Fishbones - Ilford FP4 in HC-110 - plus development

I shot this one way back in June of 2020 when I was out photographing in the National Parks with my friend Rob.  He noticed these quartz veins in a roadside rock cut in Jasper National Park.  It made for an interesting abstract and we both agreed that they kind of looked like fishbones.  I used a moderately wide 110mm lens on my 4x5 view camera to take in a larger section of the rock face.  The combination of film and developer provided a boost in contrast to make the quartz stand out a little.

Lodgepole Pines - Ilford FP4 in HC-110 Developer - plus development.

My daughter Hailey and I were out for a drive on the Forestry Trunk Road in July of 2020 when we came upon this grove of pines.  The light was rather flat, so I attempted to pump up the contrast by selecting this combination of film and developer.  It seems to have worked reasonably well.  I shot this with a slightly wide 135mm lens on my 4x5 view camera.

Ancient Aspen - Ilford FP4 in HC-110 - plus development

I took this shot just a few weeks ago when I was exploring at Alexo.  There are some massive old aspen trees in the forest around the old mine site.  It rained while I was out there and as a result the bark of the tree is partly wet, and the light was very subdued.  I shot this on Ilford FP4 film, processed in HC-110 Developer, for a boost in contrast.  That really pumped things up nicely.  I used a longer focal length 300mm lens on my view camera to get some compression, but allowed the background to soften a little.  I think it worked out well.

After the Rain

Tuesday July 19th dawned sunny and clear in East Coulee.  It got really hot and the humidity made it feel even hotter.  Unfortunately the hills were just too wet to consider going out for a hike.

In the morning I gave Frank a hand and we repaired a leaking seam on the roof of the building.  The next rain will be the big test.

Later the girls and I drove down the valley to the ghost town of Dorothy.  We used to camp here often when the girls were young.  The old abandoned churches have now been restored, and the antique playground has been upgraded a little.  But it still held much of its old charm.  We wandered around for a couple of hours and reminisced.

Later we headed into Drumheller and got some ice cream and checked out some of the galleries and shops that had been closed the day before.  In the evening we headed back out to East Coulee and had an evening BBQ and fire with Frank and Chris.

It dawned sunny and clear again on Wednesday, but this would be our last day in East Coulee this time around.  We took a short drive up one of the nearby valleys and did a little exploring and climbing.  Things had dried off nicely from the rain on Monday.  By mid afternoon we somewhat reluctantly decided that it was time to hit the road for home.

East Coulee

The girls and I headed down to East Coulee on July 17th, which also happened to be our daughter Helena's 14th birthday.  In typical teenage fashion she was not particularly impressed with having to hang around with her parents on her birthday.

Margarit and I headed down together in the afternoon.  We took a bit of a round about route as I wanted to drop a print off for a landowner.  We arrived at the shop in East Coulee in the later afternoon and off loaded all of our stuff.  Some of it went into the trailer, which is set up out in the yard, and part of it went into the big fridge in the shop.  Annelise decided to stay home in the city by herself, which simplified things a little as she could look after all the pets.  Hailey and Helena drove down separately, a little later in the evening.

Drumheller is typically one of the warmest and driest parts of the province.  The Monday morning after we arrived the clouds rolled in and it cooled off an started to rain.  It rained all day long and it was pretty much a write off.  Much of the rest of central and western Alberta had a great day with clear skies and warm conditions, so we kind of wondered why we had come...?  We hung around the shop for a while and then later in the day we headed into town for a bit.  We tried to check out some of the galleries and shops but many of them are closed on Mondays.  We had lunch at a local pizza place called Pizza 249.  I had been here over 20 years ago and remembered that the pizza was really good.  I'm not sure why I never made a return visit until now.  The place looks exactly the same as it did 20 years ago.  Its still a little grungy and beaten up and looks as though its seen better days.  But the pizza did not disappoint and it was very good.  Even my fussy girls were impressed so we will no doubt return again next time we're down for a visit.

By Monday evening the clouds began to break up and the rain stopped.  There was a fantastic rainbow over East Coulee that was brighter than anything I've seen in many years.  We went out for a short evening walk and battled the hordes of mosquitoes while enjoying the evening light and the rainbow.

The Beer Parlor Project - Egremont Hotel

My friends Chris and Connie, from Calgary, and I, have been planning "The Beer Parlor Project" since before the Pandemic.  This is the working title for it at this time, though it may eventually change.  The Covid outbreak essentially put the project on long term hold and it is only now that we have been able to kickstart the project and get going.

Basically what we intend to do is to visit small town hotel bars and taverns, with the permission of the owners or operators, and document the goings on.  My part in the project will be to take some large format black and white images of the interior and the exterior of the establishment.  If conditions allow I may also attempt some large format portraits.  In addition to that I will also shoot some small format images on black and white roll film.  At this point it seems most likely that I will use my Contax 35mm camera, as that will allow me to use some of the faster films.  I may at some point also use some of my medium format cameras.

