snow was something new to him.... this season... and he had a lot of fun ripping around outside. 

At one point he started barking a lot and I noticed that his attention was turned towards the Red Fox.  We have had foxes around our property since day one.  I'm not sure if this is the same one that always hangs around, or if there is more than one.  The fox was about the same height as Hank.  But Hank, with his stumpy little legs and beefy body, probably outweighed it two to one.  At one point he boldly advanced to within 25 feet or so of the fox.  The fox didn't really care, and was occupied eating all the seeds that had been spilled from the bird feeder.

It's Here

Winter has officially arrived.  It snowed overnight on November 4th and I awoke to a couple inches of white stuff.  I've been out at the cottage since last Saturday... just me and Hank.  Originally I planned to head back to the city today, so that I could play hockey this evening.  But I've just come down with a bad cold, and really shouldn't play.  I think I'll stay out for an extra day, so that hopefully I'm a little less contagious when I return home.  I really don't want to make Margarit sick, right before she leaves on her holiday

I feel rather shitty so I'm mostly just laying around, not doing much of anything.  I brought some new inventory out to the Beehive Artisan Market the other day, and I've been puttering around on a couple of things around the cottage.  I meant to split a little firewood, but just haven't felt up to it.  So it has mostly just been me and Hank, hanging around and being lazy.

Big Leaf Maple

This is a shot that I took last fall, late October to be precise, out on Vancouver Island.  The fall there lasts later than it does here in Alberta.  I'm out at the cottage in Nordegg today and the leaves are all long gone, and there is a skiff of snow on the ground from a few days ago.  It was clear last night, with a new moon and a billion stars visible.  Today it is once again heavily overcast and very gloomy.  My favorite time of year is early fall, when the leaves are in full color, and the days are still mild.  Much like the conditions in this photograph.  Once the season turns and fall begins the transition into winter, it is not as nice.

Somber Days

This past week my brothers and I had to make the difficult decision to move my Mother into long term care.  Up until now she has still be living at home on her acreage, but with home care staff coming in every day.  In recent months her dementia has progressed to the point that she could be a danger to herself.  Earlier this summer we put her on the waiting list for some government funded seniors residences.  When we checked recently, we found that she was still months away from a placement.  So we pulled the trigger and elected to move her into private care.  We had to tell her some white lies about the need to move out for a while, so that an exterminator could come in and deal with a mouse infestation in her home.  That was partly true, as there has been a mouse problem, and in fact we caught one in a trap on the morning of her exit, which kind of sealed the deal.  I don't feel very good about having to lie to her, but she was very accepting, and in hindsight maybe that was the best option...?

I spent the past few days working with my brothers to plan the move, lay out the lie, and actually execute the whole plan.  With that now behind us, I bailed out and headed out to Nordegg for a few days.

After all the emotions of the past week, Saturday dawned with a very somber mood.  The skies were grey and leaden, and there was a skiff of fresh snow when I woke up.  As I made my way out of the city and southwest towards the cottage the mood was very overbearing.  The skies were very heavy and gloomy.  The clouds were scraping the ground.  It was more than a little overwhelming.

This time around it was a solo trip to Nordegg, although I did take Hank along.  Margarit and the girls elected to stay behind.  Hank does not travel well in a vehicle, and the vet gave us some sedatives to try and make the trip a little easier for him.  I suppose that helped a little, but he spent most of the three hour trip sitting in my lap and panting.  He did a little better after a break in Rocky Mountain House when I stopped for half an hour to grab some groceries.  After we arrived at the cottage he seemed to chill out a little, though he was probably still a little stoned.  It was gloriously quiet, with virtually no neighbors around, and we just got a fire going and settled down for the night.

November Calendar Image

This is the image that I selected for the November page of my 2024 Fine Art Monochrome Calendar.  I shot this ice formation along side the Trans Canada Highway, in Rogers Pass.  Chris and Arturo and I were on our way home from Vancouver Island, around the end of October, last year.

I have already put together my David Thompson Country Calendar for 2025 and they are now available to purchase at the Beehive Artisan Market in Nordegg.  I am currently working on my 2025 Fine Art Monochrome Calendar and hope to get that printed soon....

BP 16.0 - Grand Hotel

Here's another scan from the Beer Parlour Project.  This one was taken during out visit to the Grand Hotel in Rimbey, Alberta, back on August 16th this past summer.  This is from a recently processed batch of Kodak T-Max 400 sheet film.  Jody is the guy contemplating his shot.  He has been a follower of our project and made a special trip out to the Grand that evening to meet us.

