Printing for the Remedy Show

The Monochrome Guild has a group show coming up at Remedy Cafe.  This is the location on 109 Street, at the south end of the High Level Bridge.  Our work will be on display through the month of January.  We will be installing the show around January 3rd, and it will remain up through the month.  At some point during the month there will be an opening, with the artists in attendance.  More details on this to follow....

A couple of weeks ago I got into the darkroom to do some printing.  This was the first time in many months and I had to start by disposing of some old chemistry and mixing up some fresh stuff.  I worked on three images, all shot on 4" x 5" film.  I had made unsharp masks of all three of these negatives in the days prior.  

At this point I'm not sure which one of these images will be displayed.  I will have to decide that once they dry down and I finish them.

More Snapshots from Nordegg

I took these snapshots in the cottage on December 23rd.  These were taken with a fisheye lens under artificial room light.  The colors look pretty warm, and I didn't take the time to color balance anything.  Just wanted a few record shots to show the progress of construction and finishing.  I now have a couple of interior doors installed and a good part of the casing and baseboard.  I will continue to work through the winter and hope to be finished by spring.

Atlas Tipple

After I returned from Nordegg, Christmas was in full swing.  There was the family dinner with my side of the family on Christmas Eve, followed by a second one with Margarit's family.  That second one was at our place on Christmas Day. There has been a lot of preparation and cleanup, and I think we are now finally getting it under control.  It hasn't helped matters that both our dishwasher and clothes dryer have broken down, so needless to say there is a backlog.  

My shop is closed for a full two weeks over the holidays, and this will be the only significant break I have had from work since last Christmas.  I went in to the shop for a couple of days this week and works on cabinets, casings and baseboards for the cottage.  Now, at roughly the half way point of the break I find myself turning back to photography.  I am working on framing a couple of recently printed images for an upcoming show at Remedy Cafe.  This is a group show being done together with my friends from the Monochrome Guild.  I also found a little time to review some recently processed negatives and decided to post this one.  It is a shot of the tipple at the Atlas Coal Mine in the Alberta badlands.  This was taken back in October when the Monochrome Guild was out for our annual fall trip.

Christmas at Nordegg

We had the annual staff BBQ at my shop on the afternoon of Friday December 21st.  We grilled some steaks and all the trimmings and had a festive get together with everyone before breaking for the holidays.  After everyone had left I stayed behind and tidied up for a bit, and then loaded a bunch of materials in my truck.  I had two of the interior doors ready for the cottage as well as jambs, stops and some other odds and ends.

First thing Saturday morning I hit the road for the cottage.  Once again I was on my own as Hailey had to work, and Margarit stayed behind to drive her.  It was a rather uneventful drive out, with good road and weather conditions all the way.  Some idiot decided that it would be a good day to move a building down Highway Two and this created a lot of traffic congestion.  I eventually turned off to the west without ever completely catching up to this guy, who was taking up two lanes.

There were only a couple of neighbors around once again it was a very quiet weekend.  There had been some really high winds the week prior and this did quite a bit of damage.  I understand that the gusts approached 100 kmh.  There were blown down trees in the ditches along the highway pretty much from Saunders all the way to Nordegg.  I never drove further west than town so it probably was the same further on.  One small tree feel across our driveway and several fell into the ditch at the front edge of our property.  A big pine was uprooted and dropped right across my neighbor Dan's gate.  He made the gate out of steel and it looks to be mostly OK.  No damage to any buildings as far as I could tell.  Lots of branches and needles and cones scattered all over the place though.

I spent a couple of days installing the two interior doors and jambs.  I also worked on some casing and some baseboard, and put up the last of the hardware in the bathroom.  I finished things up on Sunday evening around 5:00, but rather than drive home in the dark I stayed the night.

There was a full moon and it glowed off the snow at night making for a really cool winter scene.  I got up on Monday morning... Christmas Eve.  I didn't hang around long and just packed up my stuff and tidied things up and hit the road for home.  I got back to the city just after noon.  The girls and I headed over to my Mom's place for a big family Christmas dinner.  My two brothers and their families were also there and our usual family Christmas tradition was continued.

