Another Color Scan

Here is another color image from the recently processed and scanned stuff.  This one is a color transparency, processed in the second batch of E-6, on November 26th.  This one is of Gog Creek at Mt. Assiniboine, and was shot on Fuji Astia film that expired in 2006.  This particular shot was taken on the last day of our trip, after we lost the light and the skies became overcast.  It was taken with my Ebony large format view camera and a Schneider Super Symmar XL 110mm lens.  In this instance I think the color version of this shot is stronger than the black and white version.  I previously posted a scan of one of my black and white negatives taken at this same set up.  The tones became fairly muted and merged to a degree due to the soft, flat light.  In color, the little splash of pink from the aster blossoms, the pop of the creamy yarrow blossom in the bottom right, and the purple-blue of the ominous sky add to the effect, over and above what was exhibited in the monochrome version.

Color Transparency

This is another large format transparency from the E-6 batch recently processed.  This particular shot was taken late in the day, on November 12th, when Margarit and I were out exploring with Chris and Connie.  This one was taken at the historic village that we visited.  The light was so low that I was unable to take a meter reading with my spot meter.  I had to resort to my incident meter to get some idea as to the necessary exposure.  This particular shot required a 4 minute exposure, but as the light continued to fade, some of the last shots of the day, taken on black and white film, required even longer exposures.

One of the buildings at this site had this shelf unit with all these jars full of various seeds and spices.  In some areas there was light shining through some cracks in the log wall behind the jars.  This particular spot was one of the few parts that I could key in on the jars, and avoid the highlights.  Not sure how long these have been here, or what the intent of the collector was.  Pretty interesting all the same.  This particular image was taken on Fuji Velvia 4" x 5" film with my Ebony large format camera and a Schneider G-Claron 210mm lens.  The exposure was for 4 minutes at F14.0.  The film expired in 2010.

E-6 Processing

Over the last little while I've processed 55 sheets of large format, 4" x 5", color transparency film.  This included 30 sheets that I processed on November 19th, and an additional 25 sheets that I processed earlier today.  I don't shoot very much color film, so I end up saving it for a while, until I have a batch large enough to justify purchasing and mixing up the chemistry.  E-6 is the process that is used for this type of film.  It is getting harder and harder to find the chemistry.  The only kit that is available here in Canada is the Tetenal Colortek E-6 kit.  When I last purchased the chemistry, about a year ago, it was around $70 for a 1L kit.  This includes a 1st developer, color developer, bleach/fix, and a stabilizer, and is enough to process about 30 sheets.  The film isn't cheap either... at about $5 per sheet.  I guess this explains why I don't shoot it very often.

These current batches include images that were taken as long ago as late 2014, and as recently as a couple weeks ago.  The first batch is dried and complete and I'm just in the process of scanning them all.  The second batch is still drying...

Here's a little sample.  This is the first scan from the batch of November 19th.  This one was taken back in June, down in the Crowsnest Pass.  If you check out this link to my friend's Chris and Connie and their Off the Beaten Path website, you will see a photograph of me taking this photograph.  

http://www.bigdoer.com/26882/old-things/crowsnest-collection-finale/

I used my Ebony SV45TE 4" x 5" view camera with a Nikon 150mm lens and a color polarizing filter.  The film was Kodak Ektachrome E100G... from a batch that expired almost a decade ago, in December of 2006.

Mine Cars

Here's another new one.  This is shot of some abandoned mine cars at the Greenhill Mine Site in Crowsnest Pass.  I took this shot last March, when I was down in the area dropping off my prints for the gallery exhibition at Lebel Mansion Gallery in Pincher Creek.  This shot was taken with my Ebony view camera and a Fujinon 240mm lens.  This lens is about equivalent to an 80mm lens in smaller formats, so a portrait lens.  It was rather difficult to hold the depth of field with this long focal length and I had to stop the lens down to F36.0 and use a long shutter speed.  Fortunately nothing was moving, and it worked out nicely.  This negative was Kodak Tri-X Pan 320, 4" x 5", processed in PMK.

