Sunday, November 24, 2013

100 T-Max in Perceptol

This past week or so I've been plugging away at processing my backlog of film.  These most recent batches were Kodak 100 T-Max 4" x 5", processed in Ilford Perceptol 1:3.  This is a film that I've drifted away from and then come back to numerous times over the last 20 years.  It is no longer one of my preferred films, but I am using up all the stock that I have in my freezer.  After testing several developers I have settled on Ilford Perceptol diluted 1:3 as the most successful.  Once again this is a real mixed bag of images dating from 2009 right up to the present.
Athabasca Valley, Fall Photo Weekend, 2012

Beauty Creek, Fall Photo Weekend, 2012

Chungo Creek, Forestry Trunk Road, 2012

 Edsel, Youngstown, Alberta, 2010

Elk Creek, 2010 [taken by my daughter Hailey]

Mistaya Stump, 2012

Abandoned Bridge, southern Saskatchewan, 2013

Riverbank, southern Alberta Badlands, 2012

St Victor Petroglyphs, Saskatchewan, 2013

Trunks and Shadows, 2013

Upper Waterfowl Lake, 2012

Wildflowers, 2012

This batch also included a couple images from my ongoing Playground Ghosts project.  These two were shot back in 2009, when the girls were quite a bit younger...



And a couple of interior shots from my Unfinished House project.  This old farm yard has an old house... this one... left abandoned and forgotten when the husband and father passed away.  Beside it is a new house, under construction, that has been left unfinished and abandoned.  I need to get back out to this place and make a few more images to wrap up the story, and then print it.  These two images were also taken in 2009.



When I was processing some of this film last week, I got careless and didn't make sure and seal down the lid of my processing drum.  As a result, when the processor was agitating it in the water bath, a lot of water leaked into the drum, diluting the developer.  The result was that my negatives came out very thin.  There were also some blotches... I assume this was contamination from whatever chemicals may have strayed into that water bath.  Fortunately I didn't loose any really important negatives.  The couple that I really like are thin, but can probably be salvaged.  Here are scans of those three.  I need to be a lot more careful when I'm working on this stuff and avoid these sorts of problems in the future.

Badland Rills, Fall Photo Weekend, 2010

Spaca Moskalyk, 2011

Winter Hillside, 2011

Busy Day-And-A-Half

Monochrome Guild Meeting...
On Friday we had a meeting with the gang from the Monochrome Guild, here at my place.  Mostly we discussed getting our website up and running again, and making plans for our upcoming Friends and Family Show.  It was an enjoyable evening with friends, discussing photography, doing a little scotch tasting, and just relaxing.

Winter Hockey - Game 11
I didn't get to bed after the photo meeting until well after midnight.  About four hours later I woke up, not feeling so great.  Apparently I shouldn't have had that last scotch...  By around 5:30 I forced myself out of bed, had a quick shower, and headed over to a northside rink for an EARLY morning hockey game.  The puck dropped a little after SEVEN in the AM, as the Renegades faced off against the Bulldogs.  We jumped out to an early lead and held on to it through the entire game, eventually posting another victory, this time by a score of 8-4.  We now have a record of 10 wins and 1 loss through the first 11 games of the season. After the game we celebrated our victory in the dressing room with a beer for breakfast.  Mine didn't really agree with me, given the scotch the night before.  I headed home looking forward to a nap...

Mom's Surprise Party
After napping for a couple of hours and shaking off the cobwebs from the night before, and the early morning hockey game, we got ready for the surprise party.  My Mom turned 80 last weekend, and we had planned a big surprise party for her.  More or less at the last minute we had to call it off because of the poor weather. My brother Wes and his family from Calgary were unable to make the drive up due to all the snow.  Some of our other guests were somewhat reluctant to drive the roads as well.  So, we re-scheduled for this Saturday.  My brother Wes and his family, the girls and I, and several friends of my Mom all showed up at a downtown restaurant.  We there there in advance of my Mom and got set up with a few decorations in a semi-private room.  A short time later Mom arrived with my brother Greg and his family.  She was expecting it to be just a small casual dinner but when she walked into the room, she was surprised and taken aback. Numerous white lies and excuses had been made over the past couple of weeks in an attempt to keep this whole event secret, including a Sunday brunch last weekend that was supposed to pass for a birthday party. It worked... and she was completely surprised.  We enjoyed a nice dinner together and it was a great time for everyone.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Winter Hockey - Games 9 and 10

