Efke PL25M... And... Happy New Year

The batch of Efke PL25M 4" x 5" sheet film that I processed way back on December 14th included a number of shots from the Spring Photo Weekend, and various weekend day trips.  Here is a handful of scans from that batch...
It seems this will be my last post for the year 2015.  Thanks to everyone that reads my blog and continues to come back from more.  In 5-1/2 years there have been over 36,000 page views... a rate of over 6000 per year.  This encourages me to keep plugging along.  All the best to everyone for a healthy and happy 2016!!!

Christmas Hockey Tournament

Ten of the guys from my Renegades Hockey Team joined forces with six guys from another team and played in a Christmas Hockey Tournament out at the River Cree Resort and Casino on the west boundary of the city.  For $500 we were guaranteed to play at least three games.  Each of our guys kicked in $45, which gave us enough to cover the tournament fee and provide some extra beer money.  The prize for first place was to be $5,000.00.  

We went in expecting to play three games....  The organizers at the casino provided us with gift cards and coupons good at the lounge adjacent to the rink.  We also each got a beer mug.  Our first game was on Sunday night, December 27th, at 11:00pm.  We said our hello's to each other and skated out onto the ice to be soundly thumped 7-0 by our opponents, who went on to finish second in the round robin.  Our next game, at 2:00 in the afternoon on December 28th, was against a team from our league, playing a couple of divisions above us.  We were leading for a good part of the game but they got a couple of late goals to beat us at the end.  This was enough, based on goal differential, to put us into the playoff round.  On Tuesday morning around 10:00AM we played our third game of the round robin.  This was against a team from Enoch.  It was a hard played, fast-paced game and we managed to get ahead and coast to victory.

Our first playoff game was in the late afternoon on Tuesday.  We faced off against a team called Channel 4 News.  These guys were a big, fast team, but were short a couple of players.  They jumped out to an early lead but we managed to bounce back and eventually won the game 6-4.  This put us into the second round of the playoff, this morning, December 30, just before lunch.  By this point the competition was getting a lot stiffer.  We faced off against a team from Hobbema.  They were a big, fast team that had obviously been playing together for a while.  The play was pretty lop-sided but we hung in there and with a couple of minutes left in the game, we were only down by a 6-4 score.  We tried to put on a late push but they pumped in a couple of last minute goals and coasted to victory.

We hit the lounge and had some beer and some snacks, using up all the coupons and gift cards that we had been given.  It was a great few days of hockey with five hard played games over four days.  I don't think we had any gas left in the tank and probably couldn't have accomplished much in the later rounds even if we wanted to.  The entire tournament wraps up tonight and the finalists would end up playing 4 games in under 12 hours.

But it was a great experience and all the guys on our team really enjoyed ourselves.  The hockey was fast paced and hard played and should really tune us up for a push going into the latter half of our regular season of league hockey, continuing right after the new year.

Portal Creek on Efke PL25M

On December 14th I processed a batch of Efke PL25M film.  I continue to shoot the hundreds of sheets of this now unavailable large format film that I still have in my inventory.  It is a very slow film, rated at 10 iso.  Even in daylight this requires shutter speeds measured in seconds, ideal for images that show motion.  This is exactly why I chose to use it when I was out with the guys on the Fall Photo Weekend up at Portal Creek in Jasper.  Here are scans of four of my images, which perhaps illustrate why this place is such a favorite of mine.  I will post some of the other images from this batch in the coming days.

Winter Hockey - Game 11

The Renegades played our 11th game of the regular season just before the Christmas break, on December 23rd.  I was down with the stomach flu at the time and had to bail out of the game at the last minute.  I'm told that we fell behind 7-0 early in the game, but then pulled it together to win by a score of 9-8.  This game was against another south division team, this time out at the new Meadows Recreation Centre.  I'm really disappointed that I missed this one as it sounds like it was a great game.