Helena and Fizz

I shot this portrait of my youngest daughter Helena in October of 2017 with my Ebony SV45TE large format view camera and a Nikkor M 200mm lens.  I used 4" x 5" Ilford FP4 sheet film and processed in Perceptol developer.  

Helena was 9 years old at the time.  She was bundled up for the fall conditions on this late October day, sitting on the swing in our backyard, with her favorite teddy bear Fizz.  Helena was born with a heart condition and spent her first couple of weeks in Neonatal Intensive Care at the Stollery Childrens Hospital.  Fizz is the teddy bear mascot of the hospital, and she has had him ever since.  We are grateful to the Stollery for looking after our little girl and every year at about this time we make a sizeable donation to the Stollery Childrens Hospital Foundation.

Old Neon

Just processed a batch of Ilford FP4 4" x 5" sheet film on the weekend.  My normal developer for this film is Ilford Perceptol, diluted 1:1, which requires a rather lengthy development time of nearly 12 minutes.  The film picked up kind of a blue sheen on the emulsion.  Not sure what caused it.... maybe some contamination from my tanks...?  Dried down and mostly disappeared after the wash, but its still there.  I think mostly I can print through this and not have any issues.  Fortunately I shoot duplicates of almost everything so if this one, and the others in this batch don't print well, then I will have back up negs on some other emulsion.  I am intrigued by old neon signs and shoot them whenever I can.  The Stettler Motel suffered a fire over a year ago and has since been closed by the board of health.  Not sure how long the building and this old sign will remain, but at least I captured it on film.  I should probably try again next time I pass through on the way to Drumheller...

Fabrication Season

For most people this is shopping season... in preparation for holiday season.  For me, this is the only time of year that I get a significant break from work.  I am closing my shop for two weeks this Christmas, as with the way that the days fall, there just aren't all that many working days between the weekends and the holidays.  This is a time that I can work on my millwork projects and build a bunch of the stuff that I need for the cottage.  Last summer I worked almost every spare moment on the cottage and in the course of twelve months we have gone from getting the foundation in, to putting the finishing touches on the interior.

This past weekend I spent part of both Saturday and Sunday at the shop.  I finished the second interior door and next time I head out there I will have two of the four doors ready to take with me.  I have them all wrapped up and ready to go, along with the jambs and stops.  I also built the bases for the kitchen cabinets.  These just need some of the leftover vinyl plank flooring glued onto the faces to finish them and then they are ready to install as well.  I also cut some hickory and routed the edges so that these can be used for some interior shelves.

Over the holiday break I hope to continue with the other two interior doors, and to get a start on the kitchen cabinets.  Next year I hope to spend a lot less time working and a lot more time fishing, ATV riding, and making photographs.

Dance Hall Chair

I shot this image over a year ago... in November of 2017.  I just got around to processing the film a couple of weeks ago.  This was taken with my Ebony 4x5 view camera and a Schneider G-Claron 210mm lens.  This is a slightly long focal length and is often used as a portrait lens.  It allowed me to focus in on the chair, its shadow, and the window with the tattered old curtains.  The low angle winter light is wonderful at this time of year, on days when the clouds disappear.  This image was shot on the now discontinued Adox CHS-50 film.  the film might have become a favorite if it hadn't disappeared shortly after becoming available in the North American market.  The film emulsion was coated in the same Eastern European factory that coated Maco and Efke emulsions.  They suffered a fatal equipment breakdown and all of those films immediately disappeared.  Too bad, as there were some good ones from that plant.  I never got really attached to this one, as it just wasn't around long enough.  But I do have a few boxes left that I will continue to shoot.

Summer Heat

This negative was shot on Fuji Neopan Acros 4x5 and just recently processed.  This dates back to the late summer of 2017 when Anna and I were out exploring in the Red Deer River Badlands near Drumheller.  It was really hot on this day, with the temperature up in the mid-thirties.  More recently, this past fall when I drove past the same spot, most of the dead cottonwood has since fallen over, and the slough is full of water again.  Glad I captured it while I had the chance.