I didn't make it to the last two hockey games.  The Renegades played while I was away on the Fall Photo Weekend, and then again last weekend.  We had some family plans last weekend and I had to bail out of the game.  In Game 9 the team defeated the Old Hawks by a score of 11-5.  Then this past weekend the guys hung on in a close one and defeated the Trojans by a score of 6-5.  We now have a record of 9 wins and 1 loss in the first third of the winter season.  Our next game is one of those awful early morning ice times... at 7:15AM next Saturday.  Since I missed the last two I guess I'll have to drag myself over to the rink for this one...

Friday, November 15, 2013

iPhone Panoramas

While we were out in Jasper for the Fall Photo Weekend I discovered the panorama setting on the camera in my iPhone.  It takes the younger generation to teach old dinosaurs like me how to use these electronic gadgets.  Now I know why my parents were never able to program the VCR when I was young....
Guild member Gary taught me how to use this function, and then of course my daughters are always showing me how to do things with this phone.  I think I'll stick to film...  But these gadgets are kind of fun to play with from time to time.  Now I just have to learn how to hold the the stupid thing level...






More Negatives...

Just before the Fall Photo Weekend I processed a couple more batches of 4x5 negatives.  This included one batch of Ilford Delta 100, given plus development in PMK, as well as a batch of Kodak 100 T-Max processed in Perceptol.  This was a real mixed bag of stuff dating back as far as 2009.  I've scanned a few of the best images and included them here.

The badlands of southern Alberta during a fall prospecting trip 2011 [Delta 100].

The Athabasca River during our family trip to the mountains this past spring [100 T-Max]

 The Fall Photo Weekend in Jasper in 2011 [Delta 100].

Pasture Gate at TL Bar, taken by Hailey in 2011 [Delta 100]

Medicine Lake, Fall Photo Weekend, 2012 [Delta 100].

Mushrooms, 2012 [Delta 100].

Abandoned House, Saskatchewan Ghost Town, 2013 [100 T-Max].

Portal Creek, Fall Photo Weekend, 2011 [Delta 100]

Stone Walls in Snow 2013 [Delta 100].

Blackmud Creek Whirlpool, 2013 [100 T-Max]

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Fall Photo Weekend 2013

This past weekend was the 13th Annual Fall Photo Weekend with the Monochrome Guild.  I have been on every one of these outings since my friend Jon and I first started this tradition in 2001.  Most years the group has gone out to Jasper National Park, traditionally sometime just after Halloween.  The logic is that this is the time of year when accommodations are inexpensive, and the crowds are gone.  The summer tourist season is over and done with, and the winter ski season is not yet underway.  Some years we have gone to Banff National Park, or Kananaskis, and a couple of times to the badlands near Drumheller.  But the majority of the fall trips have been to Jasper.
This time around there were five members of the Monochrome Guild... Arda, Court, Gary, Tanja and myself.  For the first time my oldest daughter Hailey also came along.  This six of us spent the weekend photographing the mountains of Jasper Natioinal Park.
We left Edmonton early on Saturday morning.  Gary, Hailey and I travelled in my truck, and the other three were in a second vehicle.  We arrived in the park well before noon and after a brief stop at Talbot Lake, we headed up to Portal Creek.  This place has changed a lot in the past year.  The edges of the creek used to be heavily overgrown with brush and trees.  The heavy rains and flooding that plagued the foothills and southern Alberta this past spring must have also hit this area.  The bank was washed away and many of the trees and bushes were gone.  Photographically this gave better access to the rocky creek bed that was so photogenic.  The creek spills down the slope, cascading over a lot of rocks and boulders.  At this time of year there is typically some fresh snow, and a lot of cool ice formations beginning to form.  This year was no exception.