With league play taking a break over the Christmas holidays I still find myself with lots of hockey to play.  Myself and about nine other players from the Renegades have signed up with some guys from another team, and are playing in a Christmas hockey tournament out at River Cree Resort.  Our first game is later tonight at 11:15.  It's a good thing that I'm on holidays and don't have to work tomorrow otherwise it would be really tough getting up in the morning.  We play again tomorrow afternoon and then again on Tuesday morning.  After that, if we win any of our games, we hope to advance to the playoff round and Tuesday evening and Wednesday.

Fuji Neopan Acros 100

The twenty sheets of Fuji Neopan Acros 100 4" x 5" that I processed back on December 5 included a real mix of stuff.  All twenty sheets were exposed during the 2015 calendar year.  I've already posted images from that batch that included the recent Utah trip, the ice bloom and the stone house.  The remaining sheets in the batch included one image from the spring trip to the Oregon Coast, and various images from day trips and travels closer to home.

For those interested in the nerdy technical crap associated with the film processing, this is what I do.  I expose Acros at 80 iso and process for slightly increased contract, the equivalent of about a half a zone expansion, or N+1/2.  I process in Rodinal diluted 1:50, for 11:00 minutes at 24C.  Agitation is minimal, for about 5 seconds per minute.

The Stone House

Back in September I spent a weekend down at the shop in East Coulee, installing a new skylight.  When the work there was complete, I met up with my friends Chris and Connie of the "Off the Beaten Bath" blog.  Their blog can be found at www.bigdoer.com.  We ventured out onto the prairie, searching for an old stone house that we had been told about.  We soon found it, and hiked in.  I previously posted a bunch of digital snapshot from this day trip.  Recently I processed a batch of film that included two negatives from this outing.  This was Fuji Neopan Acros 100 4" x 5" sheet film, processed in Rodinal.  The third image was shot on Efke PL25M, also recently processed in Rodinal.  Scans of those three images are below...

Ice Bloom on Acros 100

Back on December 5th I processed a batch of Acros 100 film.  These were large format 4" x 5" negatives, processed in Rodinal developer.  I previously posted some scans from the north rim of the Grand Canyon that were part of this batch.  These three more recent negatives were all exposed back in November, when the ice bloom was underway on the North Saskatchewan River.  That ice is moving deceptively quickly and you either have to use a relatively fast shutter speed to stop it, or a long one that allows it to blur out and become streaks.  I tried both methods during this outing.  This was the day that little Helena came along with me, and was running around like crazy despite having recently split open her knee for ten stitches...

Last Sheet of Film from 2013

Earlier this week I processed a batch of sheet film negatives.  This was the now discontinued Efke PL25M sheet film.  The batch included 18 - 4" x 5" sheets that were given Normal development in Rodinal developer, and 2 sheets that were given plus development for increased contrast.  One of these plus developed sheets was my last sheet remaining to be processed from 2013.  I shot 347 sheets of 4" x 5" black and white film during the 2013 year and they are now all processed.  This last one is a somewhat abstract image of an ice formation on Medicine Lake in Jasper National Park.  It was taken during the Monochrome Guild Fall Photo Weekend in November of 2013.  I will scan and post the remaining images from this batch, all much more recent work, in the coming days.

Winter Hockey - Games 9 and 10

The Renegades continue to play games against teams from the South Conference of our league in the days before the Christmas break.  This week we played back to back late games, on Tuesday and Wednesday.  After two in a row I'm really feeling the effects of these late nights and need to catch up on some sleep tonight.

On Tuesday night we played a game against a team called the Canadian Mooseheads.  The game was at Millwoods Arena and didn't start until 10:30PM.  We had the lead a couple times during the game but it ended up tied at the end of the third period.  It went to a shootout to decide the winner and we ended up losing the game by a score of 6-5.

Then last night we played out at the Leduc Recreation Center against a team called the Griffins.  This one wasn't quite as late an ice time, with the game getting underway at 9:15PM.  We fell behind early by a score of 2-0 but then battled back.  At one point we were up by three goals and eventually coasted to a 7-5 victory.

We have now played three games against the south conference and have a record, so far, of 2 wins and an overtime loss.  Nice to get 5 of a possible 6 points and move our way up in the standings a little.  We have one more game before Christmas, and then there will be a break from league play over the holidays.