Chris and Connie will take some digital photographs, and get more involved in interviewing some of the residents and patrons.  They will also do some background research to round out the project.  We aren't really sure what the final goal will be.  Possibly this will become a book project at some point, or perhaps a gallery exhibition.  At the very least it will provide some stories for Chris and Connie to post on their Off the Beaten Path website.  Here is a link to that site...   https://www.bigdoer.com/

For the past couple of months Chris has been trying to line up a venue that was somewhere close to where we were going to be.  He struck out in some locations, but in others we have invitations to return at a later date.  On the weekend of July 22 to 24 Chris and Connie were scheduled to be in Edmonton.  They are attending a show of Pinball Machines in the city on Saturday.  Chris was able to line up a nearby hotel for us to finally get started on the Beer Parlor Project.

On Friday afternoon we headed north of the city to Egremont.  It's like many other small towns in western Canada and is now officially a hamlet.  There are only a handful of residents left, the grain elevators are gone and the stores are all closed.  The old Hotel is the center of activity.

The owners Laura and Cindy took over the Hotel from previous owners and have been operating it for about two years now.  The hotel was built in 1947 and has seen various owners over the years.  Cindy and Laura live upstairs and operate a restaurant and bar on the main floor called The Hidden Gem Tavern.  It no longer operates as a hotel, but there are two extra rooms that we understand band members occasionally use, when they have partied a little too hard on jam nights.  The hotel is also said to be haunted and the owners tell us that they regularly are aware of two ghosts.  One a tall skinny man and the other a young lady.  The only spirits we saw when we visited were the ones in the bottles.

We hung around for several hours and enjoyed the company, had a couple of beers, and indulged in the special of the day... a burger with avocado, spicy homemade chips, and a dessert of cobbler with ice cream.  It was all very good.  We also met a few of the locals... old Bob who has lived in town for about 45 years... and No Shirt Alvin... who only puts a shirt on to go into the bar....  I came away from it all with about half a dozen large format images an exposed roll of 35mm film, and lots of memories.

This visit was essentially a test drive for a project that we hope will carry on for a number of years.  As we get a little more comfortable with what we are doing, I'm sure things will evolve a little.   But it was a very good start for a project that has been stuck in neutral for far too long.  I look forward to visiting the next one, and to processing the film from this visit.  Needless to say I will be called upon to provide prints to the owners as we go along.

Saskatchewan Trip - Day Three

We had an early breakfast in the morning, again courtesy of our hotel.  Then we checked out and loaded all our gear... more than a little grossed out by the issues with the ticks the day before.  This day would be another hot one, much like the day before.  There was not a cloud in the sky and the sun was burning down onto us.  For the the first couple of days of our trip we had clouds roll in by mid-afternoon and it not only provided for more interesting skies, but also took the edge off the heat a little.

We headed to the southwest of Saskatoon and planned to do a big loop around and return home to Edmonton by evening.  As we were heading along some backroads we came across the Hillview School.  I'm not sure how it ever got that name as the land around it is flat as a pancake and there are no hills to be seen.... at least by Alberta standards.

Later we came upon another ghost town.  This was one that we knew of, and we hoped to be able to locate the landowner and get permission to go in.  But we could not find his residence.  We walked in to the town and photographed an old grain elevator that was about to fall over.  We also photographed an old store.  But, without permission we didn't want to do anything more than a few quick photos, so we did that and then left.

After that we did a big circle route down to Hershel and on to Stranraer.  I would like to return to Hershel some day, as there are some petroglyphs there I would like to see.  But on this occasion we did not have time to take the tour.  There was a really nice old church in Stranraer and we stopped to take a few photos of it.

Once we finished up there we travelled on to Dodsland.  Sharon's father was born in Dodsland and her grandfather immigrated from England and homesteaded near there around 1910.  An really nice elderly gentleman that ran the only gas station in town, directed us over to the town office.  He even solicited some of the locals that work for the town to head over and help us out.  This was really going above and beyond as by this time, it was 5:00 in the afternoon on a Friday.  But, the town staff were able to pinpoint the location of Sharon's grandfather's farm based on some old Dominion Maps.  The family had lost the farm near the end of the Depression, just before the Second World War broke out.  At that point they moved away to Saskatoon.

After shooting an old building in Dodsland we hit the gravel roads heading west and eventually found the section of land that had once belonged to Sharon's family.  It was just an open piece of cropland with a couple of oilwells, but no buildings.