Later in the day we tried to drive up to Athabasca Falls, but the secondary highway was closed at The Meeting of the Waters.  We back tracked and caught up with the rest of the gang back at Portal Creek. They decided to stay there shooting and we headed up to the benches above the Jasper townsite. Surprisingly the water at Patricia Lake was not frozen and we got some good images of Pyramid Mountain reflected in the still waters.  After that the light was done for the day.  We headed into town, checked into our hotel rooms, and went out for dinner.


The next morning, after breakfast, we all decided to head up the Maligne Road.  We stopped along the river and did a little shooting, before eventually moving on up the valley to Medicine Lake.  As we arrived at the lake, the sun began to break out, the clouds starting lifting, and the scene before us was pretty spectacular. We shot here for a while and then eventually headed further up the valley to Maligne Lake.  Not finding much there that seemed worth shooting we headed back down the valley and shot for awhile again, back at Medicine Lake, in the evening light.  On our way back into town in the late afternoon we also stopped briefly at the Maligne viewpoint, and at the Fifth Bridge.  Then it was back to our hotel, and again out for our evening meal.







As Monday was the Remembrance Day holiday, we had one more day to spend in the mountains.  After breakfast we checked out of our hotel and then headed over to Athabasca Falls.  The first two days of the weekend had been pleasantly mild for early November, with afternoon high temperatures peaking just above the freezing point.  On this morning it was particularly brisk.  The skies completely cleared over night and the temperature dropped down considerably.  By the time we got over to Athabasca Falls it was still only about -12C, and there was a dampness in the air due to the mist from the falls.  We shot here for a while and it was beginning to warm up by the time we left.  Next we headed over to Horseshoe Lake.  This lake was beginning to freeze over, but there was still some open water.  We spent the last few hours of our weekend shooting here, and really enjoyed the afternoon.  By the time we finished up it was nearly 3:00PM.  We had a quick lunch, packed up our gear and hit the road for home.  We arrived back home after dark, in the early evening, tired but content from a very enjoyable fall outing.






Tuesday, November 12, 2013

White Pocket

Sunday October 20th was our last day in Utah.  We had an outfitter lined up to take us to the Whitepocket in the afternoon, so we had the morning to kill.  We decided to head over to the Rimrock Hoodoos, which were just a short distance down the road from Paria Outfitters.  We did the short hike of about a mile in to the hoodoos, and spent the morning shooting here.  We had the place to ourselves, and it was pleasantly quiet until late morning, when a few other hikers began to arrive.  But, by this time we were packing up for the for the short hike out, and looking forward to experiencing Whitepocket...