Medicine Lake

This is another large format color negative from the recently processed batch of C-41.  This image was taken in late October during the Monochrome Guild Fall Photo Weekend.  This is Medicine Lake, in Jasper National Park.  It was taken with my Ebony 4x5 view camera and a Fujinon 180mm lens.  Medicine Lake is interesting in that it drains in the late summer and fall, leaving the exposed lake bed with just a small channel of water running down the middle.  The lake was created when the Maligne River was dammed by a rock slide.  During spring and summer when the mountain snow melt is taking place, the inflow of water is greater than the outflow and the lake fills up.  During some springs the water inflow is so great that the lake overflows the rocks at the north end.  Then, as the water flow diminishes during the year, the lake drains away leaving just the river channel in the bed of the lake.  It is a spectacular place to photograph in the fall.  This year it seemed as though the water level was perhaps a little lower than usual...

Levers

Here's a new scan of an older image.  This one was taken back in January of 2016.  This was taken on Kodak Tri-X Pan 4" x 5" film, with my Ebony 4x5 View Camera and a Nikkor 65mm lens.  This is a very wide lens for this format, roughly equivalent to a 21mm lens in 35mm film format [or full frame digital].  When I recently posted this image on my Flickr account I challenged everyone to guess what it was.  This should be pretty obvious to anyone from the prairies... but for others, maybe not so much so.  Thus far only one commentator has figured out what it is....

C-41 Processing

C-41 is the development process used for color negatives.  Traditionally these negatives were printed in the darkroom onto color photo paper.  This is the process that was used back in the day when we all took our color roll film from our 35mm cameras to the 1 hour lab...!  How's that for a blast from the past...!

I don't shoot much color film, mostly because I've never been able to print it properly.  I have the darkroom and the equipment to do it, but I'm somewhat color blind, and really struggle to properly balance the colors.  This is the main reason that I got into Black & White photography nearly three decades ago.  I struggle to tell tans and browns and greys and greens apart.  In fact all of these usually look olive green to me.  On the few occasions in the past that I have attempted color printing, prints that looked good to me, looked too green to everyone else.

Nowadays, when I am out photographing with my large format camera, every once in a while I come across a scene that I think might look good in color.  I usually carry around a couple of film holders loaded with color film.  Sometimes it is color negative film and sometimes color transparency.  I shoot these emulsions from time to time, and save up the film until I have a big enough batch to justify setting up the processor and mixing up the chemistry.  The chemistry is still available, but a little difficult to obtain.  Some of the ingredients in the chemistry have been deemed restricted by the US Government since the terrorist attacks of 9/11.  So, the developing kits can not be shipped out of the United States to a private individual.  I have to order them through a Canadian distributor, who can then re-sell them to me.  A bit of a pain in the ass, but I continue to do it, at least until I use up my current stock of film.  Much of this stock is past it's best before date but it seems that with fresh chemistry, it still yields acceptable results.  Most films scan nicely and these images can then be fine tuned with photo management software such as Photoshop.  I can then print the resulting image with my ink jet printer, if I so desire.  I seems I really don't get the desire very often as I rarely print anything digitally.  But I enjoy viewing the finished images and sharing them on my blog.

The batch of film that I recently processed included about forty, 4" x 5" color negatives.  These images were all taken between the end of 2013, right up to a couple of weeks ago.  This particular one was taken during my trip to the badlands in October of this year.  I previously posted a black and white version of this same shot, and now I'm sharing the color version.