More Game Camera Photos

Last weekend when I was out at the cottage I pulled the memory card from my game camera and put in a fresh one.  I was hopeful that I would have captured an image of the pine martin... the one that left the little deposit on the salt block... but I did not.  Lots of images of birds and the usual deer though.  Here are a few of the better ones...

Tanja's Wedding

Over the past couple of weeks I've been working on developing, scanning and retouching some of the shots that I took back in September at Tanja's wedding.  Eventually I will pass these negatives on to Tanja, so that she can print them for herself.  For now I am working on the scans and sending them to her so that she has some wedding photos to share before Christmas.  These shots were taken on the now discontinued Fuji Neopan Acros 100 film with my Hasselblad medium format camera.  The film was processed in Rodinal 1:50, and scanned with my Epson V700 scanner.

December Weekend

This past weekend was yet another busy one... like so many of the others...  Margarit and I headed out to Cafe Blackbird on Friday evening for the Monochrome Guild opening.  There were about a dozen prints on display in the cafe by the Monochrome Guild.  The official opening was being held in conjunction with a show by the Jerrold Dubyk Trio.  This jazz group was pretty good... at jazz... but not so good at math.  Their trio included four musicians...  saxophone, upright bass, drums and keyboards.  Not quite sure what that was about but artists are typically not practical, so it seems that math is an issue for these guys.

A number of our members were out at the show including Gabor, Glenn, Steve and his wife Mary, Margarit and I, Meghan and her significant other, as well as some of her friends.  I think Gord was also there, sitting in another part of the cafe.  The event was reasonably well attended and pretty full, at least for the first couple of sets.

On Saturday morning Margarit and I headed out to Nordegg.  We left our three girls home alone for one night with a well stocked selection of junk food, and some money to call in "Skip the Dishes" for some dinner delivery.  Needless to say the house was a mess when we got back home on Sunday evening.  But at least Margarit and I had a break to relax and we enjoyed our time out at the cottage together.  This was the first time that Margarit has been back there since Thanksgiving.

It was a pretty low key weekend and I didn't have all that much stuff to work on.  As is the norm for this time of year, it was very quite out in the subdivision.  Our neighbors two doors over are usually out there, as they were this time.  Aside from them it seemed that no one else on Tamarack Trail was around.  Some clown from some other part of the subdivision, or perhaps from town, came and cut down a tree for firewood.  He promptly dropped on the address sign of the property across the road from ours.  This land is still for sale so I suppose this will be an issue for the buyer of this lot, or perhaps the county.

The furnace continues to work fine and the temperature in the cottage has been maintained well above freezing.  I brought out some new address signs which I installed on a post on our gate.  I also brought out the free standing pantry that I built.  I actually started constructing this several months ago and just recently finished it.  It proved a little too heavy for the two of us to lift off the truck so we solicited the assistance of our neighbor Rob.  We got it into place and promptly filled it up with all of our dishes and dry goods.

On Saturday afternoon I put out some oats in my feeder.  We didn't see much game around but by Sunday morning the feeder was empty.  I filled it up again before we left on Sunday afternoon.  Pine Martins are known to poop on a rock to mark their territory.  It seems our local pine martin decided that my blue cobalt salt block was a great substitute for a rock, and promptly left his territorial deposit.  I checked but unfortunately my game camera was unable to capture him in the act.....

When we got back home to the city on Sunday, there was a little time to unpack our gear and settle down for a bit.  But the Renegades had a late hockey game that night and it wasn't long before I had to hit the road yet again.  The game was way up north of the city at Edmonton Garrison.  I got to the game about 30 minutes in advance of our 10:30 ice time.  We had a short bench with only six forwards and three defence.  As one of the three defencemen that meant I was on the ice for two-thirds of the game.  A little much for an old guy like me and today I am paying the price.  We soundly outplayed the Knights and coasted to an 8-4 victory.  At about the half way point of the season this sees us firmly in first place with a record of 11-4.

