Spilled Bolts

This photograph is from one of my many visits to the Nordegg Historic Site.  I regularly schedule a tour of the site for the purpose of documenting it with photographs.  I just did that a couple of days ago, though this shot is from a previous visit.  Although the place sits much as it did 70 years ago, when the mine closed, there are still small changes happening from year to year.  Things get cleaned up and moved around....  Sometimes some idiot breaks into the site and vandalizes something, or steals copper.  The place is very historically important and people really need to appreciate it for what it is.  Come and visit, take the guided tours with a site interpreters and learn the history of the place... its fascinating.

This shot is from a recently processed batch of 4"x5" Ilford FP4+ 125.  I saved up a batch of film that required N+1 development and back on July 25th I finally got around to developing 21 sheets.  I still have more left to go, but the oldest ones, dating back as far as the end of 2023, are now all done.  I ran the film in Kodak HC-110 developer, dilution B, for 14:20 minutes at 20C.  This, in combination with slight underexposure of the film (160iso) expanded contrast by one stop.

This stuff is in the blacksmith shop.  The box must be some sort of form... I think...?  The nuts and bolts are random, and were dumped on the floor.  Since I took this photograph the stuff has been partly cleaned up and some guard rails installed to keep visitors from getting hurt on the old forges and ventilation pipes.

I took this photograph on August 20th of 2024, about about 1:00 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony SV45TE view camera, and a Nikkor 210mm lens.  It's pretty dark in the shop so this required an exposure of 30 seconds at F20.0.

Back to the Historic Site

With all the rain back in Edmonton, I ended up stuck at home for an extended period of time.  For pretty much two months I was at home dealing with our insurance claim and the plumbing repairs.  Although the plumbing repairs are done, there is no resolution in sight to our insurance claim.  I'm hoping we can sort things out and move forward with our repairs as soon as possible.

I ventured out to the cottage, after a two month absence, to deal with a few things and get caught up on some chores.  I cut up a couple of trees that had come down, plus got the string trimmer out and cut some weeds.  Some of the more stubborn ones were also sprayed with Killex.

Our propane supplier came out and topped up our tank.  I always try to do this in the summer when the rates are the lowest of the season.  This year we needed 856 liters, at $0.519/L to get things topped up.

My plumber friend Leonard also came out and replaced the gas valve on our hot water heater that had been damaged by a recent power surge.  I later learned that this power issue occurred at the same time as the tornado was hitting Rocky Mountain House... July 18th.

I got over to the golf course and played golf a number of times.  And I also booked a tour of the Nordegg Historic Site so I could do some more documentary photography.  Here are the phone snapshots of some of the images I considered today.  I think I shot a total of about 16 sheets of film today and it was nice to get back to a little photography.

August Image - 2026 David Thompson Country Calendar

This is the image that I selected for the August page of my 2026 David Thompson Country calendar.  This is an older shot, from several years ago.  I like the contrast in texture between the driftwood and the avens.  I shot this on a sheet of Kodak High Speed Infrared film,which is why the avens are glowing white.  Living vegetation is highly reflective of infrared wavelengths and this sort of tonality is the result.  It doesn't work for everything, but I quite like the effect in this shot.

Finally Back to Nordegg

On Saturday August 1st I headed back out to Nordegg.  This would be my first time out to the cottage in almost two months.  With the plumbing repaired at home, the risk of further flooding is virtually eliminated.  I needed a break, and to catch up on some stuff at the cottage.  The break will be short-lived as soon I will need to return to the city, and carry on with all the repairs.  But at the moment we are still waiting to hear from the adjuster, and finalize our insurance claim.  So I took advantage of the situation and escaped.

I tried to convince Margarit to join me, but she felt the need to stay behind.  So I headed out by myself.  I made a stop in on the way out of town and filled the truck with fuel, before grabbing a Leduc burger at the Burger Baron.  Then I stopped in Rocky Mountain House and picked up some groceries.  There was obvious evidence of the recent tornado at the edge of town.