Day Trip to Nordegg

On November 6th my eldest daughter Hailey and I took a drive out to Nordegg.  It was a nice sunny day and we wanted to check on our property there before winter.  Mostly it was an opportunity to take down the trampoline that the girls used over the summer.  Once that was finished we headed over into town.  Nordegg was once a booming mining town with a much larger population than it has today.  The town itself probably only has about 40 buildings, though the subdivision north of town, where our lot is located, has many more.  There are a few old buildings in the original town site that I'd heard had been knocked down.  I was sort of kicking myself as on several occasions last summer I meant to go into town and photograph them, but didn't get around to it and thought I had missed my chance.  The rumors were false and the buildings remain so Hailey and I spent the afternoon poking around and making a few photographs.  We also stopped at the old historic cemetery and checked out all the old headstones from the coal mining days.  On the way out to Nordegg in the morning, and again on the way home in the evening, we saw a herd of wild horses near the highway.  This was not the same herd that we saw earlier in the summer as the colors were different.  Hailey and I stopped in Rocky Mountain House for something to eat and then made it back home to Edmonton after dark.  I took a couple of photographs with my view camera and once I develop the film, if anything turns out, they may end up posted here.  For now these snapshots were taken with my phone...

 

Weekend Explorations

I spent the weekend out exploring with my friends Chris and Connie from Calgary.  Chris and Connie write the "Off the Beaten Path" website which can be found at...   www.bigdoer.com

Margarit and I met up with Chris and Connie on Saturday morning and we set out for the day.  We stopped at an old schoolhouse, a trestle bridge and an abandoned railway car before eventually continuing on to a couple of places that we had permission to get into.  The first was an old abandoned farm yard and then later a historic village.  I didn't have my digital camera with me on this day so I have no snapshots to post here.  I did quite a bit of shooting with my view camera so eventually some of those images will find their way onto my blog.  It was a mild day, but overcast most of the time.  By evening the clouds got heavier and it began to rain.  We headed into Fort Saskatchewan to a local restaurant and had a nice dinner together.

On Sunday morning Chris and Connie dropped by and we headed out again.  This time around Margarit had to stay behind and do some stuff with the girls.  The three of us headed out and did a circle tour of Lamont and Two Hills Counties.  We explored an old church, a couple farm yards, several cemeteries and an industrial site.  Late in the day we stopped at a century old Ukrainain Orthodox church.  John, the church treasurer, saw us there and opened the church and the bell tower for us so that we could have a look around.  We made it back into the city by evening and said our good byes as Chris and Connie still had to make that boring three hour drive down Highway 2 to Calgary.  On this day I remembered my digital camera so I have a few snap shots to share...

Beauty Creek

Here's another one from the recent Fall Photo Weekend in Jasper with the Monochrome Guild gang.  This is Beauty Creek, along the Icefields Parkway.  It was an overcast day, drizzling off and on, so Peter and I decided to head up to Beauty Creek.  The soft overcast light suited the subject at hand.  The blank, overcast sky wasn't an issue as it wasn't included in the shots that we took on this day, October 28th.  I shot this on Kodak Tri-X Pan film with my 4x5 view camera and a Schneider 110mm lens.  It was processed in PMK developer.  I used a shutter speed of 1/8 second to nicely blur the water, without getting too soft.

I've reached a milestone with this blog post as this is my 1000th...!  Thanks to all of those who continue to visit my blog to view my images and read my ramblings.

Final Batch of Assiniboine Photos

These last few are the outtakes from the Mt. Assiniboine photos.  These are all OK, but not as strong as some of the images that I've previously posted.  I have now processed all of the Kodak Tri-X Pan film that I shot on the Assinboine trip as well as about half of the Fuji Neopan Acros negatives.  The remaining Fuji images are all duplicates of compositions done on Kodak as well.  I always take two shots of every set up, partly because different film and developer combinations have a slightly different look, and partly as insurance in case something gets exposed or damaged during processing and handling.  Before I actually invest the time in making any exhibition prints from these negatives I will finish processing them all, and select the best one for each print.  There will be very subtle differences between them that will make a slight improvement in the quality of a fine print, but not anything that will be evident in a scan.  So I will not be posting any of those duplicate negatives once they have been processed.  I do have a few sheets of color transparency film from the Assiniboine trip that I hope to get around to processing in the next couple of weeks.  If anything turns out nicely I may post some of those.

