Happy New Year!!

Only a few hours left in 2010.....   

It wasn't an awful year, but I'm hoping that 2011 is better.  My work situation is a drastic improvement over the years spent with an alcoholic partner.  But, the new partners are still learning the ropes, and aren't active in the day to day operation, so most of the responsibilities fall on my shoulders.  Here's hoping that things settle down this year and I can begin to step back a little and take some time off.

The economy was still in recovery through 2010, and it was a struggle to keep things rolling along in both businesses I'm involved in... Mac Plastics and PalcoPrep.  Hopefully things continue to improve in 2011.

The weather in 2010 left something to be desired.... the summer that was not...  we went out camping and on day trips almost every weekend, despite the weather.  Sure would be nice if we got an early spring, a nice hot summer, a long extended fall, and it only rained at night in 2011!!!  Is that possible...?

In spite of all my complaining, 2010 was a pretty good year.  We are all healthy and happy and enjoyed a lot of good times together.  We made some new friends and spent time with some old ones, discovered some new places, and returned to a few old favorites....

Maybe I should count my blessings and hope for the new year to be as good as the last one....?

Happy New Year everyone!!

 

Art Gallery of Alberta

Yesterday I took my whole family to the Art Gallery of Alberta.  The five of us travelled downtown on the train and spent a couple of hours in the gallery.  I really wanted to see the "Oil" exhibit by Edward Burtynsky.  This was a large display of enormous photographs that depicted mans dependence on oil, and what we've done to this earth to find it, extract it, process it, consume it, and the aftermath of all that.  The show was superb and I'm glad that we managed to see it before it ends... today.  In fact I wish I had gone sooner, and been able to spend a little more time with it.  But, with three young girls in tow, we had to hurry along because.... "this is really boring!"

There was also a display of Canadian Landscape paintings that was excellent.  I particularly liked to see original works by the Group of Seven, and an original Emily Carr.  I think my favorites were a couple of paintings by Lawren Harris and Frederick Varley.  Many of these pieces are in the permanent collection of the gallery, originally donated by the Poole family of Edmonton.

The girls had a lot of fun playing in the block room and building forts with all of the large foam building blocks.  It gave Margarit and I a little better opportunity to see some of the art as we took turns staying with the girls.

The building itself is quite a work of art.  I took along my little digital camera and although I was obviously not allowed to photograph any of the art, I did take a number of interesting snap shots of the building.  I realize that it took a lot of taxpayers money to pay for this project, but we can't approach everything strictly from a cost perspective.  Some things that provide long term interest and benefit to the people are worth spending a little more money on.  Our architecture here in Canada is boring enough, consisting mostly of utilitarian boxes for warehousing, retail and office.  We need to have a few showpieces that are more interesting, and this building is certainly one of them.  I like it!!

The Art Gallery of Alberta is well worth the price of admission and for anyone that has not had a chance to visit yet, I highly recommend it.

Winter Day Trip

My friend Rob and I headed out for a winter day trip.  The forecast was calling for the temperature in the city to get up to an afternoon high of -6C.  The skies were clear and it sounded like a great day to get out and make some photographs.  We left at 9:00AM and after a quick stop for fuel and a coffee, we hit the road to the east of Edmonton.  We headed through Elk Island Park and then continued up into Lamont County.  The temperature was around -14C when we left the city, as we came down out of the Elk Island hills it quickly dropped to -20C.  Although the light was great, it just never seemed to warm up.  We explored a number of interesting old buildings but didn't manage anything more than some digital photos.  It was just too cold to get motivated to bring out the big cameras.  Finally, by mid afternoon we got up the courage to try a shot with the view cameras.  Just after we started setting up the sun disappeared into a heavy bank of clouds, and never came back out.  The warmest we saw the thermometer rise to was around -15C.  We eventually made our way back home into the city.  By around 4:00PM when we were coming back into town, and the sun was setting, the thermometer read -7C!!  I guess we just should have stayed in the city and found something to shoot.... or at least brought along some smaller more cold temperature friendly cameras!

Photo Book

I spent the evening yesterday putting together a photo book.  For less than $100 Canadian,  including shipping and taxes, I will have one copy of a hard cover leather bound photo book printed.  I consider this somewhat experimental as I am a little skeptical of the print quality.  We'll see when I receive the book in a few weeks.  I put together a 32 page book using the software provided and uploaded it to the server of the printing company.  I paid for it on line, and now I'll sit back and wait for it to be delivered to me.  It features a series of some family snapshots from a trip down to Kananaskis and Waterton Lakes in the early summer of 2007.  I included a few of my Black and White large format images just to get an idea how well they reproduce.  The image above of Cameron Falls is the one that I put on the cover.  Stay tuned for a critique in a few weeks.

Merry Christmas!!

