More Adox CHS-50 Negatives

The batch of Adox CHS-50 sheet film that I processed a couple of weeks ago included these four negatives, all taken earlier this year.  A couple of shots from the May Long Weekend at Red Rock Coulee, and two images from out in East Central Alberta on a July day trip.

End of the Summer Hockey Season

The Renegades ended up wrapping up the summer hockey season in fourth place... out of ten teams.  A pretty respectable finish and we went on a bit of a winning streak to close out the season.  Unfortunately we got the worst possible matchup going into the playoffs.  We ended up paired with a team called the Squid Squad for the first best-of-three playoff round.  These guys play at a level considerably above the level of all the other teams in our division.  They coast and play easy as much as they can, and then turn it up at will.  They somehow managed to finish in the middle of the pack, with the same win-loss record as us, but just behind us in the standings... Not sure the reason... alphabetical, or goal differential or some other inconsequential method.  Regardless we would have finished four and five... or five and four.

We started off the playoff season spending a week trying to renegotiate a rescheduling of the first playoff game so that the Squids wouldn't miss any of their night shift work as corrections officers.  We refused to accept any of the proposed alternative ice times as it would have put us at a disadvantage with fewer players available.  This set the tone for a really hostile playoff matchup....

We played these guys twice during the regular season...  the first time, in early June, they coasted to an easy 10-5 victory, in the game in which I suffered a broken toe.  Late in the season we played them again, and managed a hard fought 3-2 victory, but not without losing our best player for six weeks with a badly sprained ankle.  

The playoffs were a gong show.  We lost in two games straight by scores of 10-1 and 6-0 and racked up 67 penalty minutes, to the Squids 45.  The games were filled with scrums, fights, brawls, suspensions and poor officiating.  This all left a really bad taste in our mouths, after a pretty successful regular season.  I can't help but think that any other matchup in the first round would have allowed us to move on to the semi-finals, and probably the finals.  I lay this on the shoulders of the league management, who didn't live up to their commitment to attend games, see the level of competition first hand, and consider divisional alignments realistically.  As a result I am now lobbying the league to follow through on their pledge so that we don't fall victim to this same thing again in the upcoming winter season.  For now we get a four week break from hockey before we return to the rink to start the winter season.  I'm closely watching the remaining playoff games and predict that the Squids will eventually advance to the final, and probably win it all....

Open Image 2015

One of my Images was accepted for the Open Image 2015 exhibition.  I knew that the show was coming up here at the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in October.  I thought I had lots of time to get my negative printed, and the print mounted, matted and framed.  But I forgot that the show will also be at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium, starting in mid-August.  I need to have my print framed and delivered by next week!!!  So, I got off my butt and got down into the darkroom earlier this week.  On Monday evening I made an unsharp mask and proceeded to print my image.  This one went pretty well and I didn't really struggle to get a decent print out of the negative.  A rather involved split printed negative that included the unsharp mask, nine exposures under various contrast filtrations, a little dodging, and then some spot bleaching in post printing.  Tonight I am giving several copies of this image the second fixing bath, hypo clearing bath, selenium toning, and getting them into my print washer.  In 24 hours or so, once the wash is completed, the prints will be dried, after which I can proceed with mounting, matting and framing.  Seems a lot more involved then hitting the "print" button on the old inkjet and waiting for the Photoshopped imaged to grind out onto the printer tray.  None of that digital shit for me...!!!

Here are some copies of the promotional material for those upcoming shows....  I'll send out further reminders as the Edmonton show draws nearer but everyone is encouraged and welcome to attend either or both of these events...!!  Thanks for your support.....

Sunday Afternoon Drive...

Last weekend my middle daughter Annelise and I headed out for an afternoon drive.  We have had virtually no rain here in central Alberta since May.  But, in recent days we got a pretty good shower that brought a couple inches to most areas.  It's amazing how that freshened things up.  It is likely too little, too late for the farmers to salvage much of this year's crop.  But everywhere we went there were canola fields in full bloom.  We also managed to find a couple of cool old buildings.  I was shooting some digital snapshots with my Nikon and also a couple of set ups with my view camera.  Annelise brought along her Nikon F65 35mm film camera and rattled through a couple of rolls of film as well.  It was a great afternoon to spend together with my daughter...

More Adox Negatives....

The recent batch of Adox CHS-50 negatives that I processed included several that were exposed during 2014.  Mostly this was from various day trips, outings and camping weekends.  Some were duplicates of images that I have previously posted.  Here are a selection of some of the best images and some new ones...

Renovations Continue

We are now nearing the end of Week Eight of our renovation and completion is in sight.  Earlier this week the counter tops were installed.  Since then the contractor has been working on the installation of ceramic tiles, both on the floor at our back entrance, and as a backsplash between the counter tops and the upper cabinets.  The new doors to our bathroom, linen closet and bedrooms also went in this week.  Tomorrow the tiles will all be grouted.  After that the remaining work in the kitchen will include installation of our range, the dishwasher, range hood, hot water dispenser; the hook up of plumbing and electrical, and the re-installation of our garbuerator and refrigerator.  Over the weekend we will be able to start moving some stuff back into the new cabinets.  And by next week we should be able to set up our kitchen once again.  

Once the kitchen is set up we will be able to move back into the house.  This will also clear the space in our living room and family room, where everything has been temporarily stored, so that the contractor can complete painting, and installation of casing and baseboards....!!!