Once we had completed this it was time to hit the road.  It was late afternoon and we still had five hours drive ahead of us to get back to Edmonton.  We crossed the border at Macklin and followed Alberta Highway 13 through Provost, Hardisty and Camrose.  We finally got back home to the city around 10:30PM.  By the time we dropped off Arturo and Sharon it ended up being about 11:00 before Margarit and I rolled up to the house.  But it was a fantastic trip and we really enjoyed the time with our friends.  I came back with around fifty sheets of exposed film, and look forward to seeing some of the images once I develop them.

Saskatchewan Trip - Day Two

On Day Two of our trip we got up and took advantage of the free breakfast, included with our rooms at the hotel.  It was actually pretty good, and we all enjoyed it.  The day had dawned clear and sunny and it was very humid.  The central part of Saskatchewan didn't appear as though it had received as much rain as we did back in Alberta, but the humidity was still pretty stifflling.

After breakfast we set out to the Northeast of the City, with a few destinations in mind.  We had to cross the South Saskatchewan River on the Clarksboro Ferry.  From there we continued northeast in the general direction of Melfort, though we never made it that far.

As we had done the day prior, we pulled off the highway and drove into some of the small towns we encountered along the way.  It seems there is almost always at least one worthwhile photographic subject in almost every little.

We found a ghost town that was heavily overgrown.  There was not much left of most of the buildings and what was left was heavily overgrown with carraganas.  The old hotel was kind of interesting, but the floors and the roof were so badly rotted out that we didn't dare step into the place.  It was while I was shooting here that I noticed a tick crawling on my darkcloth.  This was very reminiscent of the trip my friend Rob and I made to Saskatchewan about six years ago.  We encountered a lot of the disgusting little things that time too.  People always seem to think that they drop onto you out of trees and bushes but apparently they are more commonly in tall grass.

In another town we found an old church.  Some of the locals told us that it never was officially a church and that it was only a temporary "place of worship" while the main church was being built.  The town now owns the building and has it up for sale, so we were allowed to go in and take a look around.

We travelled as far as a large wood trestle bridge on an abandoned rail line.  This bridge spans the broad valley of McCloy Creek and is supposed to be the largest wood trestle in Saskatchewan.  I'd guess it to be at least a quarter mile long.  Unfortunately a fence was erected at either end and we couldn't actually get onto the bridge.  But we spent a couple of hours here shooting from where we could.  It was really hot and the humidity was overbearing, so this ended up being as far as we travelled.  The temperature peaked in the late afternoon at around +32C.

On the way back we checked out a couple more towns and found one with the body of an old hearse mounted onto the chassis of a 4x4.  And further along we found some really photogenic abandoned grain elevators, but they were out in a field and there was no way to get close to  them without damaging the crop.  Perhaps we need to make a return visit in the fall once the harvest is done.

We got back to our hotel by mid-evening and settled down.  Sharon found a tick on her leg that had started feeding.  Later in the evening I found another one crawling on me, but it had not yet latched on.  And the next morning we found yet another crawling on the walls of the shower.

Being concerned about lyme disease, we all checked some online information and Sharon called her doctor.  Fortunately the tick has to finish feeding, which takes 24 to 36 hours, before the lyme disease bacteria is transferred.  There was no way that the tick had been on Sharon for any more than a couple hours, so this put her at ease.

Saskatchewan Trip - Day One

Margarit and I headed to Saskatchewan on August 13.  We picked up of friends Arturo and Sharon to make it a foursome.  After a fuel stop in Lloydminster, we crossed the border into Saskatchewan.

I made our first stop to photograph some old vehicles beside the highway, and Arturo realized he had forgotten his long pants.  So we blasted back to Lloydminster so he could buy some.

Once we got re-started, we got serious about scouting around.  We stopped in numerous small towns along the way to take photographs.  In one we found a pair of unused grain elevators, and spent a couple hours there.  

Later we stopped at an old abandoned church.  There was a small museum nearby, but it was not open.  We were more interested in the church than the museum anyway.  I remember looking up some information about this church in the past and apparently the steeple was taken off by a tornado.  It is in a state of serious disrepair and will not last much longer.

We had hoped to photograph at the now unused Borden Bridge.  This is a large concrete arch bridge that spans the North Saskatchewan River near Borden.  It has been replaced to two steel spans that now carry the divided highway over the river.  By the time we arrived it was late in the day and the light had gone completely flat and there was no point stopping.  So, we carried on to Saskatoon and checked into our hotel.  We went out for a late dinner together and called it a day.

    
    

Here are two shots of the Borden Bridge that I took in January of 2017.  At that time I had a gallery exhibition showing at the Saskatchewan Craft Council Gallery and made several trips to drop off and pick up the prints, and to attend the opening.  These two images were taken on Kodak Tri-X Pan film developed in PMK, a staining Pyro Developer.  If you look closely you can see the two new highway bridges in behind the stately old concrete arch bridge [ behind in the first shot, and to the right in the second].