Hailey has been living out in Nordegg for the summer.  She is staying in the guest cottage, doing her online studies at Athabasca University, and working part time at the Nordegg Golf Course.  So I was not totally alone once I finally arrived on Saturday evening.

Nordegg didn't get nearly as much rain as Edmonton and in recent weeks has been quite dry.  In fact there is a fire advisory in place, though we got a shower and a few millimeters shortly after my arrival.  Only about 17mm of rain fell at the cottage in the last 30 days, as compared to Edmonton where we have been constructing an Ark and rounding up the animals two by two....

When I arrived in Nordegg I found that the electronic gas valve on our hot water tank had been zapped by a power surge... possibly lightning.  All the clocks in the cottage were flashing when I arrived.  Like I needed more shit to deal with.  I also had two fallen trees to look after.  They came down during some recent high winds.  One took the armrest off one of the Adirondack chairs by the fire pit and the other just grazed the north wall of the cottage.

I got these cut up, and then pulled out the string trimmer and cut down all the weeds that had sprung up over the past two months.  Aside from that I managed to get out for a couple of rounds of golf.  The first one was on holiday Monday, with my neighbor Rob.  Then on Tuesday I headed out again, and played a solo round.  I actually shot my best round ever... a score of 37 on the par 32 course.  No one will believe me as I had no witnesses...!  On the seventh hole I put my chip shot... the second... to within a couple of feet of the pin.  Then on the par 3 eighth hole I hit the pin with my chip shot, the second, and then putted in for par.

I'll be staying a few more days before heading back to the city.  My plumber friend Leonard, who did the original work in the cottages is coming out this week to repair the gas valve.  And I have a bunch of other chores to look after as well.

Elevator Buckets

This is yet one more scan from the recently processed batch of Ilford FP4+125.  On July 25th I ran 21 sheets of 4"x5".  All were exposed at 160 iso and designated for N+1 development.  This increased contrast by one stop, and was in Kodak HC-110 developer, dilution B, for 14:20 minutes at 20C.

I took this shot over a year ago when Chris and I explored an old abandoned grain elevator out near the Saskatchewan border.  We were out visiting old hotels for the Beer Parlour Project, and about to drop in on the Edgerton Oasis Hotel in Edgerton, Alberta.

I shot this with my Ebony SV45TE view camera and a Nikkor 210mm lens.  The exposure was for 1/4 second at F18.0.  I shot this on May 10th of 2025 at about 11:20 in the morning.

Window

I believe that I previously posted another version of this image.  This one was just recently developed.  It was part of the batch of 21 sheets of 4"x5" Ilford FP4+125 that I ran on July 25th.  As the subject was rather uniform in tone, I exposed this sheet with the intention of increasing contrast in development.  The film was processed in Kodak HC-110 Developer, dilution B, for 14:20 minutes at 20C.  The film was exposed at 160 iso.  This combination yields a contrast increase of 1 stop, or N+1.

I was out on a day trip with my brother-in-law Shawn last spring and we found this old house up in Lamont County.  I shot this with my Ebony SV45TU view camera and a Nikkor 300mm lens.  I took the photograph on May 26th 2025 at about 4:00 in the afternoon.  The exposure was for 1/30 second at F20.0.  This showed just a little motion blur in the tattered curtain that was flapping in the wind.

High Voltage

This is another scan from the batch of FP4+125 sheet film that I processed on July 25th.  That day I ran a batch of 21 sheets of 4"x5" film.  All 21 sheets in the batch were exposed at 160 iso, and designated for N+1 development.  This is extended development to expand constrast by one stop.  I processed the film in Kodak HC-110 Developer, dilution B, for 14:20 minutes at 20C,

This particular image was taken on July 5th of 2025 at about 2:00 in the afternoon.  This is a now retired stripping shovel that used to mine coal in central Alberta.  Today it sits in retirement at the Reynolds Alberta Museum in Wetaskiwin.  Arturo and I spent a few days photographing there in the summer of 2025, in the hope that we could capture some images for our Apparitions project.

I shot this with my Ebony SV45TE view camera and a Nikkor 210mm lens.  The exposure was for 1/4 second at F20.0.