Darkroom Printing

Several times over the past couple of weeks I've been down in my darkroom printing.  I'm starting to work on the exhibition prints that I will need for my upcoming shows.  So far I've been working on making some 11x14 prints.  I finished up the last of those yesterday.  In my next darkroom session I will start working on some of the larger 16x20 prints that I need.  Once the printing is done I will need to move on to mounting, spotting, matting and framing in preparation for the upcoming exhibitions.  Here are a few of the prints, still wet in the trays, as I was working on toning and clearing them...

Fuji Neopan Acros

Last week I processed a batch of twenty 4" x 5" sheets of Fuji Neopan Acros 100.  I have fine tuned my exposure and development of this film over the past year or so.  I meter my subject with a spot meter, placing the lowest values on Zone III.  I rate the film at 80 iso.  And I develop in Rodinal developer, diluted 1:50, for 11:00 minutes at 24C.  This is all very subjective and dependent upon a lot of variables including water quality, agitation, etc.  I feel that this gives me the equivalent of about 1/2 stop of expansion.  I know this all sounds like mumbo-jumbo to all those non-darkroom people that might read this... but it works for me.  

This current batch included a number of shots taken over various outings through the late summer and fall.  I will continue to post scans of those shots over the coming days.  For now I have included scans of five negatives from the recent trip down to Utah and Arizona.  These were all taken on the north rim of the Grand Canyon on October 18th...

Late November Day Trip

Friday November 27th was one of my scheduled Fridays off from work.  The weather was great, with mild temperatures, so I set out to enjoy the day.  Margarit was busy with some errands, so I went out for a drive with my camera.  I had learned of an abandoned church called Brush Hill Reformed Church, up to the northeast of Edmonton in Minburn County.  One of my friends from The Monochrome Guild had been there before so I got directions from him.  I set out in the late morning and attempted to find the right location.  It was relatively easy to find and was a pretty cool looking old building.  In hindsight I probably should have got up and hit the road a little earlier.  At this time of year, in northern Alberta, at our latitude of 53.5 degrees north, the days are pretty short and the sun is pretty low in the sky.  It doesn't really get light until 9:00AM or so, and by 3:00PM the light is fading.  Photographically speaking it makes for great imagery as we have "evening" light for about 6 hours.  But, this church faces east and by the time I got out there, at around 1:00 in the afternoon, the sun had already gone around to the side.  I took a few snapshots with my digital SLR and one with my phone.  Then I set up the view camera and took a couple of serious compositions.  The film won't be processed for a while but look for those scans to be posted soon.  In the meantime here are a few snapshots...

Winter Hockey - Games 7 and 8

In the last week of November there were a couple of opportunities to play hockey.  I had a really bad cold, but hoped that the exercise and a good hard skate would help me shake it off.  Not sure if it really worked, but I'm finally feeling better now.

We had a chance to go and play an exhibition team against a team from St. Albert.  They are a pretty skilled team and it always has ended up a fast and hard played game.  This time was no exception.  I was hoping for a fairly easy skate as the cold that I was fighting was really coming on.  Only seven players and a goalie showed up and it ended up to be much more of a workout that I hoped.

We played game 7 or our regular season against a team called the Spiderpigs.  This was on Friday November 27th up at Castledowns Arena.  We ended up winning this game by a score of 7-4.  

Then last night we played a game against a team called the Clansmen.  This section of our schedule includes a number of teams from Division 7 of the other conference in our league.  We have not played these teams before and will not play them on a regular basis.  We jumped out to an early 4-1 lead but then got into penalty trouble.  We managed to hang on for a 7-6 victory.  It was a late game, starting at 10:30PM on a Sunday.  By the time I got home, got to bed, and unwound enough to fall asleep, it was nearly 3:00AM.  Sure made it tough to get up for work when the alarm went off at 7:00AM.

Exhibitions Galore....

All my hard work in 2015, in putting gallery submissions out, has paid off.  For the next year-and-a-half, I have numerous exhibitions on the go.  

I just picked up one of my prints that was included in the Open Image 2015 exhibition.  This was sponsored by VAAA [Visual Arts Alberta Association] and showed at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Calgary through the summer, and then moved to the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium here in Edmonton until November.  Unfortunately I was unable to attend the opening for this one as I was down in Utah at the time.

