Procession West at Spruce Grove Art Gallery

I have known since last summer that our Procession West exhibition would be shown at the Spruce Grove Art Gallery.  A condensed version of our full show was accepted as the Feature Artists for the winter of 2014.  In the back of my mind I knew that the show was coming up in March.  For the past couple of weeks I've meant to head over to the gallery on the weekend and check out the available space.  With so many things going on the last little while I just never got around to heading over there.  Finally last night I dug out the contract to check the exact dates and the details of the show.  To my dismay I discovered that I was supposed to install the show this morning, and supposed to have sent in a list of images two weeks ago.

Last night I sent a frantic e-mail to the gallery apologizing for my carelessness.  This morning I got on the phone and tried to get in touch with the lady that coordinates exhibitions.  As it turns out she was on vacation down in Arizona.  I finally managed to connect with her and with some of the other gallery staff.  As it turned out I got things together just in the nick of time.  The previous show was actually taken down just this morning.  I gathered up our prints and delivered them to the gallery just after lunch.  By 2:00PM in the afternoon, just a couple of hours behind schedule, everything was installed and ready to go.  No harm done and the gallery staff were happy and quite pleased with our work.  The official opening reception is coming up this on Saturday afternoon.  The ten prints included in this small exhibition will remain on display for about three weeks, until March 15th.  The gallery is located in the Melcor Cultural Center in a space shared with the local library.  The address is 35 - Fifth Avenue, in Spruce Grove, Alberta.  Here are some photographs of the gallery space, just as I was completing the installation.

I really must be getting old as I sure seem to be forgetful lately.  Not only did I almost completely overlook this exhibition...  But this evening, when the family went out for dinner, I accidentally left my truck running outside the restaurant the entire time....  Sure was lucky that no one hopped in it and drove away...

Olympic Hockey Gold

I got up at 5:00 in the morning on Sunday to watch the Olympic Men's Hockey Gold Medal Final Game.  It seems as though most of Canada did the same thing.  Hockey has almost a religious status here in Canada and it has just taken over everything in recent days.  It was a really entertaining game to watch and I just marvelled at how the Canadians played so well through the entire tournament.  They just executed near perfect play and scored just enough to win, while focusing on keeping the puck out of their own end of the rink.  I hadn't paid much attention to it in the past but the larger European ice surface really affects the way the game is played.  Mostly that extra 15 feet in width really seems to push the play out to the edges more.  The Canadians handled it well and dominated the play if not the scoreboard, through the entire tournament.

I don't know what felt better... seeing the dejected looks on the faces of the Swedes on Sunday..., or knocking off the cocky American team in the semi-final a couple days ago, and then seeing them decidedly lose the bronze medal to the Finns.  Have to wait four years now until Canada can defend our gold medal at the next winter games.

Winter Hockey - Game 25

The Renegades didn't play very well this weekend.  We played a game on Saturday afternoon against the first place Canadians.  It wasn't a blow out and we kept it pretty close through the entire game.  Six of our regular guys couldn't make it, and although we had enough spares out to fill the bench, our lines were all mixed up.  We were also guilty of taking shifts that were too long, and just not playing smart hockey.  We ended up losing another one, this time by a score of 8-5.  Fortunately for us, the teams that are behind us in the standings also didn't do all that well, and didn't gain much ground on us.  With five games remaining in the regular season we still cling to the last playoff spot.

Pachyrhinosaurus Skull

Palcoprep Inc. down in Drumheller, the company in which I am involved, just completed fabricating a cast of a Pachyrhinosaurus Skull.  The original specimen is housed at the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller.  This cast has been sold to a museum in Japan.  It will be crated for shipment and be on it's way in the next few days.   

Odds and Ends...

About 10 days ago I was cleaning up a mixed batch of film processing.  I ran off my remaining few sheets of Agfapan 25, as well as some Efke PL25M.  The Efke sheets turned out a little on the thin side and it was only then that I realized they were under developed.  I have to pay more attention to not only the development time, but also the temperature.  Nevertheless there were a few images that have some potential. The rest of the shots were all duplicates of images taken on other types of film, or given different development.

