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.
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