Scouting

On Sunday September 17th, while we were in Crowsnest Pass with Chris and Connie, we did a little scouting around for future locations for the Beer Parlour Project.  We checked out the Hillcrest Miners Club, which is a social hall that started out as the union hall for the coal miners at nearby Hillcrest Mine.  Although it is not associated with any hotel it remains a possibility for a future stop on the Beer Parlour Project tour.

We wandered around in Blairmore for a bit and checked out an old store, and the home that used to be the studio of a local photographer named Gushul.  He is famous for having taken many now historical images in the Pass.

Later in the afternoon we returned to the Greenhill Hotel and finished up some interviews, as well as took a couple more photographs.  Still later we made a run over to Hosmer to visit with Len at the Elk Valley Inn, but sadly his establishment was closed.

On Monday morning we were up early and checked out of the Cosmopolitan Hotel.  As I mentioned previously, we were expecting to have to rush back to Edmonton to pick up Helena from school.  But, as she was not feeling well, and didn't go to school on this day, we made a more leisurely trip back home.  We stopped at Lundbreck Falls, which I mention in a separate blog post.

Later we stopped in Pincher Creek and fueled the truck.  I showed Margarit the beautiful Lebel Mansion.  This historic building houses a gallery where my Procession West show was exhibited several years ago.  There was an interesting old building that housed the local branch of the Legion.

We made a stop in Fort McLeod and checked out some of the old buildings and shops there.  We had visited this area earlier in the summer with Arturo and Sharon when we toured the Turner Valley Gas Plant, and Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park.

We made a little side trip into the town of Stavely and checked out an old hotel there.  We also stopped in Nanton and attempted to check out the antique shops there.  Sadly two of them had permanently closed, and the ones that were left were not open on Mondays.  After that we continued on through Calgary and made a late lunch stop in Airdrie.

Finally back on the road we made yet another side trip into Ponoka.  We found a really cool mid-century medicine cabinet in an antique store, and bought it for the guest cottage.  We also found two really cool old hotels, and stopped for a beer in one of them.  The interior of one of them looked like it was stuck in the 1980's.

We eventually made it back home to the city, and to the girls, in the early evening.  It was a very relaxing and enjoyable day, and we found some good leads for future exploration.

Lundbreck Falls

Margarit and I got up early at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Blairmore, on the morning of Monday September 18th.  Our plan was to blast back home to Edmonton in time to pick up Helena from school in the afternoon.  Chris and Connie booked out even earlier than we did, as Connie got called in to work.  

We checked with Helena in the morning, to make sure that her sister Hailey was up to take her to school.  But, Helena had come down with a bad cold over the weekend, and still was not feeling well on Monday.  So, she elected to stay home from school.

This allowed Margarit and I to make a much more relaxed day of it, and we could take our time coming back home to the city. Our first stop was at Lundbreck Falls, on the Crowsnest River, near the town of the same name.  I had been here in the past, but never realized that there was an easy trail down to the base of the falls.  So this time, we wandered around for a while and enjoyed the beautiful location.  I took my big view camera down to the base of the falls and did one photograph from there.

BP 6.0 Thorsby Hotel - The Beer Parlour Project

This is also a sheet of T-Max 400, pushed to 1600 iso, from the recently processed batch.  This one dates back to BP6.0 at the Thorsby Hotel.  This is Dwayne Harrish, who was performing there the night that we visited.  I posted a shot of him previously, but it was on HP5 film, exposed at 400 iso.  That one showed a lot of motion blur.  The two stops that I gained from this pushed film resulted in a lot less blur, and lot more acceptable image.

BP 5.0 Tofield Hotel - The Beer Parlour Project

Just after we returned home from Crowsnest Pass on September 18th, I processed a batch of sheet film.  This was a batch of Kodak T-Max 400, developed in T-Max Developer.  I have been experimenting with pushing this film to 1600 iso, a full two stops faster than the rated box speed of 400 iso.  This has been really helpful for all the low light shooting required for the Beer Parlour Project.  Those old style taverns are never well lighted and are very dark and gloomy at times.  Development was in T-Max Developer, diluted 1:4, for 7:50 minutes, at 24C.

For the most part the shots are turning out fairly well.  I am having the most success when I ask someone to pose for me, and remind them that the film is slow and they need to hold really still.  This still yields really limited depth of field, and some of the shots get spoiled by motion.  But things are gradually improving.

I got a couple of great images on the recent stops on the Beer Parlour Project tour in Crowsnest Pass and will be posting those in the coming days.  Also included in that batch were a few sheets from previous stops on the tour.  The two images included here were both taken at the Tofield Hotel, also known as BP5.0.  This was back in early August of this past summer.

Forest Edge

This image is both recently developed, and recently taken.  This is yet another one from the recent batch of Ilford HP5 developed in 510 Pyro.

My long time friend Rob recently decided to retire from large format photography.  He asked me to buy all his gear from him, at a discounted price, and then resell as much of it as I chose to, to recoup my investment.  His camera is an Ebony SV45TE, just like one of mine.  The only difference is that mine is the ebony wood version, and his appears to be mahogany.  I decided to keep the camera and leave it permanently out at Nordegg.  This saves me having to drag gear back and forth every time I go out there.  I sold most of the rest of his gear and recouped a good portion of my investment.

Rob has created many spectacular images with this camera.  This is one of the first ones that I took with it.  I hope it has more good work remaining in it.

This is the edge of the forest along the Forestry Trunk Road, not far from my cottage in Nordegg.  I shot this on July 31st at about 4:30 in the afternoon with Rob's Ebony 4x5 view camera and a long 300mm lens.  A #25 Red filter increased contrast, and allowed the background forest values to drop off.  I'm generally happy with this one, and seem drawn to compositions like this.....

