Spring Arrives....

Spring officially arrived about a week ago... about the same time that we were the recipients of a dump of about a foot of snow.  But since then things have improved.  The temperature rose to a high today of at least +12c, and the snow is quickly disappearing.  The end of winter hockey season... warmer weather... disappearing snow.... these all point towards the arrival of spring.

I know that I am very anxious to get out with my cameras and start making some photographs.  Hopefully I will be able to start posting some new images in the next week or so....

Winter Hockey - End of the Season

The Renegades played our last regular season game of the winter last night.  It was a tough, fast paced game against the Hungry Beavers.  We jumped out to an early lead, but just couldn't hold on.  By the end of the second period it was still close, and we were down by a score of 7-5.  A couple of late goals took the wind out of our sails and we sort of gave up, at which point they shoveled in yet more goals.  By the time the clock finally ran out, we had lost by a score of 11-5.  There will be no post season for the Renegades this year...!!

It was a very disappointing end to a frustrating season.  We started out so well, and put together an early winning streak.  But by the latter stages of the season, following some divisional moves by the league, we went into a losing skid and just couldn't turn things around.  There was a remote chance that if we had won this game, and with a combination of losses by other teams we might have been able to sneak in to the playoffs.  But, realistically we were out of the race a couple of weeks ago when we couldn't but together some needed victories.  There is no option now but to put this season behind us and look forward to the upcoming Summer season, which gets underway in early May.  I have the team roster nearly full and most of the league fees collected.

Milestone... Updates... Spring Weather

Pageviews of my blog hit the 25,000 milestone last week.  Seems to be a steady interest level in my ramblings and my photography.  Thanks to everyone that continues to visit...

I haven't been able to post much in the way of photographs over the last little while.  I haven't had a chance to get out and do much shooting this spring.  Seems like every time that I had the opportunity to get out, the weather wasn't great.  We've had some blustery days, and some flat overcast light.  It seems like every time we had a nice sunny day, it was a work day and I was stuck in the office, or it was a game day and I had to play hockey.....

I also haven't had a chance to get into the darkroom in recent weeks either.  We have our basement half torn apart right now as we needed to make space to get to some of the cleanouts on our sewer lines.  The lines were augered and inspected and everything is OK for now, but I haven't had time to get re-organized and put everything back.  A bunch of stuff got temporarily dumped into my darkroom and now I need to clear some space and get back to film processing and printing.  I hope to be able to post some new work to my blog in the next couple of weeks.
I have received a couple of additional responses to some of the submission packages that I sent out for my Procession West photography exhibition.  We were rejected by a gallery in the lower mainland of British Columbia.  It seems they get a lot of proposals from local photographers and have a mandate to give them preference over outsiders.  A second gallery in the interior has added our proposal to their list for jury review later in the year.  I believe that I now have 32 submission packages out, and still have about 10 more left  to send.  So far we have heard back from six of them.  One tentative acceptance, three being considered in jury review and two rejections.  Not bad so far...
I also just finished up an exhibition proposal for the Monochrome Guild.  This is a selection of images taken in Jasper National Park, entitled Alpine Solace.  We will be submitting this to several galleries in central Alberta.
I've hired a new part time office assistant to work with me at Mac Skylights.  This will allow me to slow down a little, and starting in late April, after the training period has been completed, I will begin taking every other Friday off from work.  I will still be on call, and may need to pop in from time to time, but I am looking forward to having a little more personal time and back off a little on my work load.  This is now my 34th year on the job and I think I have earned this personal time.

This past weekend was a continuation of the poor weather that we have experienced in recent weeks as we got dumped on with nearly a foot of snow!  That March lamb and lion thing doesn't look as though it will happen this year.  March came in like a lion, and if this current weather holds for a few days it may go out that way too.

Winter Hockey - Game 29

As the winter hockey season winds down to the final game, it seems that the Renegades have crapped the bed.  Too many losses early on, and too many penalty minutes are coming back to bite us, despite the fact that we have been playing well to close out the season.  We played a game on Friday night at Canadian Athletic Club against Los Banditos.  We were tied with these guys going into this game, for the last playoff spot.  Our regular goalie bailed out and we had to play with a backup.  We played a strong game and had possession of the puck for the majority of the game, in the offensive zone.  We outshot our opponents by a comfortable margin.  But going into the last few minutes of the game, we found ourselves down by a 4-3 score.  We pulled our goaltender in the hope that we could score a late one and even it up.  But, they managed an empty net goal to seal the score at 5-3.

As we go into our last game of the regular season, on Wednesday coming up, we are all but eliminated from post season play.  A combination of a win by us, and some losses by the other teams we are battling with, as well as some catch up on the penalty minute total... and we might just sneak in to the post season.  But.... it is not looking very good.

Mostly we are looking to have a good game, and close out the season on a positive note.  No matter what happens it will be only a short break before the summer season gets underway in May.

