Summer Hockey - Game Six... and other stuff...

The Renegades played Game Six of the summer season on Tuesday evening.  We were short a few guys and were forced to play the game with 12 skaters.  We jumped out to an early lead against the Nighthawks, but couldn't seem to hang on.  I'm not sure if they got some momentum after getting a couple quick goals, or if we just ran out of gas... or both.  The score ended up tied 7-7 in regulation and a shootout didn't settle it.  We ran out of time and the official score remained a tie.  The team is playing again tonight, but I didn't make it to the game.  I had to drive down to Drumheller for the day to attend a Town Council meeting that was hearing a zoning application from my companies.  This all relates to a commerical property in East Coulee that I am considering purchasing, if we will be granted permission for Palcoprep and some other artistic related endeavors to operate at this location.  The meeting went well, and is another step in the process.  Hopefully everything is resolved in a couple weeks. 

Saturday Day Trip

I had a little time on Saturday afternoon so I headed out for a while with my cameras.  I didn't travel all that far... just up into Strathcona and Lamont counties.  My first stop was at an old barn along Highway 21.  I had driven past this spot many times and always thought it was worth a photograph. This time I actually got out the big camera and took a shot.  Then I moved on a short distance to the north where I knew there were three abandoned old cars.  I stopped here and shot for a while as well. After that I took a bit of a drive up into the Heartland area, past a bunch of the refineries.  Nothing exciting was taking place right at the moment, and the light was not particularly appealing.  I made my way back towards the city and came across a pond with some lily pads.  None of the plants were blooming yet, but the leaves were getting pretty big and lush, so I stopped and took a couple of photographs here as well, before making my way back home in the afternoon.  Here a couple of snapshots from some of my stops on this short little trip...

Summer Hockey - Game Five

While I was at the Friends and Family Show, the Renegades played our Fifth Hockey Game of the summer season.  Once again we had a match up against our arch rivals, the Canadians.  We have had a number of close games against these guys, but never beaten them.  This night would be no exception.  I understand that the guys rallied from behind and scored three goals to tie the game, only to have the Canadians score a late goal and skate off with a 7-6 victory.  We will have another crack at them in about a week and hopefully we can finally steal a victory.

Monochrome Guild Friends and Family Show - Spring 2014

The Monochrome Guild Spring Friends and Family Show was hosted on Friday May 23rd.  Once again we utilized the office space of Acius Engineering, a company owned by Guild member Arda Ozum.  It was a beautiful day and the temperature peaked at about +30C in the afternoon.  I think this great weather, the warmest day we've experienced in about 8 months, but a dent into the attendance at our show.  A lot of people probably just headed out of town to the lake for the weekend, or got the barbecue going on the patio, or headed over to a pub somewhere to watch playoff hockey.  Although our attendance numbers were a little lower than previous shows, we still had a pretty good turnout.  By my estimate about 65 people came through the doors over the course of the evening and everyone seemed to really enjoy seeing our work.

I had been furiously working in my darkroom preparing a couple of new prints for the show.  I spent a good part of the long weekend printing, sepia toning, mounting, matting and framing these two images. One I call "Mushrooms, Chungo Creek" and it was taken in 2012.  The other I call "Cottonwood, TL Bar Ranch" and it was taken in 2010.  The Cottonwood print was very well received and got a lot of compliments.  Though no one seemed to want to part with the five hundred dollars that I was asking for it.  But sales are not really the intent of this show.  We offer the work for sale as a lot of past guests have asked about it.  In the past a few pieces have sold.  But, the show was really about getting an audience out to see our work and gaining some appreciation for our efforts.

In addition to these two pieces I also included three large prints from my Procession West project, as well as about 16 small mounted and matted but unframed prints.  Nine members of the Monochrome Guild had work on display, and most were in attendance through the evening.  We expect to do this all over again for a fall show, late in 2014.

Monochrome Guild - Friends and Family Spring Show and Sale

The Monochrome Guild is hosting our annual Spring Friends and Family Show and Sale.  This will be tomorrow, Friday May 23rd.  The show runs from 5:30PM until whenever...  It will be held at the office of Acius Engineering, here in Edmonton.  #200, 10436 - 81 Avenue.  Everyone is welcome to stop by and check out some current work by members of the Monochrome Guild.  I know that I have been frantically printing, matting and framing some of my work the past couple of days and was relieved that I could drop it off at the office and hang it up this morning.

Kodak T-Max 400 with N+1 Development

Last week I processed a batch of 4" x 5" sheet film.  This was Kodak 400 T-Max, processed in Kodak T-Max Developer, with N+1 Development.  The film was given virtually no agitation [semi-stand development], for 11-1/2 minutes.  This development increases the contrast in the negative.  I use this development routine when I have subject matter with a limited tonal scale, or when photographing in flat light.  This batch included negatives taken over the past three years.  

These first few negatives were taken on my recent trip down to Utah.

These next three were taken a couple of weeks ago when the Monochrome Guild headed out on our annual Spring Photo Weekend, this time to Fairmont, British Columbia.

This next bunch were all taken in the summer of 2013, on various day trips and outings during the year

And finally, this last batch were all from Monochrome Guild Fall Photo Weekends in Jasper National Park in 2012 and 2013.

