The Beer Parlour Project - Tofield Hotel

Chris and Connie and I had arranged to visit the Tofield Hotel back in July for our Beer Parlour Project.  But, the day that it was supposed to happen, infection set in on my Mom's leg wound and I had to spend the afternoon and evening with her at Emergency.

Chris and Connie were good sports about it, even though they had made a special trip up to Edmonton.  They decided to head out to the hotel anyway, and pre-scout for a return trip.  We have since learned that pre-scouting is the way to go.  It allows us to make proper introductions and explain our project.  Then when we make the return visit, announcements have been made and the establishment is more on board.  The turnout has been better, and it resulted in more people to interview and better pictures.

On Friday August 4th we made a return visit to the Tofield Hotel.  Margarit came along with me, and of course Chris and Connie were back in Edmonton.  We also invited Arturo and Sharon to join us, which nicely rounded out the adventure.

We had a lot of fun and there was a good turnout at the hotel.  There were a number of elderly people... the town barflies... that came down to check out what we were all about.  Plus a bunch of locals that were just there to kill time, drink beer and play the VLT's.  I chatted up one guy, about my age, and at one point he dug into his pocket and pulled out his hand.  I saw that he had a guitar pick and asked if he played.  He advised me that his hand held three of the most important things in life... the key to his Harley, the pick for his guitar, and some Percocet.  Sadly he had a cancer diagnosis and the outlook was not good.

There was another older lady there that was having a good time, and perhaps a little too much to drink, and proclaimed herself the town slut.

We stayed until dark and took a bunch of pictures both inside the hotel and of the exterior.  It is really a challenge to shoot inside those old hotels with large format.  The lighting is never very good, and there usually are very few, if any, windows.  I was shooting some Ilford HP5 rated at 320iso, and some Kodak T-Max 400 pushed to 1600iso.  I was also shooting some 35mm stuff with faster lenses so those have better odds.  Hopefully some of both formats turn out.   

In the fun and excitement I forgot to take any phone snapshots, so I have nothing to share here on my blog.  But we did get our business cards from the printer, and handed a few out to interested people, so I have another snapshot of those...