Red Rock Coulee, Summer 2013

Colin Range, Medicine Lake, Fall Photo Weekend 2012

Spring Photo Weekend 2012.

My friend Rob included an almost identical version of this shot in our

Procession West project - though his didn't include as much foreground water.

A panorama of an abandoned farm, taken on the way home from the

Fall Prospecting Weekend in 2012.

Pyramid Mountain in Jasper from Old Fort Point

Fall Photo Weekend 2012

Windy Point

Taken while travelling with my German relatives in the summer of 2013

Winter Hockey - Game 24

The Renegades lost a close one on Saturday.  We played the second place Hungry Beavers on Saturday morning.  We jumped out to an early lead, but couldn't hang on when the Beavers put on a big push at the end.  We ended up losing by a score of 7-6.  Nothing really changed in the overall standings, and we still cling to the last playoff spot.  There are six games left in the regular season and we're going to have to win most of them if we want to make the post season.

Old Photo

My cousin loaned me an old photograph of our uncle.  The original is a small, worn print that was originally a little on the dark side.  Unfortunately we don't have the original negative.  My Dad's older brother John, who passed away of a brain tumor back in the 1990's is the guy in this photo holding the bottle of Whiskey, and wearing the toilet seat around his neck.  The two on either side of him are his cousins, Howard and Irwin. The fourth guy, holding the cup, is a friend of theirs. It seems these four young guys headed down to the Calgary Stampede, probably sometime in the late 1940's and found themselves in a little trouble with the law. I scanned the old print and managed to fix it up a little in photoshop, so that I could print some extra copies.

Winter Hockey - Game 23

The Renegades got a great ice time today.  We faced off against the second place Thunder at just after noon, up at KofC Arena.  These guys beat us soundly the last time we played them so we were not only out for revenge, but looking to move up in the standings and try to improve our chances of earning a playoff spot. With the afternoon ice time, Margarit and the girls were able to come out and watch.  By the time the girls arrived, near the end of the first period, we were already up 6-0.  We blew the shutout for our goalie early in the third period but shovelled in a few more goals for an easy 12-1 victory.

Hailey captured these couple snap shots on here phone while the game was underway.

Afterwards we went out for lunch together, and then headed over to the Terwillegar Arena for public skating.  I put my skates on for the second time, and the girls all came out for a skate with me.  

Processing Sheet Film

I processed a mixed batch of film last weekend.  This included the last of my exposed but not yet processed 4" x 5" sheet film from 2009.  I checked my records and find that I still have over 400 sheets to go.  This includes about 4 from 2010, about 50 from 2011, and lots from 2012 and 2013.  There are even a few sheets that I have shot in 2014.  I will continue to chip away at this backlog and try not to fall so far behind. It is difficult for me to remember what everything is when it comes time to checking my field notes, comparing them to the processed film, and attempting record some file data with the negatives when I put them away.  Slowly but surely I am getting caught up on this backlog.  I checked my files and found that I have shot nearly 6000 sheets of 4" x 5" black and white negative film since I bought my first view camera in 1996.

Most of this last batch included Efke PL25M, given N+1 development in Rodinal.  This has become one of my favorite films, though for most subject matter I prefer normal development.  This is a very slow film with a smooth tonal range, great mid-tones and nice contrast.  Unfortunately it has now been discontinued, and there is nothing currently manufactured that comes close.  Perhaps that will change in the future, though I am not holding my breath.  I do have an inventory of at least a couple of hundred sheets of unexposed film in my freezer so I will be able to keep shooting it for at least a few more years.

Most of the film that I processed this time around included duplicate negatives of images that I had also shot on other types of film.  There were four images in this batch that I found quite remarkable, and this particular film and developer combination seemed to yield results superior to what I had done previously with other materials.