Jasper Lake

This is the first shot I set up during the recent Fall Photo Weekend.  This was taken on the shores of Jasper Lake.  Obviously the water is very low at this time of year, leaving these large sand flats exposed.  As soon as we got out of the truck and headed down to the shore, this scene was upon us and we just had to stop and photograph it.  The low fall light was fantastic, and this was one of the first breaks in the clouds that we experienced all day.  Normally it is very windy here, and sometimes photography is virtually impossible.  On this day it was abnormally calm, though the breeze did pick up a little later.  I shot this negative on Kodak Tri-X Pan 320 film with my Ebony view camera.  I used a Schneider G-Claron 210mm lens and a #25 Red Filter.  I processed this normally in PMK developer.  I shot a couple other versions of this composition on other films and will have to wait and see which is the best negative for printing.  I quite like this image and expect that I will eventually get around to printing it.

16th Annual Fall Photo Weekend

The Monochrome Guild is a collective of photographic artists that I founded back in 2002.  Dinosaurs that we are, we still use film and prefer to distance ourselves, at least to some degree, from digital photography.  Every fall for 16 years now we have been taking a weekend trip, usually out to the mountains, for a few days of photography.  I think I am the only member that has taken part in all sixteen of the fall outings, though a number of my friends have been out on most of them.  Usually we head out to Jasper, though a couple of years we headed out to other destinations.  The past couple of years we have headed out around Remembrance Day.  During those trips we were faced with some mountain snow storms and cold conditions.  This year we decided to head out a little earlier and went out from October 27 to 30th.  Temperatures were mild and the conditions rather fall like.  Though we had some cloudy conditions and light showers at times, for the most part the weekend weather conditions were pretty good.  Peter and I headed out on the morning of Thursday October 27th and as with most previous weekends our destination this time again was Jasper.  We spent the first day photographing in the dunes on the shores of Jasper Lake.  Usually it is very windy here and photography is sometimes not possible.  On this day it was abnormally calm to start, though the wind did pick up a little later in the afternoon.  We enjoyed the clear fall light, low in the sky, and the relief that it created on the sand dunes and the shallows of the lake.  Later in the day we headed into Jasper and checked in to our hotel.

The next morning we were up early for breakfast and at first light we headed south on the Icefields Parkway to Beauty Creek.  It was overcast and raining off and on as we made our way south.  The light broke out once in the Sunwapta Valley and we stopped to take some photographs.  We continued on up to Beauty Creek and spent the afternoon hiking and photographing there.  It remained mostly overcast but the subject was well suited to the soft light and I think we got some good shots.  In the late afternoon we headed back into town and met up with fellow Guild members Court and Gord who had headed out from Edmonton that morning.  

On the morning of October 29th the four of us headed out at right after breakfast to the Astoria River.  We scrambled down the slope to the bottom of the valley and spent the morning photographing the water spilling over the boulders.  Later we headed over to nearby Athabasca Falls.  By this point in the afternoon Gord had to bail out and return to Edmonton.  The three remaining photographers headed over to Horseshoe Lake and photographed there for the last couple of hours of daylight.  

On Sunday morning we checked out of our hotel and headed up to Medicine Light.  It was beautifully clear and sunny and we spent several hours shooting here before reluctantly packing up and making the long drive back to Edmonton.

Mostly I concentrated on shooting with my 4x5 view camera and exposed around 60 sheets of film over the four day weekend.  I always try to bring out my digital camera and take a few snapshots.  On this trip I mostly forgot the digital camera in the truck and only took it out a couple times.  I also snapped a few record shots on my phone.  Those digital images are included below.  Over the coming weeks as I get around to unloading and processing all of my film I will post and share some of the stronger images here on my blog.

New one from the recent Badlands Trip...