Mosasaur

Dinosaur Valley Studios, a division of Palcoprep Inc., is the company that I am involved in as a shareholder.  The company leases a portion of the building that I own, down in East Coulee.  My partner Frank just returned from Manitoba, where he was involved in the delivery and installation of the cast of a Mosasaur skeleton for the Canadian Fossil Discovery Center in Morden, Manitoba.  Here's a link to the CTV Winnipeg news report...

http://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/video?playlistId=1.2281105

Winter Hockey - Game 28

The winter hockey season is winding down to the last few games.  The Renegades had a game on Saturday afternoon at 5:00PM... a great ice time as far as I was concerned.  Yet, about seven of our full time guys were unable to attend, and most of our spares were not available.  We took to the ice with 11 skaters and a goalie, against the first place team, in an attempt to keep our playoff hopes alive.  We had two forward lines and five defensemen.  There were a couple of the "less than ideal" officials assigned to this game, and they proceeded to call everything against us, and virtually nothing against the Trojans.  We keep thinking that it must have something to do with the fact that one of the league owners plays for the Trojans, but now that the league has been sold... I'm not so sure.  In any event, despite the short bench and a parade to the penalty box, we hung on for a tie in regulation, and eventually lost in a shootout.  But, the single point in the standings that is awarded to us for the tie in regulation actually helps our playoff chances.  With two games remaining, we need to win them both if we want any chance at the post season.

Procession West - First Rejection of 2015

My friend Rob and I have re-worked our Procession West photography exhibition.  These photographs showed at three galleries in 2013 and early 2014.  These shows were at the Art Gallery of Regina, the McMullen Gallery in Edmonton, and the Spruce Grove Art Gallery.  We removed of a few of what we felt were the weaker images and added a few new and stronger pieces.  The total image count is now up to 45 framed prints.  Many galleries don't have the space to exhibit this many pieces, so at times the show has been edited down to a smaller selection.

Last year I got too busy, and procrastinated too much, and just didn't get around to sending out any submission packages.  As a result, we will not be exhibiting Procession West anywhere during the 2015 calendar year.  Exhibitions are generally booked one to two years in advance

We put together an up to date submission package and this spring have been mailing these out to galleries all over Western Canada.  So far I have sent out 32 submission packages.  I still have another 10 packages or so that I am working on.  These ten submissions do not have imminent deadlines, so I will be sending them out over the next few weeks.  We have been tentatively accepted at one gallery but will hold off making a formal announcement until everything is fully approved.  We have also been short-listed and will be included for jury review at two additional galleries.

Today I received our first rejection of the season.  This was from the Art Gallery in Kelowna, British Columbia.  Some kind words of encouragement were included, even though we were not offered an opportunity to exhibit...

We are most grateful for your interest in exhibiting here and I was intrigued to read your enclosures and look through your images. I applaud your devotion to your work. Unfortunately I am not able to offer you an exhibition at this time.

Winter Hockey - Game 27

As the winter hockey season winds down, the Renegades seem to be stuck in a losing skid, rather than a winning streak.  Last weekend we played a late game against the last place Tighthawks.  They played a really solid game, and it was a lot of fun to play.... but we lost by a score of 4-2.  This bumped us out of playoff contention, for now... and the remaining three games of the regular season are of critical importance.  

It will be a challenge for us to try and put together a win this weekend, as we play the first place Trojans, and will be facing them with a short bench of probably only 10 or 11 skaters.  The last two games of the regular season will be against the two teams that we are challenging to hang onto a playoff berth.  We need to bear down and put in a solid effort as the winter season winds down.

March Day Trip

Hailey and I headed out for a day trip today.  We got a late start, because I had a late hockey game last night and didn't get home until nearly 2:00AM.  That quickly became 3:00AM as Daylight Savings Time kicked in.  I slept in until around 11:00, and by the time we got ourselves organized, it was around 1:00PM before we finally hit the road.  It was a beautiful spring day, abnormally mild for this time of year.  I think the temperature peaked at around +11C, and there was barely a cloud in the sky, with no wind.  Hailey and I headed up northeast of the city, to do some exploring.  We stopped and checked out four old farm yards and found some cool of stuff.

The highlight of the day was when we found an old house, and some really old newspapers.  Seems they had laid out some newspapers on the floor, as an underlayment for some linoleum.  Someone had since rolled the lino back, exposing these old papers.  The one that we could most clearly read was dated July 1940... nearly 75 years ago... and had stories about the early stages of World War II.

For some reason I never got around to getting the big camera out during the day and only ended up taking some digital snapshots.  Here are a selection of some of the better ones...

Dauphine Install

At least one photographer was on the ball last night...  Mark got this snapshot with his phone last night as Court, Gord and myself were hanging the prints at Dauphine...
It's a great venue with good traffic, just too bad those lights are installed the way they are, as they cast some nasty reflections.

Dauphine

For the past couple of years the Monochrome Guild have been displaying our photographs at Dauphine Bakery and Bistro, at 10129 - 104 Street, here in Edmonton.  A great bakery with some fabulous baked goods, tarts and treats.  In fact they used to call themselves "Queen of Tarts" before some frivalous lawsuit over tradename infringement forced them to change.  

