Busy Weekend

Yet another busy weekend...  This one was really enjoyable, but when all was said and done it seemed as though it had flashed by in the blink of an eye.  On Friday evening I hosted the first meeting of the season of the Monochrome Guild.  It was good to get back together with everyone again and to have some serious discussion about traditional photography.

On Saturday Anna had her birthday party.  She actually turned NINE about a week ago, but this was the most convenient time to have a few friends over to celebate.  She had a few friends over for the celebration, and two of them stayed for a sleepover.

I had a late hockey game, the first of the winter season, on Saturday night.  The game didn't even start until 11:15PM.  By the time I got home it was nearly two in the morning.  As I put my gear away and went for a quick shower I smiled at Anna and her friends, crashed on the rumpus room floor.

The next morning I slept in a little but was up and about by around 9:30AM, despite not getting to bed until 2:30AM.  I decided to head out for an afternoon drive.  None of the girls wanted to go with me, so I went by myself.  I decided to head back out to the Russian Monastery to photograph the site, but this time with my 8x10 view camera.  It has been quite some time since I have done any shooting with this big camera.

I passed through Elk Island Park on my way up to Smoky Lake County.  I saw a really tame juvenile coyote on the side for the road, but didn't get a very good shot of him.  It was after 3:00PM before I arrived at the monastery.  I quickly set up my 8x10 and started shooting.  I was still intrigued by that abandoned piano out in the bush, and mostly that was what I shot.  When I finished up there, I continued back down the road and made a brief stop by the old barn that I had stopped at the weekend before.  This time I set up the big camera at the side of the road and took a couple shots.  There was no rain this weekend, and the light was a lot better.  By the time I packed up here and checked my holder count I was surprised to discover that I had exposed 18 sheets of film.  There were duplicate versions of each shot, but still not bad for a short afternoon of shooting.  I packed up and headed for home.  The only thing of note on the drive home was a couple of swans on one of the ponds in Elk Island Park.  I took a couple digital shots of these before pounding the pavement for home.

After work on Monday I decided to back track on my commitment to printing and invested one more evening in processing some film.  This time around it would be 8"x10" sheet film, as I was anxious to see a couple of the shots from the day before.  I loaded up all the tanks that I had made some time ago at work and turned off the lights to get started.  I soon came to realize that this was the first time that I had actually used these tanks, and that one of them had a leak.  When I turned the lights on after my processing session a quick look at my negatives demonstrated that development had worked, but that about 2/3 of each image was still white.  This indicated a problem with fixing, which is a process that removes the unexposed silver emulsion from the film.  The fixer had escaped from the leaky tank and as a result only a portion of each negative was properly fixed.  Realizing the problem I quickly turned the lights off again, mixed up a fresh batch of fixer, and dumped all the sheets into a tray.  It appears as though I salvaged these images.  It also appears as though it has been quite some time since I processed any 8"x10" film!!! Aside from the two sheets of the day before, the rest of this batch were all images that I had exposed in 2008 and 2009.  Coincidentally one of old negatives I processed was of the same old barn that I shot yesterday... though this one was taken in 2008.  The effect of six additional years of gravity is quite evident!  Once these negatives are washed and dried I will scan and post a few here on my blog...