Sunday Day Trip

After shooting the Tin Type portraits of the girls on Saturday, my friend Gary and I made plans to head out the next morning on a day trip.  It was cool and overcast when we left the city on Sunday morning at around 8:30AM.  It got worse as the day wore on as the cloud cover became even more dense, and the rain began.  We headed east of the city, passed through Elk Island National Park, and continued on to the north east.  We made a few brief stops here and there but didn't really find anything worth bringing out the big cameras to shoot.  Eventually we decided to head up to the Russian Monastery in Smoky Lake County.  By the time we arrived it was early afternoon and raining and despite the shelter of the heavy trees, it was still pretty wet and cool. 

The monastery was abandoned back in the 1960's but was recently re-established.  I'm sure there is some religious signficance to this re-establishment but the only visible difference at the site is a small sign beside the road, and an old piano that someone has moved into a clearing in the woods.  Otherwise everything seemed just as it has been for a many years... a collection of old buildings slowly decaying back into the pine forest...  Nonetheless that piano is pretty photogenic!  Gary and I spent a couple hours here making some photographs.  

The ground was carpeted with a lot of bunchberry plants that were now sporting liitle clumps of bright orange berries.  I didn't attempt to photograph these with my 4x5 view camera, but did take a few shots with my digital SLR.  

Later on our way back towards the city we made a brief stop at an old barn beside the highway.  By this time it had become even cooler and wetter and we didn't bother to do any serious shooting here.

When I got up for work the next morning it was snowing.  I heard a weather report on the radio that said we had experienced 4 days and 4 months since the last snowfall... a rather short summer to say the least.  The city of Calgary, 200 miles to south actually saw accumulations of snow this week.  We just got a bit of wet snow that more or less melted as it came down.  It remains unseasonably cool this week, but the forecast is calling for the temperature to soar back up to around +23C by next weekend.  I sure hope that forecast is correct because I'm just not ready for winter yet!!