Beer Parlour Project

It's a little over two years in, and I reflect fondly on our adventures with the Beer Parlour Project, so far.

Our first outing was back in July of 2022.  That was BP 1.0 and we visited the Hidden Gem Tavern in the Egremont Hotel.  We were green as grass, and stumbled around trying to figure out how we wanted to photograph people and conduct the interviews.  Flash forward a little over two years and we just completed BP 20.1, our second visit to the Shady Lady Tavern in the Peers Hotel.

In between we visited establishments from Vancouver Island to the Crowsnest Pass to southern Saskatchewan and all over central Alberta.  We have visited a total of 20 different establishments.  But we've made return visits to five of them, for a total of 25 outings.  Sadly, some of the people that we've met along the way have passed on.  Equally sad is the fact that some of the hotels that we have visited have since closed, with a few more up for sale.  I'm glad that we've taken the project on, and have had the opportunity to experience and document these wonderful old places.

Chris and I have refined our approach and now have a much better idea of what we are doing.  We are doing a much better job of the interviews and the photographs.  We also have a much higher comfort level as when we started out with the project, it was something foreign to both of us, and beyond our respective comfort zones.

Our goal is to visit 100 [or more] small town hotel taverns.  If we maintain the same pace it will probably take seven to eight more years to accomplish that.  But as the destinations become further afield, the travel costs and time restraints continue to be an issue.  At some point along the way we plan to put together a gallery exhibition and show off some of the best photographs.  We also hope to interest a publisher and see if we can have the project turn into a coffee table book.  I think some arts grants are going to be needed to see the project through, so we will have to start applying for those in the next little while.  

In the mean time we now have our website a little more functional.  There is always a backlog as it takes a while for me to get around to developing and scanning all of my film.  I checked this morning and I have ten rolls of 35mm film that need to be developed, as well as a bunch of 4"x5" large format stuff.  But there are now photo galleries on the website for at least half of the locations that we have visited.  And more will be uploaded in the near future.  Chris has also done at least preliminary research on many of the hotels and we have a brief write up for the ones that also have photo galleries.  If the book project comes to fruition, the written component will be expanded.

Here is a link to the website for anyone that has not yet seen it...   beerparlourproject.com

Print Finishing

I wish I wasn't such a slob.  My darkroom is such a mess and every time I want to do something in there, I need to move a bunch of stuff around, or out.  There's piles of film holders, tons of camera gear, prints, scanners, tripods, boxes of paper, the list goes on and on.

I have a bunch of prints that I made over the last couple of months.  These all need to be dry mounted, matted and some of them put into frames.  Others need to be sent out to people that have requested them.  A couple of days ago I cleared away a whole bunch of stuff and made some space on my work table.  Then I proceeded to cut mounts and mats for all the prints I've been working on.  The project kind of stalled at that point, and everything is still sitting there half finished.  I need to find the time to circle back to this and finish them all.

In addition to these, there are also a bunch of larger prints that I have done for the Apparitions project.  I haven't made my final selection yet as to which will end up in the exhibition.  I want to see a bunch of the negatives printed to 16x20 and then compare them, before making my final selection.  So, while I am running the dry mount press I am also flattening all of these prints.

I need to get all of this stuff done and out of my way.  Then I will be able to shuffle everything around once again so that I can unload all of the exposed film and reload fresh film, in all my film holders.  Then it will be another shuffle and I will set up to mix chemicals and make some developer.  Then I will shuffle once again and set up to process a bunch of sheet film and roll film.  Part of that will involve yet another shuffle so that I can set up my big Jobo processor, which is required for some of the developers I want to work with.

BP 20.1 - Peers Hotel

Chris, Arturo, Margarit and I headed back out to the Peers Hotel on October 26th.  We had been invited back for a return visit.  Lori, the lady that has been managing the place, is our number one fan, and really wanted us to return.  This was to be her last day of working for the hotel and there was a send off for her.  In addition to that, one of their patrons, a former employee of the hotel and local resident, had recently passed away.  In fact we photographed her during our first visit, three weeks ago.  So it was a day of mixed emotions.

Initially things were pretty quiet and only Lori and one other patron were around.  We had a good visit with them and this gave us another chance to experience the vibe.  It is unknown if the owner will find a replacement for Lori, so it remains to be seen if the hotel continues to operate.  We are grateful that we were able to experience it, while it was in operation.  Perhaps another visit will become a reality at some point in the future.

Later in the evening a bunch of other locals stopped by and things became a lot more lively.  We managed to interview and photograph many of them.  By the time we wrapped things up we had spent almost eight hours in the tavern.