Pretty exciting times around our house these past couple of days!  All three girls have been so wound up and excited that getting to sleep the last few nights has been an issue.  On Christmas Eve we had Christmas dinner with my parents, my brothers, and their wives and families.  The kids all got to open some Christmas gifts after dinner, so that took a bit of the edge off.  When we got back home last night, there was still an awful lot of excitement over the visit from the big man in red.  Hailey was convinced that the lights she saw in the sky on our way homes were those of the sleigh and reindeer.  I checked out the bearing and it was definitely heading in the right direction to be coming from the North Pole.  Before heading to bed and trying to unwind the girls put these treats out on our wood stove for Santa.  Eight carrots [one for each reindeer], a glass of chocolate milk, a cookie, green gum drops [because Santa told the girls he likes them] and a note to let Santa know the way to the washroom.  Sometime shortly after the girls fell asleep Santa arrived and left a big pile of loot under the tree.  I was quite surprised that the girls managed to sleep in until around 9:00AM.  Then we tore into all the presents.  Later today we will have a second Christmas dinner with my wife's side of the family.

Lunar Eclipse

Last night here in central Alberta there was a total lunar eclipse.  Apparently this only occurs on the winter solstice every 426 years.  I don't think I'll be around to see the next one!!  It started out with sort of a halo around the moon, and then slowly the earth's shadow crept across the full moon.  I went out and took a couple of snapshots of it.  But, as it was a work night for me, I didn't stay up into the wee hours to witness the entire spectacle.  My wife did, and was certainly a lot more tired than I was come morning light. 

Renegades - Game 17

I was unable to make it to Game 17 this weekend as Margarit and I wanted to join my friend Rob and his family at a dinner to celebrate his 50th birthday.  What a milestone...!!  Soon it will be my turn.  In my absence the team managed to play a solid game in front of a backup goaltender and beat the Wolf Pack at the Uof A by a score of 8-4.  This puts us back on track to finish up 2010.  I look forward to getting back out on the ice in early 2011.

400 T-Max

Just finished processing a batch of Kodak 400 T-Max.  This included the last remaining unprocessed negative from 2008!  Now I can move on to 2009 and 2010 negatives, and soon current work from 2011!!  I really like this film as it responds well to minus development, to hold highlight detail in contrasty situations.  But, it also takes plus development nicely to pump up the contrast, when the lighting is a little flat.  This batch included a few minus negatives, mostly interiors, as well as a few that just received normal development.  I think that for the time being I can put the film processing aside and start to work on some printing.

PalcoPrep - High School Theropod

The newly renovated High School in Drumheller inherited a theropod cast from the local museum.  The school was looking to display it in their new library and called upon PalcoPrep to help with setting it up.  We were contracted to construct a mount for it that incorporated some plants, and looked life like.  The attached photos illustrate some of the steps that were involved to create a steel armature, encase it in foam, sculpt it, paint it, and create the finished product.

Renegades - Game 16

The second half of the season did not start out well for the Renegades.  Despite the fact that I had lots of players lined up to play, several didn't make it to the early ice time at 8:45AM at KofC Arena to face off against the Icebreakers.  To make matters worse five of the guys that did show up weren't allowed to play as a result of suspensions and ejections from the game less than 12 hours earlier.  We were rattled and upset and started the game with 4 forwards, 3 defense and a goalie.  We quickly found ourselves down by about six goals.  Later a couple of extra players showed up but it was too late.  About then our goaltender was injured.  He was hit in the mask by a shot and fell to the ice.  He may have hit his head on the ice when he fell.  In any event he was out cold.  When we awoke he insisted on shaking it off and continuing to play.  We later learned that he suffered a concussion and clearly should not have continued.  He couldn't focus and was understandably unable to stop anything.  As a result the game quickly got out of hand.  He actually got hit in the mask by two more shots before we finally called off the game.  The final score ended up 14-3, and there is a league review underway to sort out all the issues surrounding the improperly administered suspensions, the injury and the poor scheduling.  There is one more game before Christmas and then we get a bit of a break over the holidays to lick our wounds and regroup.  The two losses this weekend put us in third place in our division, and we need to try and get back on track.

Renegades - Make Up Game

The Renegades played a make up game at Millwoods Arena on Saturday night against the Ice Kings.  This was to make up for the one that had been rescheduled earlier, due to poor ice conditions.  After this game the league is re-aligning the teams and the divisions.  An extra division is being added in the middle, and as a result the Renegades will play the remainder of the season in Division 12.  The Ice Kings and the Bulldogs are being moved back up a division after this game.  The Wolf Pack and the Buzzards are being moved back down into our division.  I was not able to make it to the game as I took my girls to a WHL game at Rexall Place between the Oil Kings and the Kelowna Rockets.  The Oil Kings ended up winning, the Renegades did not do as well.  I guess the game turned into a gong show dominated by poor officiating.  The Renegades ended up getting spanked by a score of 13-3, and there were numerous penalties, ejections and suspensions.