Our group is guilty of being a little lazy, and we haven't changed over our work for quite some time.  I used to be on top of all the activities of the Monochrome Guild but find that I simply don't have the time to deal with everything.  I left this up to some of the members, and they did a pretty good job of staying on top of it, but eventually it fell by the wayside.  We have now vowed to change over our work three or four times per year, and on this commitment the owners have allowed us to continue to exhibit our prints.  This is not a paying gig, but rather one of those symbiotic relationships.  The owners of the bistro get free art to hang on their walls, and we photographers in the Guild have a venue to display our work, and the opportunity to generate some print sales.

This time around we took down all of the previous work and put up 10 new prints.  Some fresh and interesting work here, particularly by some of the newer Guild members.  Sometime around the end of spring or early summer, we will organize a date to do another changeover.  Of course, being a photographer, I didn't bother to take any pictures of the new installation.  After all... why would a photographer bother to bring along a camera...?  I'll try to get over there in the next couple of weeks and get some photos of the updated installation.

No Photography Lately....

We've had some issues at home with our plumbing.  We continue to have ongoing issues with blockage of the sewer lines in our house.  We have had the lines augered a number of times, but the problem keeps re-occurring.  I believe that the issue is with the fact that we have a long horizontal run in the line that goes beneath our basement floor.  This combined with the age of our house seems to have resulted in a buildup.  I am presently in the process of tidying up the mess that is my workroom, so that we can get to some of the cleanouts on this line.  Then we can get it properly checked and cleaned out.  In the meantime, we are reluctant to use our downstairs bathroom, our upstairs ensuite, or the darkroom, as they all tie in to this line.  So there has been no darkroom work in the past little while.  I have tried to focus my attention to the tidying and clean up that has become both necessary and  inevitable. But, I have accumulated years worth of junk and the purge will not only be significant, but time consuming as well.  The upside to all of this is that not only will we be able to get our plumbing issues resolved once and for all... But also, when I am finished I will finally have space available to set up the big 8x10 enlarger that I bought several years ago, and is still sitting in temporary storage.

 In between all that I have been working on putting together some submission packages that I am sending out to various galleries across Western Canada.  So far I have sent out about 20 packages, and have about 20 more to go.  There are numerous public galleries that are accepting exhibition proposals, but most are for the 2016 and 2017 exhibition seasons.  I got a little lazy and pre-occupied last year and didn't send anything out, and as a result I don't have any shows booked in 2015,  But, I'm hopeful that all this work will pay some dividends and that our Procession West exhibition can be shown again... hopefully several times.

Pageviews

For some inexplicable reason, there seemed to be a lot of traffic to my blog last month.  My blog typically sees about 20 to 30 visits per day, and averages around 700 to 800 visits per month.  This has been the average over the past year or so.  But, this past month my blog was visited nearly 1500 times.  Even more unusual was the fact that on February 19 there were 467 pageviews, almost all of them over a stretch of about two hours.  Then four days later, on February 23, it happened again, with 456 pageviews, and again the vast majority were over a stretch of a couple hours.  Obviously the word got around about something that I had posted.  I'm kind of curious about what it might have been but the truth is that I simply don't know......

Winter Hockey - Game 25 and 26

On February 21st the Renegades played a game against the Hungry Beavers.  I was unable to make it to the game as I was attending the Exposure Photography Festival.  I had spares lined up to play for me as well as for some of the others that were unavailable.  I had 16 skaters and a goaltender lined up to play for this game.  But, it was one of those dreaded 7:00AM ice times and it turns out that about five of the guys that I had lined up, didn't show.  With a short bench, we were handed a tough loss by a final score of 11-5.

This past weekend we played a Saturday evening game against second place StAnkey.  These guys are a fairly average team with the exception of one guy, who plays at a level that is head and shoulders above everyone else in the division.  He doesn't even break a sweat and just kind of coasts around, a somewhat uninterested look on his face.  But, then when the game is on the line, he flicks a switch and kicks into full speed.  He is a very fast and strong skater with a hard and very accurate shot.  We were leading these guys 3-0 at the end of the second period, when the switch was flicked.  Before we knew it we were behind by a score of 4-3.  We pulled our goaltender and put on a final push right at then end of the game and managed to tie the score.  But, once we went into the overtime, the switch went on again and the winning goal was scored against us.

With these recent losses we are barely clinging to a playoff spot.  We are still in third place in the division, but there are couple of teams right behind us, trailing by only a point or two.  With four games remaining in the season, we need to win at least three of them to secure a playoff spot.

The league that we play in, the Edmonton Recreational Hockey League was sold this week to a competitor.  The ERHL is now being absorbed by the Capital City Recreational Hockey League.  The new larger CCRHL sounds like it will be bigger and better.  I am particularly impressed with the commitment shown by the new owner.  They are very hands on and have gone out of their way to contact all the new teams and answer any questions.  We had considered moving the Renegades to this league a couple of years ago, as there were some aspects of our league that weren't being managed as well as we thought they should be.  This will be good for our team and for adult recreational hockey in Edmonton.