Exploring Frank Slide

In between the evenings spent exploring old hotels for the Beer Parlour Project, we went out for an afternoon hike near Frank Slide.  Frank Slide is the largest rockslide that ever occurred in Canada, and in 90 seconds part of the town of Frank was wiped away, and the valley was clogged with millions of tons of rock.  This occurred over a century ago, in the early 1900's.  Some say that mining activity under Turtle Mountain triggered the slide, but the mine itself remained intact, so to me that theory seems unlikely.  In any event, it is a spectacular site to visit.  

We hiked up onto the edge of the slide at the east side.  There was a nice view of the Crowsnest River, with Crowsnest Mountain in the background.  Obviously a pathway had to be cleared back in the day, through all of the rock debris for the rail line and for the highway.  This was clearly evident from our high vantage point.  

It had been much drier in southern Alberta than it had back home in our neck of the woods.  As a result the leaves were turning color a little earlier.  Some of the aspens groves looked really nice against the clear blue sky.

We also saw a very large Mormom Cricket, with a body length of at least 1-1/2".  He seemed very lethargic and was not at all bothered by us hovering closely over him.  I suspect that these critters don't taste very good to birds otherwise it would have either evolved a flight instinct, or been eaten...?

Flooded Grasses

This one is also from the recent batch of Ilford HP5 developed in 510 Pyro.  I shot this earlier this spring, out near my cottage in Nordegg.  I was wandering around down by Shunda Creek.  This was a short time after we had some heavy rain mixed with wet snow.  I believe that this was just before the wet June weather that resulted in my crawlspace getting flooded.  It appears that these grasses became inundated as a result of a backup of Shunda Creek behind a beaver dam.

I was drawn to the random pattern that was created by the grasses in the water.  That is the shoulder of Coliseum Mountain that is visible in the background, and the subdivision that our cottage is in is located on the flanks of that mountain.

I shot this on June 12th at about 3:15 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony view camera and a Schneider 110mm lens.  I used a polarizing filter to remove reflections from the surface of the water, thereby darkening its value.

The Beer Parlour Project - Greenhill Hotel Revisited

In the fall of 2022 Margarit and I met up with Chris and Connie and we visited the Greenhill Hotel in Blairmore for the Beer Parlour Project.  This was the second stop of our ongoing tour of old small town hotels and taverns.  We refer to that visit as BP2.0.  It was a bit of a bust because there was just not much going on.  The  staff was not very friendly, and there were hardly any patrons around.  Fast forward to a year later, almost to the day, September 16th to be precise, and we are back for a return visit.  This time around we refer to the current visit a BP2.1.  The property has changed hands and the new owners, Mike and Tina, are much more receptive.  The place was really happening this time, and was full of people.

We met Margaret... not to be confused with my wife Margarit... who visited with us for a while and told us that she met her late husband in the Greenhill Tavern when he worked there. She told us that she snuck in to the tavern underage, and her future husband allowed her to ge away with it.  She allowed me to take her portrait with my big camera and I will be posting that image in the future, when the film is developed.  Margaret was having a great time visiting with everyone, including her daughter Kelly who was there with her.

We got permission to tour the back rooms of the hotel, and even the basement.  Rachel, who was tending the bar was kept hopping as there were a lot of people out on a Saturday night, plus our project getting in her way.  But she did a fantastic job.

We hung around until late in the evening and then eventually packed up all of our gear and walked back up the street to he Cosmopolitan Hotel where we were staying.  The Greenhill no longer rents rooms, so it was not an option for us to stay there.

On Sunday the 17th we returned and had a chance to meet with Mike and Tina, the new owners.  They were in the process of renovating all of the original hotel rooms into apartments for long term rental.  We got a tour of the space and it looks like it will be a fantastic property when all is said and done.  Chris took advantage of the quieter time to interview Mya, a long term Crownest Pass resident, plus Mike and Tina, as well as Rachel.  The notes from these interviews will be used to create the written component of our project, in the future.

I managed to take a number of photographs of the exterior of the building in evening light.  It is a majestic old property and the two spiral staircase fire escapes are very unique.  The building permit morons are trying to get Mike to remove these but he refuses.  He will block them off so that they can not be used, but insists that they have to stay... and I certainly agree with him

As Mike toured us through the hotel he explained all of the work that he was undertaking.  He told us that there were nine layers of asphalt shingles on the roof, totalling over two inches in thickness.  Common roofing practice calls for old shingles to be removed prior to installation of new ones.  But sometimes the low bidder cuts corners and just puts the new ones on over top.  Once that has been done once or twice, no one wants to go to the work of removing all that old material.  

There will certainly be no issues with the structure of the century old building standing up to design loads now that all that weight has been removed...!

Abandoned Property

A friend of mine invited me to photograph and document a project.  Initially this involves an abandoned property.  I am not really at liberty to say where it is, or who owns it.  At some point in the future I hope to be able to be more open about it.

At this point in time it is the challenge of this project fascinates me.  I think it could become another long term project that I could spend several years documenting.  I'm not sure at this point exactly where it will go or what it will become.

My first visit to the location resulted in a number of photographs of things that were left behind.  This is much like the Apparitions Project that I am involved in.  But, this particular project has a significant human element to it, and involves a lot more of the present, than the past.  It is highly likely that it will include some portraits, both environmental and formal.

For now, here are some snapshots of some of the things that I recently explored.  As the project evolves and I gain the trust of those involved I hope to be able to share more details.