Christmas...

A time of celebration, and days to be spent with family.  We really enjoyed the holidays this year and it makes it even more special to see the excitement in the eyes of a little kid.  For days before Christmas all three of the girls had difficulty sleeping... too wound up with excitement and anticipation.  We spent Christmas Eve at my parents place, with my Mom and Dad, and my two brothers and their families.  Then, the next day, Christmas morning, the three girls tore into the pile of gifts under our tree.  Later that evening Margarit's brother and his kids came over for Christmas dinner at our place.  My mom and dad came over for dinner as well.  Margarit's mom was really sick with a bad cold, so she stayed home, not wanting to share it.  We'll have to have another dinner some time in the new year when she is feeling better...

Recitals...

Shortly before Christmas all three of my girls were involved in Christmas recitals.  The two older girls, Hailey and Annelise, were in Christmas concert at their school.  Then a few days later, my youngest, Helena, was in a Christmas dance recital with her dance studio.

Christmas Eve...

Things sure have been busy these past few weeks, and now Christmas is upon us.  So many activities at this time of year... dance classes and recitals, school concerts, christmas preparations, not to mention all the usual stuff... hockey games and the like.  I have closed down my shop for a full two weeks this year.  It has been so cold and snowy that we have been limited in the projects that we are able to work on.  The guys put on a big push and wrapped up everything that we could.  We will now all take a long break to relax and unwind and spend time with friends and family.  The shop won't re-open until January 7th.

The girls have been excited for ages and now it's starting to boil over.  As I write this we are getting the last preparations together for Christmas with my family.  The Pohl family always celebrates Christmas on the 24th, with a big dinner, followed by a gift opening.  It will be a little different this year in light of my father's situation.  He will most certainly be there with us, but does not live at home any more.  One or more of us will have to take him back to his new place when the evening winds down.  All the kids take part in a gift exchange, while the adults just exchange gag gifts.  Then on Christmas Day, we will do it all over again, this time at our house, with Margarits side of the family.  

Winter Hockey - Game 16

This was a close one...  The game was on December 22nd, and this close to Christmas a lot of our players were busy for the holidays.  We only ended up getting 11 skaters and a goalie out to the game.  The game was against the Buzzards, at Clare Drake Arena on the University of Alberta campus.  What a great rink, and what a tradition there with the Golden Bears team.  Sure wish we could play here more often.  We hung on for a close 7-6 victory and go into the Christmas break with a strong hold on 1st place in our Division.

Winter Hockey - Game 15

The Renegades played a very late game on Saturday night.  Fortunately it was a weekend as the game did not even start until 11:15PM, and by the time I got home and my gear put away after the game, it was 2:00AM.  We played the last place Icebreakers.  These guys are a pretty good team and would do a lot better if they could just get their players to show up.  This time around they only had six skaters and a goalie.  Before the mid-way point of the game one of their players got a game ejection for an accidental high stick to the face of one of our guys.  This left them with only five skaters that had to play the entire remainder of the game without a break.  Needless to say we outshot them, and controlled the play.  The shots on goal ended up to be 55-19.  The score was much closer and we only won by a final score of 7-5.  Our goalie got very cold and let in a couple of soft ones.  And they're goalie was really sharp and stopped almost everything we threw at him.  Our winning streak remains intact and now at the halfway point of the season we sit atop the standings with a record of 11 wins, three losses and one overtime loss.  There are two games coming up over the holidays and we may be challenged to get enough guys out to the rink as several of our players will be away on Christmas vacations.

Tis the season...

A very busy time of year to say the least.  The skylight business is into the slow time of year and I am just attempting to wrap up several outstanding projects before we shut down for an extended Christmas break.  I will have two weeks away from the office and will only need to occasionally check in.  Hopefully the weather is mild and I get a chance to get out with my cameras.  So far this fall that has not been the case.  It wintered in early this year with the snow coming to stay in mid October.  We now have an accumulation of around a foot, and the temperature has been below average in recent weeks.  But, maybe that will come to an end in time for the holidays.  We wrap up the year at work with a staff barbecue on Friday afternoon, and then won't return to work until the 7th of January.

The girls have been busy as well, and getting anxious about the upcoming holidays, and the visit from the big guy in red.  The two older girls had their Christmas Concert at school last week.  Little Helena was in her first dance recital ever, a Christmas show yesterday, at the Myer Horowitz Theater on the University campus.