I experimented with some lighting equipment and it was a great opportunity.  I brought along two old and inexpensive light stands with reflectors, and fitted them with LED bulbs.  I have been meaning to do this for some time and just always felt a little overwhelmed by all the gear that I drag out, and with having lights and cords in the way.  But, it seems to really have worked out well and provided much better exposures with the big view camera.  Of course the negatives, once they get developed, will really tell the tale.  I ended up shooting about a dozen sheets of film, and a roll and a half in my 35mm SLR.

This will likely be the last Beer Parlour outing for 2024.  But Margarit scoffs at me, as I have said that a couple of times already this year, only to venture out to more places.  We have a long list of old hotels to visit and will look to plan our next outings soon.  

BP 19.0 - The Coal Branch Hotel

Another Beer Parlour shot from the recently processed batch of Kodak T-Max 400.  This is Chuck and Denise, who had stopped in at the Coal Branch Hotel in Robb, for a bite to eat.  They arrived just ahead of us on their motorcycles, and seemed pretty excited about getting their portrait taken.  They even were so kind as to make a small financial contribution to our project.

Limerick

When Chris and I were in Saskatchewan back in June of this past summer, we visited the Limerick Hotel in Limerick, Saskatchewan, for the Beer Parlour Project.  This visit turned out to be BP 13.0.  Inside the tavern the owners had an old picture of the town of Limerick, from 1923.  Fast forward 101 years later, and they asked us to try to replicate that old photo.

The owner and a bunch of his buddies parked their hot rods on main street and posed beside them.  The Limerick Hotel is actually a block down the street on the right hand side.  The old building visible in the 1923 photo on the left side, is also a hotel, but that one is long gone, and is not the one that we visited.

Chris created the modern panoramic photograph by stitching together over twenty photographs that he took with his digital camera.  I recently had the photo printed and will be sending it to the owners of the hotel.  It is printed to 12 inches by 36 inches.

BP 20.0 - Peers Hotel

I recently processed a batch of Kodak T-Max 400 film.  There were 17 sheets of 4" x 5" film, all exposed during our recent Beer Parlour Project outing to the Edson area.  The film was exposed at 1250 iso and developed in Kodak T-Max Developer, 1:4, for 8:35 minutes, at 24C.

Normally I don't get around to processing the film this quickly after an outing.  In this case I made an exception, and even ran the batch with only 17 sheets, rather than saving it until I had a full batch of 20.  The reason for this was that one of the patrons that I recently photographed during our trip, just passed away.  I wanted to see that negative right away, and be able to share the image with some of the other locals.  Out of respect I will not share that image here.

This is a shot that I took at our outing BP 20.0 at the Peers Hotel.  The tavern is a wonderful place, just filled with all sorts of stuff.  Signs, posters, knick-knacks, album covers and antiques are all over the walls.  This is Joe on the left, one of the locals.  Behind the bar is Lori, the bartender and our host on the day of our visit.

Fall Photo Weekend - Day Three

This was Friday October 18th and actually a travel day for everyone to return to the city, and not a day for any further photography.  Fred, Steve, Court and I all had breakfast together in Drumheller, and then they hit the road for home.  I returned to East Coulee and finished cleaning out the trailer, and loaded all the stuff that needed to get back to Edmonton.  Then I took a long and leisurely drive back home.

I stopped in Cambria and photographed the old abandoned cellars there.  I assume these date back to the mining days, but were obviously used for storage long after that.  Now they are in a bad state of disrepair and no longer used.

After that I headed through Drumheller and took the North Dinosaur Trail back towards Horse Thief Canyon.  From there I headed across country to Munson.  By this point the clouds rolled in and the light became very dull and flat.  I just didn't feel any inclination to point my camera at anything under such leaden skies.  I slowly made my way back to Edmonton, and drove a couple of side roads just to explore a little.  It was a rather uneventful afternoon and I made it back home to the city by about 6:00PM.

Originally I had intended to meet with Chris on Friday even and undertake another outing for the Beer Parlour Project.  Both of the nearby establishments were very enthusiastic about our proposed visit, but unable to accommodate us on this date.  So we were forced to postpone those outings to another date, and I ended up heading home a day earlier than originally anticipated.

Fall Photo Weekend - Day Two

The Fall Photo Weekend wasn't actually a weekend this year, and Day Two was actually a Thursday.  After Court, Steve and Fred had breakfast in Drumheller, they headed down the valley and met up with me at the shop the East Coulee.  From there we headed east to Dinosaur Provincial Park.  We took the scenic route there, and ended up in the park around lunch time.  We spent the day there, and it was spectacular.