This shot was taken in the summer of 2013.

It was taken while my cousin and her family were visiting from Germany.

It was shot down in the Red Deer River Badlands of southern Alberta.

This detail shot of an abandoned Buick Century was taken in 2012.

It was taken up in the Heartland area, northeast of Edmonton.

This image was taken on the Monochrome Guild Spring Photo Weekend in 2012.

This well known spot is in Banff National Park, at Second Vermilion Lake.

This was once a large pond behind a beaver dam but in recent years the dam has

deterioriated and the pond has drained away, leaving these stumps exposed.

The last one in this batch is an old abandoned house, taken in 2010.

Trees are beginning to grow up around this old house and overtake it.

It is located east of Edmonton, not far from Elk Island National Park

.

The batch also included a few negatives taken on some long expired Agfapan 25 film.  This particular film reached it's expiry date almost 25 years ago, in 1990.  Upon closer inspection I see that some of the negatives show some speckles on the emulsion that is probably mold or fungus attacking the gelatin.  I think I have to throw away what remains of the open box that I have been working with the last couple of years and pull a sealed package [of the same vintage] out of my freezer and see if that is any better.  Some of the images are fine, while others seem to be developing freckles.  This is fairly evident in a previous post to my blog made a couple of days ago.  These two images seem to be OK... though perhaps a little flat in the case of the landscape shot.

Agfapan 25 in Rodinal

The batch of Agfapan 25 that I processed on the weekend included a few interesting images, including some of the last of 2009.  Here are a few of the best ones...

Agfa in Rodinal

I processed a couple more batches of film this weekend.  This included some Agfa APX-100 in Rodinal developer.  This film is no longer available, and this was the last of my stock.  I also processed some Agfapan 25, also in Rodinal.  This film amazes me...

It has not been manufactured for many years.  I bought some on Ebay about a decade ago.  The seller insisted that the film had been stored frozen, and was in usable condition.  When I received the shipment the boxes were all musty and moldy, and it was obvious that it had not been particularly well stored.  The one box that was opened was questionable, as it seemed that mold had begun to consume the emulsion.  But, the remaining half dozen boxes were still sealed inside, and despite the condition of the exterior packaging, seemed to be OK.  The expiry date on this film is 1990.  Twenty Five years later I am processing film, exposed over the last few years, and it is still yielding acceptable negatives.  I wonder if some of the digital image files created this year will still be readable a quarter century from now...??

I also ran a batch of Efke PL25 earlier today, that is still in the process of being washed and dried.  This cleans up the last of my outstanding film from 2009.  So, I am no longer five years behind the times... only four, as I still have several sheets left to process from 2010.  But, I'm working on those too....

Actually there is only one image from this current batch that dates back to 2009... all the rest are newer. Here is the last of the old ones, taken in the fall of 2009 out at Brazeau Dam.  Another one of my images of aspen trunks.  One of these days I'll actually get one that I like...

This next one is of a creek out southwest of Edmonton.  It was taken in 2011.  This small creek is but a small trickle most of the year.  In some years, when the spring thaw is quick enough, it turns into a raging torrent. On this particular occasion is was blasting out of a culvert and creating a huge foam filled pool.  The backlighting and shadows seem to add an eerie element to this unusual element.  In the foreground there is a road killed porcupine at the lower edge of the frame.  A rather unusual image to say the least.

Next we have two images from 2013.  Back in the spring of last year we attempted to make a day trip out to Nordegg.  We were unable to explore the townsite due to an an out-of-control forest fire that was burning nearby.  It was relatively small and was eventually brought under control without any damage to the town, or to the historic site.  But, on this particular day we had to venture further up the valley and explore Windy Point on Abraham Lake, and the Kootenay Plains.

A year earlier, during another trip out to the historic site at Nordegg, I captured this image of the forge in the old blacksmith shop.  This one I quite like, and may eventually get around to spending some time with the negative, and attempt to see if I can create an expressive print.

