Preachers Point

This is a scan of a negative that I shot back in January.  Hailey and I went for a day trip out to Nordegg, and checked out Abraham Lake.  See my earlier blog post for more details about that trip.  I brought my view camera along so that I could photograph the ice bubbles in the lake.  This particular shot was taken at Preachers Point, at the upper reaches of the reservoir, where the North Saskatchewan River begins to widen out.  It looks like a mild winter day, and the temperature was actually quite agreeable, but like usual, there was a bitter wind sweeping through the valley, which made it painfully cold.  I just can not operate the small control knobs of the camera or the tiny adjustment levers and dials of the large format lenses, with gloves on.  As most of these components are metal, it isn't long before fingertips become numb and frozen.

This particular shot was taken with my Ebony SV45TE view camera and a Schneider Symmar 135mm lens.  The film was Adox CHS-50, exposed at 25 iso and developed in Rodinal 1;50, for 7:00 minutes at 24C.  This development time is slighlty longer than my normal and that, along with the #22 Orange filter that I used, jacked the contrast up a little.

This film was new to the market several years ago.  I bought a few boxes of it at the time and began to experiment with it.  It was being coated at the same Eastern European facility that coated all the Efke and Maco sheet film emulsions.  The factory suffered a "fatal equipment failure" and as the machinery was so old, it was not repairable and the factory shut down.  Several films that I really liked, including this one, were instantly unavailable beyond existing stock.  Since then film photography seems to be enjoying a bit of a renaissance and some new products have even been brought to market.