My Dad seems to be settling in to his new situation nicely.  He moved into long term care last week and everything is going well.  I stopped in to visit him on the weekend and asked him how he liked things so far.  He was not upset or complaining and seemed pretty accepting of the changes that were taking place.  The facility seems well run and they make a point of making sure all the residents remain as engaged as they can, and don't just sit alone in their rooms.

I'm continuing to struggle with the selection process for my part of the Procession West show.  Rob and I got together last week and went over a bunch of our images.  He has almost all of his images printed, and they look really good, especially next to my unfinished work prints.  Everytime I think that I have my list of images put together, I start second guessing myself and decide that I'm not really happy with what I have.  So I dig back into my archive of over 5000 negatives and keep looking for something better.  It is time to stop procrastinating and get serious about this.  I need to stick to my selection of images and get to work printing them.  I will get back into the darkroom and get busy later this week, and then hopefully find some time to get really serious about it, over the holidays.

Deterioration

My father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease a number of years ago.  Up until how he has been living at home, with my mother looking after him.  Dad is going to be 84 next spring and physically is in pretty good shape for his age.  But this horrible illness has taken him away from us all.  In the past six months his mental condition has drastically deteriorated.  Up until fairly recently a person could still carry on a simple conversation with him.  He got a little mixed up from time to time, but there was still a pretty good level of understanding.  Now even that is gone and he can not comprehend or concentrate on even the simplest things.  My brothers and I have been pleading with my mother for the last few years for her to get some help in looking after Dad.  He needs attention 24/7 and she has been the sole caregiver for all these years.  With this recent deterioration the time has come to put Dad into long term care, and Mom has finally given in.  These are very difficult times for Mom and I'm sure she has reservations and feels some guilt over what she has had to do.  But, my brothers and I fully support the decision and recognize that there is no other choice.  Dad has been placed into a long term care facility just a couple miles away from the acreage on Windermere Drive.  This past weekend my brother Greg and I started moving some of Dad's furnishings over to the new place.  His room won't be ready for a couple of days, but this coming week he will move in.  I'm hoping that he takes it well and accepts his new home.  I know the man that my father was would not want to burden my mother with this curse of looking after him in this condition.  If he was capable of understanding this situation and recognizing how difficult it is, he would be the first to check himself into long term care.  But the man that he has become is very mixed up and irritable, so it may take some time for him to settle in.  This certainly has not been an enjoyable time as we help Mom to get things set up for Dad....   But, Mom can not continue to do this and is getting really burnt out.  She can live independently for some time to come, even out on the acreage, but not with the burden of constantly being on watch over Dad.  He will be in place where he is kept comfortable and safe and will be well looked after.  And, it is very close by and convenient for us to all drop in and see him, and take him out from time to time.  I took this portrait of Dad in 2008.  Sad but true.... but all good things must come to an end...

Winter Hockey - Game 14

The Renegades played game 14 of the winter season last night, at Grand Trunk Arena.  We faced off against the Oil City Wings.  It surprises me somewhat that this team is in second last place in our division.  These guys always fight hard and all three of our games against them have been close, with one decided in overtime.  This time was no exception, and the game got a little rough and chippy.  Mostly this was the result of the officials not calling the game very well.  This caused some tempers to boil over and things got a little out of hand.  But, by the time the final buzzer sounded we had edged ahead and won the game by a 4-2 score.  This solidifies our hold on first place with a record of 10 wins, 3 losses and 1 overtime loss.  

Fatal Equipment Failure

There was a factory in Croatia that was coating sheet film and some types of photographic paper.  This particular factory coated the Efke line of large format films, as well as the recently released Adox CHS films.  These films marketed under the Adox name, were supposed to be the old Agfa formulations.  I have always liked Efke PL25 as it seemed to be very similar to the now discontinued Agfa APX 25 emulsion.  Recently I did some testing with the newly available Adox CHS Art 50 emulsion and really liked it as well.  Late in the summer of 2012, they had a "Fatal Equipment Failure".  All of these emulsions were instantly discontinued...  I have several hundred sheets of each of the two that I really liked, and will now have to reserve those for special situations where the subject matter and the light conditions will be well suited to the characteristics of these emulsions.  I checked with the North American distributor and they confirmed that all of these emulsions are done... never to return.  I was told that the equipment dated back to the Second World War and was beyond repair.  I was also told that this particular coating machinery was quite different from that of any of the other manufacturer's and that these emulsions could not be produced by anyone else.  What a shame...  All the more troublesome given the fact that my most recent batch of Adox CHS 50, processed last week, yielded some spectacular negatives...