Here are three images from various short day trips.  The first one is of some lily pads on a small lake in Elk Island National Park.  This was taken with a long focal length lens back in 2012.  I don't think that this one is worth investing the time in to print.  Though perhaps if I was to crop in a little tighter, it might be worth a second look.  The next one is of an ice crusted brand in a small stream, out by Battle Lake, taken in the spring of 2011.  And finally we have a shot of a rather distinguished looking old house.  This one was taken in the fall of 2011.  I drove past this location a couple of weeks ago and the house has been torn down, and the yard converted over to farmland.  It is now part of a much larger agricultural field and there is no evidence of the home that was once there, and of the stories that could be told about life at this place...

Finally, here is an image of some snow covered rocks in Medicine Lake in Jasper.  This was taken on the Fall Photo Weekend in November of 2011.  There are some scratches on this negative that will likely prevent me from ever printing it, though I do have other versions of this shot on other films.

The Monochrome Guild - Winter Meeting

I hosted the winter meeting of the Monochrome Guild here at my place last night.  We had a great turnout, with 11 members present.  It was a great meeting and I enjoyed the evening.  There is sort of a renewed enthusiasm in the group in recent months.  We are riding a bit of a wave after the success of our Christmas Show and Sale a couple months ago.  And, we have three or four recent and new members that are bringing a bit of a fresh perspective to the group.  We have plans in place to reinstate our website, and to look at working on a couple new projects.  We are also planning for a spring weekend trip.  The evening closed out with a chance to view quite a number of new prints that were brought in by members.  Of course we also put a dent into the local scotch inventory, and just enjoyed discussing analog photography.

Winter Hockey - Game 22

The Renegades played an early hockey game this morning.  It was a bit of a challenge to get up at 5:30AM, so that I could be at the rink, dressed and ready for the puck to drop at 7:30AM.  This was particularly challenging considering that I was up rather late last night, for the Monochrome Guild meeting here at my place.  But... it turned out to be well worth the effort.  We actually ended up with 16 players... a full bench... though a couple were late, and a couple were a little green around the gills.  We rolled over the Bulldogs, defeating them by a score of 11-3.  This puts us back into playoff contention with eight games left in the winter season.  

Kind of early to be thinking about it I suppose, but I just sent in a deposit to the league this week, to secure a spot for the Renegades in the upcoming 2014 Summer Season.

More Film Processing...

I am putting on a real push to finish up processing my backlog of old 4x5 black and white film.  I still have a few left to go from 2009 and 2010, and lots from after that.  This time around I processed a few sheets of Ilford Delta 100 at N+2 development.  This development leaves the film in the developer significantly longer than for normal development.  This results in a very dense negative, with a significant increase in contrast.  I reserve this for images that were captured in really flat light.  There was one negative in this small batch that turning out nicely...

At the same time a cleaned up a couple of small batches of Ilford FP4+ film.  Some of this material received normal development, and some received N+1, to increase contrast somewhat.  This latter batch even included one of those elusive large format wildlife shots...  I think I've only captured images of wildlife two or three times in the past with a large format camera.  Mostly it has been by accident, when something wandered into a scene that I was shooting.  That was the case this time too...

The other images were a mixed bag... a couple taken on the recent Fall Photo Weekend in Jasper, back in November of 2013...

Also a shot of some Aspen Trunks, this was my most recent attempt at an Orton Image.  This technique involves double exposing the film, once normally, and a second time with the camera out of focus.  It is supposed to impart a soft and dreamy, almost foggy look.  This one met with limited success.  I think it works better if there is a little more contrast in the subject.  Also, I think the out of focus exposure needs to be a little longer than the sharp one.  In this case they were the same.

The last one is a shot of the porch of an old house, taken in 2011.  This is a really cool old house, and I think some of the other images that I captured that day, on other films, are better than this one.  But I included this scan just for the hell of it...