We rolled into the yard of Paria Outpost.  It is right on Highway 89, near the Paria River, about 40 miles east of Kanab.  We had met Steve Dodson a couple of days prior out at the Wave.  So many people, including several hikers out at the Wave, some tourists at the BLM office, and the two hikers that we gave a ride to, out of Wire Pass, had told us about Whitepocket and stressed that we just had to see it.  This small area is near the South Coyote Buttes, and beyond the boundaries of the restricted area.  Like the Wave it is just over the state line in Arizona.  No special permit is required to go in to this area.  We had been warned about attempting to drive out to it by ourselves, even with a four wheel drive.  It is about 14 miles off the main road, through rough terrain of loose sand and rocky outcrops.  Never having driven in sand before, and needing my truck to get us back home, I was a little gun shy to try it on our own.  The three of us eventually agreed to pay for an outfitter to take us there.  We contacted Steve Dodson of Paria Outpost, and discovered that he was heading out there on this day, with Francis, a digital photographer from Michigan. 
This was the same guy that he had been with out at the Wave, a couple of days prior.  We were disappointed to learn that he was not heading out until noon, but this being the last day of our time here, we really had no other choice.  Francis was late arriving at the Outpost and by the time we piled all of our gear into Steve's Suburban, it was approaching 1:00PM.  We were beginning to get pretty anxious and were hoping we'd have enough time to properly explore and photograph the area.
Steve was a really cool guy and we immediately hit it off.  He was obviously well suited to his job and was a real people person, continually rattling off little one-liners and jokes and he kept up a running commentary. But he also knew the area like the back of his hand.  We headed out from his place for a short distance down Highway 89 before turning off on the House Rock Valley Road.  We rattled down this rough road, that had by now become quite familiar to us, for about 10 miles.  Shortly after setting out Steve cranked up the radio in his Suburban, looked back at us and said, "I sure hope you all like the Grateful Dead... 'cause I ain't turning it down, and I ain't turning it off".  This would be the first of many little tidbits that Steve tossed our way.
Everyone warned us that if we were going to attempt to drive out to Whitepocket on our own, not to attempt the Paw Hole Road.  Steve initially drove past this turn off, but then screeched to a halt, headed back and turned onto the Paw Hole Road.  His only comment... "what the hell, let's go this way, its' shorter".  As we pounded along through this rough country we were grateful that we had hired Steve.  Not only was the road rough with a lot of loose sand, but there was a maze of roads out here and we never we have found our way onto the right ones.  Steve just knew exactly where he was going and didn't even have to slow down to think about which way to go.  We passed by an old abandoned ranch after a while, and continued on for another six miles or so, eventually arriving at Whitepocket.  Steve provided us each with a bag lunch, and sort of left us on our own.  Initially he was a little concerned about letting us wander off out of his sight, but eventually he kind of gave up and let us go as we pleased.


Whitepocket is an area about 2 miles long and 1 mile wide.  It kind of looks like someone took a big bowl of two different kinds of pudding, whipped them up into a bunch of swirls and piles, and then it dried out and became petrified.  It is on a relatively high outcrop, overlooking a large expanse of land to the northwest, with the high plateau of Bryce Canyon vaguely visible a hundred or more miles away.  It was about 2:00 in the afternoon before we actually got our camera gear out and started shooting.  Our concerns about not having enough time quickly disappeared as it became obvious that we would run out of film long before we ran out of light.  We shot until dark and eventually made our way back to the Suburban.  We waited here for quite a while as Francis continued to shoot until the last ray of sunlight had disappeared.  As we were packing our gear back into the truck for the drive back to the Outpost we noticed that the rear passenger tire was nearly flat.  It was common practise to let some air out of the tires when driving in loose sand, but this was well beyond that.  We helped Steve to seal the tire with a couple of cans of puncture seal, and then added some air with a small 12V compressor.  By the time we were ready to hit the trail it was dark.  We never would have found our way out in the darkness and this is where once again it became obvious that hiring Steve had been a really good idea.  Besides, he was just a really entertaining guy.  One of his jokes was... "What time is it in Utah?... 50 years ago!"  This came about as we discussed world politics, the current financial situation in the United States, and the fact that Utah's population consists of around 80% mormons, of which 99% are ultra right wing conservatives.













It took about an hour and a half to drive out from Whitepocket and back over to the Outpost.  Steve dropped us off at his place where we had left my truck.  We all paid him the outfitting fee, and tipped him for the great service.  His parting words were... "Pray for us Americans... if we don't get it right we're dragging you all down with us".  
It was late in the evening before we arrived back at the house in Kanab.  There was no need to load any film on this night after our evening meal, as we would be hitting the road for home in the morning.  We quietly packed up all our gear and tidied things up around the house, in preparation for our departure.
The next morning we hit the road for home.  We made it as far as Helena, Montana on that first 12 hour day of driving.  After a bite to eat in a local restaurant we checked into a motel.  The next morning we hit the road bright and early and continued north towards home.  We made a quick stop at the duty free store in Sweetgrass, Montana and bought a few bottles of cheap booze before crossing the 49th back into Canada. We had no issues at the border and crossed quickly and easily.  By evening we were back home and our adventure came to an end.