Winter Hockey - Games 25 and 26

The losing skid continues...  The Renegades lost two more games this week.  One Wednesday we came up short against the Icebreakers, by a score of 6-5.  This one was particularly hard to swallow because the Icebreakers had a really short bench, with only eight skates, including two girls.  We had an almost full roster of 14 skaters and a goalie, and should have been able to skate them into the ice.  Then last night we lost to the Bulldogs by a score of 4-2.  This was a very tough physical game and I am still nursing some bumps and bruises on my old carcass.  With four games left in the regular season we are going to have to pull things together if there is any hope of us making it into the post season.

Color Negatives

The annual batch of C-41 color processing is now complete.  I will now pack away all of the equipment and materials until I accumulate enough film to bring it out again.  These past few days I have spent some of my time scanning the best of the 4x5 images that were just processed.  Most of these images were taken during 2011.  The shot of the pasture gate down in the badlands was actually taken by my eldest daughter Hailey, with a 4x5 view camera, back in the summer of 2011 when she was just 8 years old.

Winter Hockey - Game 24

The Renegades played another morning hockey game this past weekend.  This one was not quite as early as the last one with the game getting underway at 9:00AM Sunday.  I was still getting over a bad case of the flu and went out to play, but didn't have much energy.  We started out well, and it was a close game verses the Wolf Pack.  We lost our momentum when a goal, that would have tied the game 2-2 was disallowed due to the net being knocked off.  We took exception to this as it was their goalie that knocked it off.  We ended up taking a penalty for arguing the call and the momentum swung in favor of the Wolf Pack.  They ended up winning the game by a score of 5-1, and we are once again knocked out of playoff contention.  I can't understand why we aren't able to string together two wins in a row.  I guess this division is just really closely matched.  We now have six regular season games left to try and secure a playoff spot.

C-41 Processing

Even though I am, for the most part, a black and white photographer, I do shoot some color film.  This is a mix of color negative and color transparency film.  C-41 is the chemistry that is used to process color negative film.  There are also a couple of specialty black and white films that are processed with this chemistry.  The chemistry is rather costly, and not available in small quantities.  But, there are no local labs left processing this material in formats larger than 35mm.  So, for all my 120 medium format film, as well as my 4x5 and 8x10 sheet film, I would have to send it out for processing.  Instead, I have purchased a large batch of this chemistry, which should last me for some time.  I tend to save up all my color negative film for a year or more, and then when there is a large enough batch, I set up my Jobo processor, mix up the chemistry, and process several batches.  I am in the midst of my annual batch and have so far processed 7 sheets of 8x10, five rolls of 35mm, and a dozen rolls of 120 medium format.  I still have fifty sheets of 4x5 left to go, which I hope to get to in the coming days.  I have attached scans of some of the better images from these first few batches.

Winter Hockey - Game 23

The Renegades played an early morning game, at 7:15AM, this past Saturday.  We faced off against the first place Chiefs.  I was very concerned about this game because we were having trouble getting enough players lined up to play, and had to play with a backup goaltender.  We put together a really solid effort and soundly beat the Chiefs by a 9-1 score, the exact opposite of the game a week earlier.  It puzzles me why we play so inconsistently and struggle against some teams while dominating others.  This win puts us back into playoff contention and with seven games left in the regular season we need to start a bit of a streak to carry us through into the post-season.

Procession West - more submission prints

Over the past few days I've continued working in my darkroom.  I recently completed making copies of two more prints for the Procession West project.  These will be included with a submission package to various galleries.  Here are copies of these prints coming out of the washer and being hung up to dry...

Girls at the Spa

While is was out at the Oilers game on Saturday night the girls had a spa night together.  Mother and daughters gave each other manicures and pedicures and hung out together.  They fell asleep before they got around to giving each other facials.  So, on Sunday they picked up where they left off and mixed up a batch of avocado facial complete with cucumber slices...

Saturday Night Hockey

Last Saturday night I passed up the opportunity to play Game 22 of the Renegades Winter Season to watch the Oiler play the Detroit Red Wings at Rexall Place.  Unlike some of the Oilers games that I recently attended, this was actually a good one.  The Oilers played a really strong first period and jumped out to an early lead.  They nearly gave the game away later but pulled the goaltender and managed to score with seconds left to tie the game.  This led to overtime, which settled nothing, and then to the shootout.  The Oilers prevailed and managed to win in the shootout.  My Renegades did not fare so well.  They were badly outplayed by Papa Johns Pizza, lost the game by a 9-1 score, and were outshot something like 64 to 32.  There is an early morning game coming up next Saturday and maybe we can regroup and try to salvage the remainder of our season.