A trip back to Nordegg

Last Friday night the Monochrome Guild met at my place.  We just wrapped up the show at Dandi-Lines Gallery a few weeks ago, and now are preparing to show some prints at Cafe Blackbird.  We also have another show coming up in early January.  The group has grown in size to over 15 members and most are keen and interested in promoting our work.  We are planning on putting together a portfolio of prints and trying to get our work shown more.  The task of promotion is a little easier when there are so many people pitching in.

On Saturday morning I hit the road for Nordegg.  This was yet another solo trip.  I hadn't been out there since back on Remembrance Day when Jon and I spent a couple days at the cottage.  I wanted to make sure that everything was OK.  I had some furniture to deliver.  And there were a few chores to deal with.  Most importantly I needed to confirm a bunch of measurements. Rough openings of interior doors, spaces for cabinets, counter top sizes, etc.  This will allow me to keep working on some of my millwork projects over the winter months.

The trip out was painfully slow.  Road conditions were not great and there was a multi vehicle accident near Ponoka.  I sat at a standstill in a traffic jam on the QE2 highway for nearly an hour before things started moving.  Road conditions were clear and dry west of Lacombe, all the way to Nordegg but it was nearly 2:30 in the afternoon before I finally got to the cottage.  At this time of year the sun sets at around 4:30, so there was not much day left.

It was wonderfully quiet out there and the only other neighbours that were out were Rob and Brenda, two doors down.  I wandered over to their place and gave them a framed historic print of Nordegg and one of my calendars.  We had a couple of beers together and just as it became dusk we watched a herd of 13 elk wander by and head off over into the forest near my place.  When I walked back over to my place in the dark a bit later I could here crashing in woods so I assume the herd was still back there.  Unfortunately the memory card on my game camera was full and I didn't get any images.  But I put a fresh card in when I left so hopefully they return.

When I woke up on Sunday there was about three inches of fresh snow.  I puttered around for a while and eventually hit the road for home at around 1:30.  The drive was slow as the further north and east that I got, the more snow there was.  By the time it finally quit on Sunday night there was accumulation of nearly a foot in Edmonton.  I understand that Nordegg got a lot less and only another inch was added after I hit the road.

Things were busy for me after that.  The whole family went over to my Mom's place for a belated 85th birthday dinner on Sunday night.  Monday I returned to work but had a bunch of meetings with accountants and bankers all day.  I always find shit like that really draining and I become frustrated with the fact that my day to day work gets pushed back and nothing is accomplished.

On Monday night I went to my weekly guitar lesson.  As soon as that wrapped up I dashed home, traded by guitar for my hockey gear, and headed over to the rink for a late hockey game.  The Renegades managed to defeat the Pissed Bird Penguins by a score of 6-5 and retain our hold on first place in our division.

A very busy few days to say the least.....

Come On In

I found this old house back in July of 2017.  As I recall, it was empty.  I shot it with my Ebony 4x5 camera and Nikkor 150mm lens on Adox CHS 50 film.  Recently I processed a batch of this film in Rodinal developer.  This was one of the better shots in the batch and I've just got around to posting it here on my blog.  I think this place is worth a return trip.  Maybe at a different time of year and different time of day.

Monochrome Guild Show

The Monochrome Guild has a show coming up at a local restaurant.  This will be at Cafe Blackbird through the month of December.  The scheduled opening coincides with an concert by a local Jazz Trio.  I have two of my prints included in this show.  The official invitation is attached below.  If you are in the area next Friday, please try to check out the show.  If that doesn't work please try to stop by the cafe sometime during the month of December....

A New One....