The May Long Weekend

Life has been so busy the last little while that I was just not able to get our trailer out of storage and make plans to get away for the May Long Weekend.  Typically this is our first camping weekend of the year.  The weather forecast to the west, in the mountains, and to the south, in the badlands, was not good.  There were rainfall warnings in the mountains with up to 4" in the forecast.  The badlands were supposed to get periods of rain over the weekend.  I probably could have stayed up late for a couple of nights and got the trailer ready if I really wanted to...  But, with our recent travels to Utah and to Fairmont I also had a lot of things to catch up on around the house.  I didn't see much point in sittng in the trailer in the rain when I had so much to do at home.  The forecast for around Edmonton was not bad, with mixed skies and only a slight chance of showers.  So I elected not to get the trailer out this weekend and instead caught up on a whole bunch of odd jobs...

I took my lawnmower in to get serviced, I helped my Mom set up the lawnmower on her garden tractor, I picked up some groceries, I BBQ'd our evening meal on Saturday, I made some unsharp masks in my darkroom for printing, I got some salmon fillets into a brine for smoking and later in the weekend smoked the fish in my smoker, I went into my darkroom and made some prints for an upcoming show, I fixed the gates in our yard, I installed some computer software for my Mom, I organized my hockey roster for our next game, I prepared a zoning application for the property down in East Coulee, I mixed up some sepia toner and toned the prints that I made, I got those finished prints into the washer, and... on Sunday I took the girls out for the day....

We went out for breakfast in the morning to Dennys.  As I looked around the restaurant I noticed that at least one-quarter of the patrons were clincially obese.  One guy in particular filled up the entire bench of a booth, and had to rest his "man-boobs" on the edge of the table.  A sad state of affairs to say the least.  I guess the fact that none of my girls finished their breakfast was perhaps a good thing...

After breakfast we set off to the northeast.  

We passed through Elk Island National Park but by this point it was too late in the day for much wildlife to be out and we didn't see much.  We continued on and our next stop was the town of Hairy Hill.  I wanted to photograph a couple of the old buildings but on this day main street was full of parked cars and it seemed there was some event taking place at the community hall.  I'm not sure exactly what it was but based on the dress of some of the people, it must have been for a hutterite or mennonite group of some sort.  We did see a flock of Snow Geese on a small pond outside of town.

We continued to the north and decided to check out the old abandoned Russian Monastery up in Smoky Lake County.  At first I took the wrong road and we ended up too far to the east.  We spotted a really cool old house, a large and very distinguished looking place, down near a small lake.  But, there were no roads to get up to the place and all we found was a pile of dead coyotes that someone must have shot and dumped beside the road.  We made our way back to the west and eventually found the monastery.  This place had been left behind back in the 1960's and what remained of the buildings was pretty much in ruins.  It had been a couple of years since I was last out this way.  Someone had erected a small sign stating that the site had been re-established in 2009.  I had been here in the winter of 2012 and the sign was not there at that time.  Nothing had really changed much except for one thing...  Someone had moved an old piano into a clearing between all the buildings and there it stood, in the middle of the forest, slowly falling apart.  It was an unusual sight to say the least.

We spent some time here and I made a few photographs.  Then we continued back towards the city. We stopped again at Hairy Hill to see if the crowd had thinned out a little.  Some of the vehicles had left by this time in the afternoon so we wandered around and explored a bit.  After that we headed back towards home.  Not much excitement after that, though we did see a red fox on the side of the highway.

At the end of the long weekend, as things were finally winding down, we got a jolt of excitement, and not the good kind.  Helena slipped in the living room and banged her face on the corner of the coffee table.  She ended up with a small but very deep gash on her cheek that was bleeding heavily.  Margarit rushed her over to the local medi-clinic.  She was rushed to the front of the line of at least 20 other patients and given special attention.  They gave her a couple of needles to freeze her face and put in two small stitches.  Margarit was amazed at her physical strength and the fact that it was all she and the nurse could do to hold her down while she was being given the needles and the stitches.  Now two days later she has a big black eye, a puffy face, and a bandage beside her eye... but she won't let me take her photograph...

Drumheller Studio - Photo Resume

As a part of our recent Zoning Application I put together these three photo montages that outline some of the activities of our Drumheller operation...

Artistic Studio in Drumheller

My friend and business partner Frank and I are re-branding our Drumheller company.  We feel that this will more accurately reflect the identity of the company.  We create one-of-a kind artistic creations that are museum displays, natural history exhibits, etc.  This all came about as we looked into purchasing a commercial building and the zoning regulations did not permit industrial plants and manufacturing facilities at this location.  We felt that in order to properly represent our company, and perhaps have an opportunity to occupy this space, we needed to accurately reflect in our name, what we are all about. It remains to be seen how this real estate transaction all plays out.  We have a development application submitted to the local authorities and if we are granted approval, will move forward with the purchase of this property.  Recently I was down in Drumheller carrying out an inspection of this property. While I was there I stopped in at our existing shop and had a look at our most recent project.  This Dinosaur Caricature is a statue that is to be erected in the Town of Drumheller.  It will be at an important intersection, where all the tourists turn off onto the North Dinosaur Trail to head over to the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology.  At the time of this photograph, a couple weeks ago, this guy had not yet been mounted onto the mine cart that would become his perch.  That mine cart is visible in the background of one of these two photos.  The final painting and assembly has since been completed and this guy now resides at that intersection.