The weather was mild and the temperature peaked at around 15 degrees.  There was a mix of sun and cloud, but mostly sun.  At this time of year the sun remains relatively low in the sky, exaggerated a little by the fact that we were down in the valley.  This afforded spectacular lighting conditions all day long.

We spent the entire afternoon in Dinosaur Park and wandered all of the trails in the public access area.  It has been a number of years since I have been out to the park, and in a lot of ways, it is little changed.  Aside from the spectacular light and amazing weather, it was gloriously quiet, and there was hardly anyone around.

I think I exposed something around two dozen sheets of black and white film, plus a handful of color.  The others seemed to really enjoy the day as well.  One thing that really hit home for me was that all of my friends from the Monochrome Guild were older than me, and beginning to struggle with mobility issues.  I am fortunate in that I don't have any such issues yet, but it is only a matter of time.  The other three guys were all 8 to 15 years older than me, and are all in great shape for their respective ages.  But, time marches on, and this trip really hit home that my days of running around and packing heavy camera gear, are numbered.  I have to make the best of it, and really enjoy the years that I have left.

We packed things up around 5:00 and blasted back to Drumheller,  There we returned to the pub and had a few beers and dinner together, and watched the Oilers game on TV.  After dinner the three guys headed back to their rented hotel rooms, and I returned out to East Coulee to crash in my trailer.

Fall Photo Weekend - Day One

This year the Fall Photo Weekend was undertaken a little earlier than usual.  In years past the members of the Monochrome Guild have typically ventured out to Jasper National Park, usually around Halloween or early November.  Earlier this year a large forest fire wiped out a third of the town of Jasper, so that was not an option as our destination, this time around.

My friend Jon initiated the Fall Photo Weekend together with me back in the year 2000.  Every year since then, with the exception of two Covid years, we have gathered together the available members of the Monochrome Guild and headed out somewhere for a weekend of photography.  Mostly it was to Jasper National Park, as the accommodations were less expensive, and the park not overrun with tourists, at this late point in the season.  This year we elected to head down to Drumheller.

Of the nine current members of the Monochrome Guild, only four were available to head out for this year.  Since those taking part are all retired, we did not have to adhere to the weekend concept.  Court, Fred, Steve and I headed out on Tuesday, right after the Thanksgiving Long Weekend, and spent a couple of days photographing in the badlands.

The first day was actually a bit of a write off for me.  I spent the day getting down there, and then worked to finish cleaning out the trailer, and packing up some of the stuff that Hailey left behind, following the summer that she spent working in East Coulee.  The other three drove down from Edmonton that day, and spent the afternoon photographing along the way.

I met up with the guys on the morning of Wednesday October 16th for breakfast, and then we headed out for the day.  We started out in Dorothy, and photographed the old churches and a couple other nearby old buildings.  We also photographed a few of the old vehicles left laying... somewhat on display... around town.  Years ago someone placed some old mobile phones, and a fisher-price toy phone, in the abandoned phone booth in town.  Everything remains intact.

I first started photographing in Dorothy back in the late 1990s.  At that time the two churches were abandoned, badly deteriorating, and totally overtaken by pigeons.  Since that time they have been cleaned up and restored.  I'm happy to say that 25 years later, the paint is beginning to peel, and the churches are beginning to revert back to the way that I found them.

In 2000 I proposed to Margarit inside the old United Church.  Since then we have spent many a weekend camped in the nearby park, and experienced the vibe of the old ghost town, with our girls.  It was nice to be back.

Afterwards we headed back in the general direction of Drumheller, but made numerous stops along the way.  We headed up to a couple of spots where there were nice overviews of the valley.  This included a spot above East Coulee, at the site of a once used television antenna, that afforded a nice view.  We also poked around down by the Atlas Coal mine, and by the old timber bridge.  A local East Coulee resident, Steve, has erected somewhat of a monument at the south side of the bridge.  He once told me that it started out as a memorial for his deceased parents, and obviously he has been adding to it since I last spoke to him.  Many mistakenly think this is some sort of first nations site and I have heard many refer to it is as a native burial ground.... which it s not.  After all, this was the site of a couple of really busy coal mines back a half century ago... certainly not the location of any sort of first nations site.

After we wrapped up the day of photography we headed into Drumheller and enjoyed a couple of beers and a nice meal at the local pub.  We parted ways in the evening and I headed back out to East Coulee to stay in my trailer.  The other three had rooms rented at a local motel.  We would do it all over again the next day.