This is a shot I took recently, up at the Kootenay Plains.  I call it "Deadhead".  This was taken when my friend Jon and I spent a couple of days up at the cottage in Nordegg.  I like the textures and the tonality of this weathered driftwood on the sand.  This was on the shores of the North Saskatchewan River.  I used the now discontinued Adox CHS-50 4" x 5" sheet film.  I rate this film at 25iso.  This shot was taken with a 210mm lens.  It was processed in Rodinal 1:50 for 5:30 minutes at 24C.  This one might make a nice print, but would have to be printed quite large so that the tonality and texture could be appreciated.

Tanja and Paul

Back in early September the girls and I were invited to our friend Tanja's wedding.  She was marrying Paul, who lives in North Dakota.  The wedding was in Youngstown in southern Alberta, where Tanja had been living and teaching school for the past year.  Tanja is a film photographer like me and we met when we was a member of the Monochrome Guild.

Tanja had an official photographer for her wedding, but I offered to take some film shots for her, so she would have some negatives that she could print traditionally for herself.  I used my Hasselblad and shot four rolls of medium format 120 roll film.  It was with the now discontinued Fuji Neopan Acros... a wonderful emulsion that provides a really nice rendering of skin tones.  Finally last week I was able to make some time to get down into the darkroom and process that film for her.  I scanned the film and will be sending some of those digital files to Tanja shortly.  She has since moved away to southern Manitoba, to be closer to her new husband.  I guess the process of immigrating to the United States is fairly involved and will take some time.

I didn't spend a whole lot of time on this image.... just adjusted the brightness and contrast a little, and threw a border around it. 

Rock Steps

Here's another one from the recently processed batch of Acros film.  Although the processing was recent, this image was taken well over a year ago... in August of 2017.  I used a slightly wide Schneider Super Symmar XL 110mm lens on my Ebony camera.  I placed a #11 Yellow Green filter over the lens to lighten up the leaves a little.  The exposure was for half a second at F36.0.  This was both to hold depth of field, and to show some motion in the water.  I like the way that the eddy at the left edge shows the swirling pattern of the bubbles. 
The location was on Shunda Creek, not too far from my cottage, in Clearwater County.

Wood Grave Marker

The most recent batch of Acros that I processed included some current work, like my recent post from Brazeau, as well as some older shots from 2017.  This image was taken in August of 2017 down in the badlands near Drumheller.  Anna and I went out exploring together for the day.  It was smoking hot and it was all I could do to pack around my heavy camera.  Anna and I hiked up to the top of the valley to check out this abandoned cemetery.  By the time we got up to the top Anna was suffering heat stroke and had to lie down in the shade for a while as I took some photographs.  It was relatively early in the day when we set out, but it was well above 30C by the time we got back down to the where we had parked the truck at the bottom.  The cemetery dates back over a hundred years and all but a handful of the grave markers are gone.  Surprisingly this one wood marker survives.  There are a couple of other stone markers remaining, though most are damaged.  A bunch of depressions in the group suggest where the graves are but not much remains of this place.  It is beginning to get swallowed up by brush and overgrowth.  This image was taken on Acros 4" x 5" sheet film with my Ebony view camera.  The film was exposed at iso 80 and processed in Rodinal 1:50 for 11:00 minutes at 24C.  A #25 Red filter was used for added contrast.

Briquette Plant

This is a scan of a recently exposed and processed sheet of film.  This was 4" x 5" Neopan Acros.  This film has now been discontinued, and I am slowly shooting my remaining stock.  This particular image is of the Briquette Plant at Brazeau Collieries, taken during my recent trip with my friend Jon.  I exposed the film at ISO80 and developed in Rodinal 1:50 for 11:00 minutes at 24C.  It was fairly dark inside the building, with just a little light spilling in some of the window openings.  I used a really wide Schneider Super Angulon XL 58mm lens, and a long exposure of 30 seconds at F20.0.

A Photograph of a Photograph of a Photograph

When we were up at Abraham Lake, at the Mt. Michener viewpoint on Remembrance Day, Jon and I met up with this lady.  She was heading into Nordegg and stopped to check out what we were doing.  She was fascinated by my camera.  Jon took a photograph of her, taking a photograph of me, taking a photograph of Mt. Michener and the clearing winter storm.  Ironic.....