All of these are from late 2012...  a few from fall day trips around Edmonton, some from the Labor Day Trip to the Forestry Trunk Road, a couple from the Fall Fossil weekend, and finally a few from the Fall Photo Weekend in Jasper...

Winter Hockey - Game 13

Margarit and I went out last night to a house party to celebrate my friend Rob's birthday.  We had our niece Bethany over to babysit the girls, and were looking forward to a rare evening out.  It was a great evening and we really enjoyed the visit.  I know Rob is not really a night-owl and he was probably anxious for us to get the hell out of his house....  We eventually did, but not until around midnight.  It was later than I expected as I had to get up early on Sunday for a hockey game.  Running on about four hours sleep I dragged my old carcass out of bed at around 5:30AM.  I was at the rink on the north side of the city by 6:30AM.  We played a game against the Ice Hawks and I was surprised that almost all of our regular guys made it... though some were a little green in the gills...  We had a backup up goaltender, a friend of one of our spares.  He plays ball hockey on a regular basis, but had not been on skates for several years.  He was more than a little shaky, but did a great job for us.  He was pretty flexible and athletic so even though his skating skills were a little rusty, he made some great saves.  It was a pretty close game but we ended up on the right side of a 9-7 final score.  This solidifies our hold on first place as we approach the half way point of the 30 game regular season.

I could hardly wait...

Movember is over and I could hardly wait to get rid of the "stache".  My girls wanted to see what I looked like with a moustache, so I agreed to grow one for Movember.  This is the month when men who normally do not have facial hair, grow a moustache to raise awareness for men's prostate cancer.  Though I was not actively raising pledges, I hope that the look of my scruffy Cookie-Duster reminded at least a few guys to go to their doctor and get 'fingered".  I myself had my annual physical this month and was subjected to the indignity... but came away with a clean bill of health.  Here are three shots of the "stache", before and after...

Monochrome Guild - Fall Meeting

On Friday November 30th the Monochrome Guild members met at my place for our Fall Meeting.  This was probably the best attended meeting ever.  There were ten members and two guests present.  We reviewed a number of prints presented by various members, including a few of mine.  I came away with some suggestions as to how to improve a couple of my prints; helpful information as I work toward making the exhibition prints for Procession West...  

We also discussed an upcoming project.  This will be called "Greatest Hits" and will be a Retrospective on the 10th Anniversary of the Monochrome Guild.  As I think back it seems like just yesterday that I started the group.  I remember some of those early meetings when only one or two other photographers showed up...  We struggled with keeping things moving forward and gave some serious thought as to whether or not it worthwhile to carry on.  Ten years later the group is thriving and there are a number of new members.  Most are new to film, having grown up with digital.  None are great printers yet, but they are keen to learn and passionate about film based photography.  This project will feature some of the best images of the Guild members, taken between 2002 and 2012.  Once we get things put together we will submit a package to some galleries for consideration.

Another Print Session...

On November 22nd I spent an evening in the darkroom and printed a couple more negatives.  It is hoped that these images may become part of the Procession West exhibition.  At the end of the evening I reflected on the images, and ones that I had worked on in previous darkroom sessions.  Rob and I need to sit down together and really define the context of our show.  We need to make a final selection of the images that will become part of the show, and then stick to it.  This indecision is wasting a lot of time and materials as we both fumble around making prints, only to decide to bump them in favour of something else.  These are both great images, but we will need to see how they fit within the context of the show.  Rob and I are planning to get together in the next couple of weeks and go over all of our workprints and select the final cut.  We can then get serious about working on final exhibition prints of these images.

Winter Hockey - Game 12

On November 24th the Renegades played a game against the Wolf Pack.  This is the only team in our division against whom we are winless, and this game would be no exception.  We lost a hard fought game by a score of 8-7.  The game went back and forth all night and it was only very late in the game that they managed to score the eventual winner.  We pulled our goaltender and rallied to tie, and though we had some great scoring chances, couldn't quite pull it off.  Despite the loss we remain in first place, which the Wolf Pack are in third place.