Adox CHS-50

On July 19th I processed a batch of Adox CHS-50 sheet film in 4" x 5" format.  This film was discontinued a few years ago and I am down to my last couple of boxes.  I will continue to work with it until it is gone.  It is a nice film, but I never grew too attached to it.  It was introduced only a few years ago and shortly after I first tested it and started working with it, the factory suffered a fatal equipment failure on it's coating line and this film, along with several others, instantly disappeared.

I rate this film at 25 iso, which effectively gives it one stop more exposure than the rated box speed.  I process in Rodinal developer, diluted 1:50, for 5-1/2 minutes at 24C.  I like the result, but will have to move on to something else once my current inventory is depleted.

This current batch included negatives that I exposed in late 2013, through 2014, and a few from this year.  I have included a scan here that was taken on the Monochrome Guild Fall Photo Weekend in Jasper National Park, back in November of 2013.  Over the coming days I will post more scans of the more recent images.

Milestone...

Another milestone was passed earlier this week....   30,000 page views of my blog.  Many thanks to those that return again and again, and welcome to new visitors....

Ongoing....

The kitchen renovations continue....  We are about to go into the eighth week of living without a kitchen, and with much of our stuff piled in temporary storage in our living room, and downstairs family room.  Much of the time the girls have been staying with my Mom out at her acreage.  I have spent some time there as well.  

The demolition is now complete, and all the drywall repair is done.  Most of the painting has been looked after.  The new cabinets are in, and the flooring has been re-installed.  Right now we are waiting for granite counter tops to be cut, fitted and installed.  Once these go in, hopefully next week, we will be able to put all the appliances into place and the contractor will be able to install the ceramic tile backsplash.  When we finally get to that point we will be able to set up our kitchen and move back into our house.  

We have added a few other items to the to do list for the project.  We have elected to have new doors installed on the bedrooms, the bathroom, the linen closet and the hall closet.  We also have new casing and baseboard for the kitchen, hall, living room and dining room.  And, with the drywall repairs, painting and trim that we had done at our back entry, we decided to go with new ceramic floor tiles on the landing.  So... the end is in sight... but still a little ways away.  

Here are some snapshots of the new cabinets... ready for new countertops...

Summer Hockey - Regular Season Ends

The Renegades played the last two games of the summer regular season this week.  On Sunday night we played against the Squid Squad at Kenilworth Arena.  These guys are a really skilled, really tough team and have been beating everyone since the start for the season.  Somehow they lost their first four games, but since then are virtually undefeated.  I think they must have been short a bunch of players at the beginning of the season.  About half way through the game, our top scorer Johnny ended up getting slammed into the boards.  He thought he had broken his leg but a trip to emergency and an x-ray confirmed that it is a really bad ankle sprain.  He will be out for 4 to 6 weeks.  Our team rallied after that and scored two goals, putting us up by a 3-1 score.  We hung on at the end and although they got one late goal, we didn't allow any further ones and won the game 3-2.

Then on Tuesday we played our last game of the summer hockey regular season at Londonderry Arena verses the Xtreme.  We were short a couple of players but had 9 forwards, 4 defense and a goalie.  This was a very lop-sided game.  We jumped out to an early lead, and never looked back, eventually coasting to a 16-4 victory.  

The move to a new goaltender has really paid dividends for us.  Paul played in our last 6 games and has a record of 5 wins and 1 loss, a goals against average of 2.67 and a save percentage of .917.  Having a solid goaltender like this gives our team a lot of confidence, and we play a lot better in front of him.  We finished the regular season in fourth place out of ten teams, and now roll into the playoffs.  We have a bye in the first round and our playoffs will begin with a best of three round on July 26th.  It looks like our opponent will be the Squid Squad, but we are waiting for the final tally by the league to confirm the final standings and the playoff matchups.

Day Trip with Friends

On July 5th I went out for a day trip with a couple of my friends from the Monochrome Guild.  Court and Mark met me at my place on Sunday morning and we headed out.  It was cool, and cloudy and overcast, and we even drove through a little rain as we headed out to the northeast.  But it soon became evident that the rain wouldn't amount to much.  It has been extremely dry here in central Alberta for many weeks.  We have only had a few isolated showers since May.  We commented as we drove around that it had the look and feel of late August, with the grass turning brown, and the sloughs drying out.

In many areas the crops aren't really coming up.  There is a patchy scattering of canola coming up in some fields that are mostly bare.  Many plants are prematurely going to seed, stressed by the dry conditions.

We headed back out into the same general area that Margart and Hailey and I had explored on Canada Day.  This time around we checked out several old abandoned farm yards before eventually making our way back over to that abandoned church.  It was a fun day and I managed to shoot 18 sheets of film with my 4" x 5" view camera.  This was a mix of color and black and white.  I also took a whole bunch of snap shots of some of the various stops during the day...

Fuji Neopan Acros

I processed a mixed batch of Fuji Neopan Acros 4" x 5" sheet film at the end of June.  Life has been so busy the last little while that I just haven't found time to process and post these... until now..

Some of these sheets were exposed at 64 iso and given normal development.  Others were given a little less exposure, at 80 iso, and developed three minutes longer for increased contrast.

Some of the images in this batch date back to the 2013 trip to Utah...  a couple are from winter day trips at the end of 2014... and the remainder are from this year...

This first group all dates back to October of 2013, when my friends Rob and Brad and I travelled down to southern Utah and hiked and photographed at The Wave, Zion National Park, Buckskin Gulch, and other areas...

Next there are a couple of images from winter day trips at the end of 2014.

These last ones are all from 2015...  The Spring Photo Weekend with the Monochrome Guild Gang... a day trip down to the Drumheller area with Chris and Connie of "Off the Beaten Path" and some images from the May Long Weekend at Red Rock Coulee...