Renegades - Game 15

The Renegades played a game on Friday night against the Ice Hawks, at Canadian Athletic Club.  It was a good ice time, with the game getting underway at 8:30PM.  We were very rusty as it has been nearly two weeks since our last game.  I was particularly bad as I haven't even been able to get out to morning hockey the last couple of weeks.  We were totally outplayed by the Ice Hawks.  They were all over us and ended up out shooting us 43 to 24.  But our goaltender Kris played an amazing game.  The Ice Hawks scored two goals, but Kris really only let in one of them.  The second one bounced in off my skate as I was attempting to defend the crease.  We managed to score 6 goals on our 24 shots and won the game handily.  The Ice Hawks were very upset about the game and the re-match in late January should be a battle.  This win puts us back into first place in our division.

Perceptol

A few years ago I was reading an exceptional photography book by the late English photographer, Barry Thornton.  He had high praise for Ilford Perceptol developer.  Unfortunately this developer, like so many other fine analog photographic materials, had been discontinued.  Things were looking quite bleak at the time as the English company Ilford was in bankruptcy protection.  From the WHMIS data sheets I was able to determine that the chemical ingredients of Perceptol were pMethylaminophenol Sulfate, Sodium sulfite, Sodium tripolyphosphate and Sodium Chloride.  So, I purchased all the ingredients and began to play around with the correct proportions.  Although my early attempts yielded printable negatives, the results were nowhere near my expectations.  Fortunately Ilford emerged from bankruptcy as Harman Technologies, a new company taken over by the senior management of Ilford.  Perceptol was back on the market!  I found that Thorntons praise of this developer was well founded and that it yielded excellent results, at least with certain films.  For years I had dabbled with Kodak T-Max 100 film and always been disappointed by the flat negatives.  Perceptol was the first developer to make this film sparkle.  I recently tried it on a batch of Foma Creative 200 film in 35mm format that I shot with my Russian panoramic camera, as well as on a roll of Kodak Tri-X Pan 400, also shot with the panoramic.  The initial results look good and I've scanned a few images to post.  There are some cool images in this batch, including one from last year of the ice bloom.  This is what I had hoped to try and capture, with better results, last weekend.

Renegades - Game 14

The Renegades played a game this afternoon, right smack dab in the middle of the Grey Cup game.  Despite the fact that we had to miss the football game to play hockey, we managed to get 15 guys out to play.  Our game was at Canadian Athletic Club against the Icebreakers.  They had a short bench, and we seemed to have more drive and determination.  We won the game by a score of 7-3 and outshot them 45 to 26.  Despite the fact that we have the best record in our division, we are in 4th place.  This is partially due to the fact that one of our earlier games got postponed due to poor ice conditions and as a result we have a game in hand.  But, it is also as a result of the earlier divisional moves and the fact that every teams score got reset back down to zero after the first five games.  We now have a layoff of nearly two weeks, followed by back to back games in mid-December, and then a break for the holidays.  Final divisional moves will take place before the holiday break.  We look forward to the second half of the season following the holidays, and hopefully can start out somewhere near the top of the standings.

Ice Bloom 2010

Every year when the North Saskatchewan River starts to freeze up we experience the Ice Bloom.  Large ice pads form in the river and drift along with the current.  Eventually they jam up and the river freezes over.  This phenomenon usually only lasts for a couple of weeks each fall.  I have attempted to photograph this spectacle many times in the past, with limited success.  Every year I have great intentions of trying again, from new vantage points, and with new techniques.  This year was no exception.  In mid November I witnessed the ice bloom starting to form.  It would have been at it's peak about a week ago, but then the temperature plummeted.  It was just too cold to try and get out and capture it with my big cameras.  This weekend the forecast was ideal, with daytime highs forecast to be just on the plus side of the freezing mark.  I headed out on Saturday morning, my head full of all the different ideas that I had in mind.  I arrived down at the river and much to my dismay the bloom was over.  The river had frozen over completely.  I guess I will have to wait until next year and try again.

Renegades - Game 13

We played the Oil City Wings at Grand Trunk Arena last night.  We started really flat and quickly spotted the Wings to a 5-1 lead.  Then, we decided to start playing.  It was another case of "too little - too late".  We rallied back to make it close, eventually narrowing the gap to 5-4.  But then they put on a push to hold the lead, and we started to run out of gas, and into a little penalty trouble.  The game ended up a 7-5 loss for the Renegades.  We are still in the thick of things but will have to play better hockey if we are to end up with a playoff spot in the spring.

Ilford FP4+ second batch

I processed my second batch of Ilford FP4+ on November 14th.  Like the first batch, this was also 4"x5" large format film, given N+1 development.  The film was actually washed and dried by last night, but with the Renegades game, I didn't have time to get around to scanning anything.  There are quite a few good negatives in this second batch.  I've attached scans of a few of the best ones.  These date back to the latter part of 2009, and through 2010.