August Calendar Image 2026

This is the image I selected for the August page of my 2026 Fine Art Photography Calendar.  I also used this image on my David Thompson Country calendar for September of 2026, so it will be posted here again in a month.  In fact I've previously posted this image as I think it is one of my better ones from last year.  The remains of this old car, sit up at the Nordegg Historic Minesite.  The site is open for public tours over the summer months.

Piano

On July 25th I developed a batch of film.  This was twenty one 4"x5" sheets of Ilford FP4+ 125.  All of these sheets were exposed at 160 iso with the intention of giving N+1 development.  This is extended development to increase contrast by one stop.  I processed the film in Kodak HC-110 Developer, dilution B, for 14:20 minutes at 20C.

I took this shot way back in the late fall of 2023.  It was a very mild December and we had no snow, when I went up and visited an abandoned monastery with my friend Steve.  This old piano was left in the woods at this site some years ago.  I imagine that by now, it has probably completely disintegrated.  I took this photograph on December 6th of 2023, at about 12:30 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony SV45TE view camera and a Fujinon 125mm lens.  The exposure was for 1/2 second at F22.0.

One Million

Today my Blog hit One Million page views.  My first post was almost exactly sixteen years ago, on July 29th 2010.  Viewership was very low at the beginning, gradually increased, and now has seen exponentially more traffic.  It took until March 7th of 2026 for me to hit Half a Million page views.  Here we are under five months later, and another half million people have had a look.  It blows me away that so many people are interested in the mindless shit I write about...!

BP40.0 - Rockyview Hotel - Lesley

Our first Beer Parlour Project outing of 2026 was back in late February.  I stayed at a short term rental belonging to Connie and Chris' son Will, and we visited the Rockyview Hotel in Cochrane, Alberta.  It was winter, and pretty cold and snowy as I recall.

There was a decent crowd out that evening and we enjoyed visiting with everyone.  One of the guests, Trevor, specifically came out to visit with us.  He had also been out at Edgerton for his nephew's graduation, when we visited there back in 2025.

I took this portrait of Lesley and I quite like the way it turned out.  In typical female fashion she was concerned about the best angle to shoot from.  I obliged and took this frontal portrait as she requested.

This is yet another sheet of Kodak T-Max 400 that I developed in the batch on June 20th.  The twenty sheets of 4"x5" that I processed on that day were all pushed to 1250 iso. I ran them in T-Max Developer, 1:4, for 8:35 minutes at 24C.  I took the shot with my Ebony view camera and a 210mm Nikkor lens.  This was on February 27th at about 6:20 in the evening.  The exposure was for 1/2 second at F9.0.

Monday Day Trip

On July 27th Helena and I headed out for a day trip.  All three of my girls are really keen to join me on my photo outings as they seem to have inherited my love for exploring, particularly old buildings and abandoned stuff.

It was cloudy all morning and by noon some showers were rolling in.  As Helena and I were about to leave the city, another thunderstorm hit.  This one didn't have hail, or particularly heavy winds, but it dumped a lot of rain in a very short period of time.  It absolutely poured, and water was running everywhere.  I understand that we got another half inch of rain in about half an hour.  This is not what we need as the ground is already very saturated with the excessive rainfall we have experienced over the past six weeks.  When we returned home later in the evening we found our patio was a lake, and that a little new water had entered the basement.

Our original intention was to head to the northeast, but that was the direction the storm was tracking.  We changed our plans and headed southwest.  It continued to rain lightly as we left the city but by early afternoon it cleared up to blue skies.

We stopped and photographed an old farm hard, and explored a couple of abandoned rural service stations.  Both had been closed for at least a year or two and both were heavily vandalized and looted.  Helena really enjoys checking out stuff like this and took a few photos both with her phone, and with a 35mm SLR.  We also found an old abandoned stripping shovel, left over from some coal mining operations in the area.

I managed to pull my view camera out a few times and ended up exposing around ten sheets of film.  It turned out to be a pretty good day, except for the heavy rain part.  If this doesn't come to an end soon I'm going to have to start building an ark.  Then the rains came... for forty days and forty nights... now I know what Noah must have felt like.