Holiday Monday

With Remembrance Day falling on a Sunday this year, most businesses were closed on Monday, mine included.  Jon and I stayed out at Nordegg on Sunday night.  We both awoke feeling a little groggy and with heads full of cobwebs... a result of a little too much celebration the night before.  We evenutally shook this off and got going.

We did most of the cleanup in the cottage that morning, making sure that the dishes were done and things were tidied up so that we could make a prompt departure later.  We both felt quite a bit better once we got outside into the fresh air and did some walking.  We headed up into Nordegg and parked the truck by the old railway trestle.  We walked along the old railway right of way.  Our first stop was at the shanty town of squatters shacks that had been built down along the railway track.  The mine operated from 1910 to 1953 so these shacks date back at least 65 years.  Some were just sort of cobbled together while others were made out of old railway cars.  They are badly deteriorated now and won't be around much longer.  Even the railway right of way is beginning to get very grown over with trees.

We also wandered in to the base of the mine site and poked around a little at the old briquette press at the lower edge of the site.  The mine is a registered historic site and access is normally by guided tour.  The tours don't operate at this time of year so we showed respect and only wandered around a little and took a couple of pictures before hiking back out.

It was quite a bit warmer on Monday with the temperature rising up to about 4 or 5 degrees.  But, it felt cooler than the day before.  It wasn't as sunny, the humidity level seemed to be up a bit, and there was a bit of a breeze.  But is was still a very pleasant day for mid November.

We got back down to the cottage by about 1:00.  We packed up our gear and locked up the cottage and managed to hit the road around 2:30.  We stopped for a late lunch in Rocky Mountain House and arrived back in the city at about 6:00.  Jon transferred all his stuff into his vehicle and headed for home.  By the time I finished unpacking my stuff it was time to head over to my weekly guitar lesson.  This topped off a very full and enjoyable weekend.  It was really nice to catch up again with Jon, and for a change I didn't work very much this weekend. 

Remembrance Day

When Jon and I got up on Sunday morning, it was snowing heavily.  We made some breakfast and had a pretty leisurely morning.  We watched the deer out in the yard, feeding on the oats I had put out for them.  The snow accumulated to about 4 inches before we really got mobile.  We eventually got our camera gear loaded into the truck and headed out.  We drove through a few snow squalls as we headed west and highway conditions were not great.  By the time we got up the valley to Abraham Lake the sky was starting to break and the snow tapered off.  Much to my surprise the lake was extremely calm with hardly a ripple on the water.  This was one of those rare occasions when Windy Point did not live up to its name.  We stopped at the Mt. Michener viewpoint near Windy Point and photographed a herd of bighorn sheep.  I set up the big camera and took a couple of shots of the clouds swirling around Mt. Michener and the sun trying to break through.  It was pleasantly mild with the temperature up near zero.  The fact that the sun was coming out, and there was no wind, made for a really enjoyable day.  

Later we headed further up the valley and made a stop at the Siffleur trailhead.  We walked down to the river and did some shooting on the gravel bars.  I took a shot of Ex Coelis Mountain with some sand patterns in the foreground.  Also a detail shot of some driftwood on the beach.

Still later we continued up the valley and made a stop at Whirlpool Point.  We wandered down near the river and took some shorts of the gnarled and windswept Limber Pines.  These trees have so much character and visual interest.  They are one of my favorties, as much so as the Cottonwoods of the badlands.

By this time the light was starting to fade so we packed up our gear and made the drive back to the cottage.  There had been very little snow up along the Kootenay Plains and near Abraham Lake but as we got further east back into the Nordegg area there remained quite a bit of snow.   It had quit coming down shortly after we left the cottage, judging by our tracks.  But is seems that it didn't melt much at all during the day.

We settled down in the cottage and got the fire going.  We got some supper on the go and then ended up sitting around visiting until the wee hours.  Jon tied into some red wine and I had more than my fair share of beer.  We would both awake to that infamous Nordegg headache the next morning.