The Annual Monochrome Guild Exhibiton just wrapped up a couple of weeks ago and was a success.  The group got together at my place for a meeting this past Friday and everyone was pretty happy with the way it turned out.  We are already beginning plans for another exhibition next year and hope to make it bigger and better.

I just got word that two of my images have been accepted for the InFocusYEG exhibition here in Edmonton.  This is part of the province wide Exposure Festival.  This is a festival of photography that takes place every year in February.  It started out in Calgary-Canmore-Banff a number of years ago and last year expanded to province wide.  I took part in the first InFocusYEG last year and had one print included.  Last year the show was only on for a weekend but this time around it will be up for a full month, at DC3 Gallery here in Edmonton.

My friend Rob and I have a selection of work showing at the Leighton Art Center near Calgary.  We call this exhibition AG2 [Ag-squared].  It includes a few pieces from our Procession West project as well as some new work.  This will be on display in the main gallery at Leighton and is also part of the Exposure Festival.  It will be on display for the month of February.  I am currently in the process of getting all of my prints mounted and framed for this show.

Rob and I have also collaborated on a show that we call Procession West.  We put this show together a few years back, and have been making gallery submissions ever since.  In 2013 the show was exhibited at the Art Gallery of Regina, the McMullen Gallery here in Edmonton, and the Spruce Grove Art Gallery.  In late 2014 and through 2015 I put a big push on getting more submissions sent out and that has paid off in spades.

Procession West will be exhibited at the Okotoks Art Gallery in March and April of 2016.  In May we are supposed to move a selection of images to the Lebel Mansion Gallery in Pincher Creek.  Then in late August and September of 2016 we will be exhibited at the Summerland Art Gallery in the Okanagan Valley.  There is a photo festival in the Vancouver area, similar to the Exposure Festival here in Alberta.  Procession West will be exhibited at the Port Moody Art Center as part of that festival, in April of 2017.  And finally, the show will be on display at the Saskatchewan Craft Council Gallery in Saskatoon at some as yet undetermined date, later in 2017.  There are still a few submission packages out there being considered so perhaps we pick up one or two more shows.  If not this is still a pretty successful run.  Now comes the real work...!!

Back to Maligne Valley

On Saturday November 14th, after packing up at Athabasca Falls, Steve, Jon and I headed back up the Maligne Valley.  We drove up to the viewpoint at the north end of Medicine Lake.  We all wandered about for a while, making photographs in the afternoon light.  Mostly I wandered up into the burnt lodgepole trunks, the aftermath of the Excelsior Creek fire.  I took a couple shots here with my view camera, and then wandered down to the edge of the lake.

There was a little hawk owl, that kept flying back and forth to a snag, and I managed to get a digital snapshot of the little guy.  As the day was winding down, we headed back down the valley towards town.  We made a stop along the Maligne River and wandered around for a little longer.  I took a bunch of digital snapshots here.  In hindsight I should have pulled out the view camera and taken a shot of the snow pillows on all the rocks beside the river.....

We headed back into town as the light faded.  We saw a herd of elk beside the highway near the townsite and stopped briefly for a couple snapshots, before continuing back to our hotel.  After unpacking our gear and relaxing for a while we walked into town and went to a restaurant for something to eat.  Later we headed back to the hotel and visited for a while before turning in. 

In the morning when we got up it was snowing heavily.  We made some sandwiches for a lunch on the road, checked out of our room, and headed out.  The snow was just too heavy and it was obvious that getting out and taking any photographs would be nearly impossible.  We headed east towards the park gate hoping the weather might break a little and we might be able to get out a little.  It was not to be the case and it was a long slow drive back to the city, through snowfall that was heavy at times, and with the highway fairly snow-covered in places.

We made it back to Edmonton by evening, without having taken the cameras out on this day.  Despite that, we enjoyed the opportunity for old friends to get together, and to get out and explore and photograph, even though conditions limited our options.  This brought to an end the 15th Annual Fall Photo Weekend, but we are all looking forward to the 16th....