BP41.0 - Carstairs

This is a scan of another recently processed T-Max 400 negative.  This was part of a batch of 20 sheets that I ran back on June 20th.  The film was pushed to an ISO of 1250 and given extended development in T-Max developer, 1:4, for 8:35 minutes at 24C.

This is a portrait of Jerry, one of the locals that was visiting Barley's Pub in the Dominion Hotel in Carstairs, Alberta.  The Beer Parlour Project visited for our outing number BP41.0 back on February 28th of 2026.  I took this portrait at about 5:00 in the afternoon with my Ebony view camera and a 210mm lens.  The exposure was for 1/2 second at F11.0.

Friday Day Trip

Margarit, Hank and I went out for a drive on Friday.  It was an escape from all the chaos of dealing with our flooded basement. 

I brought along my view camera, with the intention of taking a few photographs.  I really haven't done much photography yet this year, and am way behind my normal pace.  After passing through Elk Island Park, as I detailed in an earlier post, we headed further northeast.  Eventually we ended up in a small town in Two Hills County.

It isn't really a ghost town, as there are still a number of people living there.  There is also a post office and a county shop and a couple other commercial buildings, some abandoned.  There are a number of badly deteriorated buildings and I photographed a few things.  By the end of the day I had exposed ten sheets of film, though this included a couple that I took in Elk Island.

The air was heavy with wildfire smoke blowing down from the Northwest Territories.  It created a very unusual light with a very orange color to it.  That is evident in some of the phone snapshots I have posted here.

It was very hot with the temperature peaking at 30C.  Margarit and Hank had a tough time with it and spent a lot of time looking for shade or sitting in the air conditioned truck.  I found it hot as well, but I seem to handle heat better than the rest of my family.  I had long pants and a hoodie on all day, to mitigate the mosquitos, which didn't really seem necessary as their weren't many.  We expected them to be out in hoards due to all the recent rain but there weren't very many.  Perhaps it was too hot for them too.

By late afternoon we made our way back to the city and on the way we picked up a few groceries to make supper with the kids.

Elk Island National Park

On Friday July 24th Margarit and I decided we would make a short term escape from the woes of dealing with our flooded basement.  It has been over a month since the water first began to flood our basement as a result of all the heavy rain in central Alberta.  A month later and we have most of our stuff cleared out of the basement, and demolition underway, but not much else.  We still have no answers from our insurance adjuster or the contractor.

So we decided to take a break and escape out of the city for a couple of hours.  We made a quick lunch stop at the Burger Baron, and then headed east.  The air was heavy with smoke from forest fires up in the Northwest Territories.  It was difficult to imagine anything burning as everywhere we looked there was mud and standing water.  But the severe rains were actually somewhat limited to a relatively small area in central Alberta.  Park entry is again free this summer, so the annual pass that I paid full price for in the spring of 2025 remains irrelevant.  I understand that its validity will be extended until at least the end of 2026.

The light had a rather orange pall to it as a result of all the smoke in the air.  The sky was smokey gray and like a light blanket over everything.  We saw a number of bison along the side of the road and took a couple of snapshots.  There was evidence that there had been a fairly significant tent caterpillar infestation earlier in the summer as many of the aspens trees were stripped partly bare.  We stopped at the Hayburger trail head and every nook and cranny on the interpretive sign had a cocoon spun into it.  

It was very hot, with the temperature peaking at about 30C.  We had Hank along with us, and despite his recent haircut, he doesn't handle heat very well.  When we went for a short walk Hank managed to investigate the edge of a beaver pond, only to find out that it was very deep and he was quickly swimming.  We saw a few wildflowers and some beaked hazelnut bushes along the trail.  Later we headed out of the park and did some exploring to the northeast.  

By late afternoon we made our way back to the city and crossed through the park once again.  I stopped to photograph a grove of dead birch trunks that had caught my eye on the way through earlier.  It was a relaxing day and a nice escape from everything that has been going on recently.