Summer Hockey - Game Three

So far summer hockey is going really well for the Renegades.  We won all three of our pre-season games, and so far have won the first three of the regular season.  As previously reported our first regular season game was on Sunday May 15 and we beat the Benders by a score of 7-2.

Then on Wednesday May 18 we played a game against the Chiefs at KofC arena.  This was a really poorly officiated game that should have been closer than the final score.  It ended with a brawl behind our opponents goal, after their goalie got run by one of our players on a break away.  The game ended with a lot of penalties, a couple suspensions, and some hard feelings.  Fortunately we finished on the good side of a 6-3 score.

Earlier tonight we played our third game of the season back at KofC arena against a team called The Blast.  The officiating was much better, though the referees did call even the slightest little infraction, and there were a lot of penalties.  We were leading in the third period by a score of 4-1 when the Blast mounted a comeback.  A couple of late goals by the Blast tied the score 4-4 going into the dying minutes.  We rallied and managed to score at the end of a nice passing play, with less than a minute remaining, to seal a 5-4 regulation victory.

It's only going to get tougher from here on in so hopefully we can continue with our solid play and winning ways.  There are two games coming up next week so I will do my best to get enough guys out and get the roster properly organized.

Vancouver Island on Acros 100

The recently processed batch of Fuji Neopan Acros 100 also included a few images from the Spring Break trip out to Vancouver Island.  These four were all taken out on Denman Island on March 30th.  The girls and I hiked down the steep cliff trail from the Eagle Point viewpoint, down to the boulders below.  The lighthouse on Chrome Island, just off shore beyond the tip of Denman Island, is visible in one of these photos.  We spent a good part of the day exploring down here on the beach as the tide slowly receded.  A more detailed report of this trip is included in an earlier blog post.

Spring Trip to Crosnest Pass - Acros 100

The recently processed batch of Fuji Neopan Acros 100 included a few shots from the trip down to Crowsnest Pass.  This trip was in early March and was primarily to pick up my exhibition prints from the Leighton Art Centre near Calgary, and move them to the Lebel Mansion Gallery in Pincher Creek.  My friend Court was with me on this trip and we spent a couple of extra days exploring Crowsnest Pass and shooting some of the stuff in the valley.  On the way home we made a stop at the aircraft mueseum in Nanton.  An earlier blog post documents this trip in a little further detail.  This post just presents a few of these recently developed negatives...

Day Trip Images on Acros 100

Back on April 11th I processed a batch of Fuji Neopan Acros film in 4" x 5" sheet film format.  This batch was processed in my new Paterson Tanks with Mod54 racks.  I continue to struggle with dust spots on some of the images and this batch did nothing to resolve that.  The film was given N+1/2 development for increased contrast.  I exposed the film at 80iso and processed for 11:00 minutes in Rodinal developer, diluted 1:50, at 24 degrees C.

The oldest images in this batch date back to the very end of 2015 and early 2016.  This includes images from various day trips.   A few old churches out and about around the Edmonton area.  The old mansion that I went out to with Chris and Connie from "Off the Beaten Path" and a couple of shots from a spring day trip with friend Jeff.

Chemical Plant

Fifteen years ago, back in the spring of 2001, I went out exploring at an abandoned chemical plant in central Alberta.  I seem to recall that I was there on more than one occasion.  On one of the trips Margarit and my friend Jon were with me.  The site was obviously abandoned, the fence was deteriorated, and the buildings were open.  We explored there for quite a while and took a lot of photographs.  I have some that were shot on 35mm color transparency film... probably Fujichrome Velvia.  I also have a few large format negatives that I shot with my Sinar F1 view camera.

A short time later... I don't recall exactly when... security at the site was increased.  The fence was patched up and I seem to recall that there were security staff on duty.  At some point after that the buildings were all torn down.  I remember driving by on a few occasions and seeing all of the equipment in the process of being dismantled and hauled away.  I forgot about the place for many years and simply wrote it off as a missed opportunity.  Recently I took a look at the site on the Google Earth program and discovered that there appeared to be some stuff left on the site.

This past weekend, when I was out on a day trip with my friends Jon and Jeff, we decided to check it out.  The site has fallen into a state of further disrepair.  There is some sort of activity taking place there as there is a little bit of new infrastructure in one corner.  We wandered around the site for a while and for the most part all we found were the foundations of what had once been there.  There was an old turbine generator, or perhaps more accurately, the carcass of one... left in one corner of the site, and a little bit of junk left around it.  Perhaps one day I will return, under better lighting conditions and with a sky that is not completely blank, and attempt to record what remains...

Here are a number of scans of the 35mm slides that we took on that day 15 years ago...

Here are some scans of the few large format negatives that I took at the site.  I know that they were taken on the afternoon of April 1st 2001.  I'm not sure if the color slides were taken the same day, or perhaps a week or two prior.  I didn't keep very detailed notes on my color slides.

These last few snapshots are color digital ones, taken last weekend when I was out with Jon and Jeff.  I am encouraged that at least a little bit still remains at this site, but disappointed that I largely missed out on such a great opportunity.  I have learned this hard lesson that when I come across something worthy of some serious photography to not put it off and to capture it while I can.  Some things remain for decades and I have had the opportunity to return again and again.  Other subjects, like this one, can be gone before you realize it.