This one is from the recent trip down to the Drumheller badlands at the beginning of October.  My friend Rob and I spent four days down there shooting.  It was kind of by default, as the poor weather conditions had forced us to cancel our plans to head to some remote badlands further to the southeast and as a compromise we hung around the Drumheller area instead.  It had been raining heavily the first day of our trip and we were not really expecting to be able to get out into the badlands.  For anyone that has ever been in the area after a rain you know very well that the bentonite and cretaceous clays turn to grease after a rain.  Walking on anything but a horizontal surface is almost impossible.  On the morning of October 2nd we headed over to the Hoodoos near Cambria and tried our best to stay upright.  Every step was measured and we were very careful to avoid any surfaces with any slope at all.  As the sun began to intensify by about 10:00AM when this shot was taken, it was beginning to dry out the saturated surfaces.  The humidity must have been almost 100% as the morning sun was creating a steam that was rising off the hills.  Backlit in the morning sun this was quite a spectacle.  I attempted to capture it with my camera but had to avoid direct back light and the resulting lens flare.  I think this one worked fairly well.  I shot this on Kodak T-Max 100, exposed at 80 iso, and developed in 510 Pyro.  This one was captured with a 240mm lens, a slightly long lens for this format.

Winter Hockey Update

The Renegades are now 11 games into the 30 game winter season.  We started out with five straight wins and quickly jumped out into first place.  Then, we started playing tougher teams and had our challenges in getting enough players out to some of our games.  We lost the next five games, one of them in a shootout.  Last night we played our 11th game of the season against a team called the Rack Monkeys.  We finally put an end to the losing streak and beat these guys by a score of 5 to 3.  Hopefully this is the start of our next winning streak.  We now sit in 5th place out of eight teams in our division.  I understand that the league will consider some divisional moves to balance things out and consider moving dominant or consistently losing teams up or down.  We certainly won't be moved but it is possible that one or perhaps two of the teams in our division could be moved up.  Next game comes up on November 9th and after that we play a series of games against some of the teams in Division Seven in the north conference.

Asters, Gog Creek

Here is yet another image from the September trip to Mt. Assiniboine.  This one was taken on the last full day at Mt. Assiniboine Lodge.  It was cool, overcast and rainy on this day and my images certainly were not as strong as some of the earlier ones taken in spectacular light.  All the same I quite like the quiet mood of this one.  Though there had been a snow storm just a couple of days before our arrival, these Asters on the edge of the creek were clinging to the remnants of the season and were still blooming.  This one was taken with my big view camera and 110mm lens.  The 110 is a moderate wide angle lens for this format.  I used Kodak T-Max 100 film exposed at 80 iso and developed in 510 Pyro.  I set the aperture at F20.0 and used a shutter speed of 1/15 of a second.  I did another one with the lens stopped down to F41.0 and a shutter speed of 1/4 second.  Often I like the dreamy, blurred look of flowing water with a longer shutter speed.  In this instance because there was so little water visible between the rocks, it really didn't add anything, and it showed a little more movement in the flowers.

Junk Yard

On October 22nd my friends Chris and Connie from Calgary, drove up to central Alberta to meet me at a junk yard.  We spent the better part of a day poking around in the acres of junk that was lying around.  A lot of it was just that... junk...!  A lot of scrap metal, including a mountain of rusty old tin cans.  There seemed to be a certain amount of order to it all as the aluminum was separated from the iron and the stainless steel.  The appliances were all in one general area, old propane tanks in another.  Scattered about through the yard were a bunch of interesting old vehicles.  This was the focus of my attention on this day as I had my view camera along with me and took a bunch of photographs.  Rather interesting that over in one corner was an old process camera.  Too bad it had been abandoned out in the elements as the bellows were falling apart and there was probably no salvage value in it.  All the same I will look into this a little further.  By mid afternoon we finished up in the junk yard and hit the road for a while.  After driving for some time we ended up in the village of Botha.  The old store here is pretty interested and we stopped to admire it.  On this day we weren't able to get access to the interior but perhaps some day we can return.  Later still we headed over to a small town pub for a beer and something to eat.  Eventually we said our good byes and headed off home in opposite directions.