Rosewall Creek Bridge

Once again, T-Max 100 developed in 510 Pyro.  Man, that recent batch of film sure yielded a lot of strong images.  This one is also from Vancouver Island.

I shot this one on October 25th 2023 right around noon.  I used my Ebony view camera and a slightly wide 125mm lens.  A #8 Yellow Filter brought up the value of the foreground leaves.

This is the rail line that runs up Vancouver Island.  It was shut down some years ago and does not see use north of Nanaimo.  I understand that there are some plans to revive it, perhaps for passenger service, so the line and all the bridges remain in place, at least for now.

Gate

This image is also from the batch of Kodak T-Max 100 4" x 5" sheet film, processed in 510 Pyro Developer.  It is also from the fall trip to Vancouver Island.

I shot this on October 25th 2023, at about 11:00 in the morning.  I used my Ebony view camera and a wide 90mm lens.  I also used a #8 Yellow Filter, to bring up the value of the foreground leaves.  It was a bit of a challenge to expose properly as the upper trees were in full sun, and quite a bit brighter than the foreground leaves, which were in full shade.  Perhaps a darkroom print can do it justice.

This old gate was right beside the road that we used to get access to the beach.  This was the way that we travelled for the two previous images of low tide and the clam nets. 

Clam Nets

This is yet another T-Max 100 negative, from that recent batch processed in 510 Pyro Developer.  This one was taken just minutes after the previously posted image of the tide pools at low tide.  These are clams nets, and they were down near the low water line.  I don't know exactly how this process works.  The nets are stretched out on the beach and anchored to some concrete blocks at the corners.  There are obviously a lot of clams here in the sand of the beach and I could see there little burrows all over the place beyond the nets.  I presume that the nets keep the shorebirds and other wildlife from digging up the clams, until it is time for the human harvest...?  But I don't really know that for sure.

I took this photograph on October 25th 2023 at about 10:45 in the morning.  I used my Ebony view camera and a wide 75mm lens.  Instead of the usual #25 Red Filter, this time I used a #22 Orange filter.  It pumped up the contrast somewhat but retained a little more detail in the low values of the nets.

Low Tide

The recent batch of Kodak T-Max 100 film, processed in 510 Pyro developer, yielded quite a few decent images.  I will continue to post them in the coming days.  There were several good ones from the fall trip to Vancouver Island, as well as a few from closer to home.

On the morning of October 25th Chris and I went for a drive.  Arturo stayed behind at the rental house to do some online work.  Chris and I headed south from Courtenay and ended up down around Mud Bay and Fanny Pay.  We stopped in a few places and wandered around, doing some exploring.  The tide was out and we were able to get out onto the beach.

I quite like this shot of these tide pools.  The landform in the background left is Denman Island.  I shot this on October 25th at around 10:20 in the morning.  I used my Ebony view camera and a 200mm lens.  A #25 Red Filter increased contrast.

Tide Pool

This is a scan of another negative from the recently processed batch of T-Max 100 4" x 5" sheet film.  This one was taken just a few yards away from the previously posted image that I called Ford Cove Rocks.  For this one I tried to get in a little tighter on a small pool and the adjacent sandstone erosion.

I shot this on October 22nd 2023 at about 11:00 in the morning.  I used my Ebony view camera and a 200mm lens.  A #25 Red Filter pumped up the contrast a little.

 

 

Pilings

This is another of the Kodak T-Max 100 negatives from the recently processed batch.  This was 4" x 5" sheet film, processed in 510 Pyro Developer, 1:100.

This is a shot from the trip to Vancouver Island last October.  We spent some time at Union Bay.  There was once a coal loading dock here, and coal from the inland Cumberland Mine was loaded onto ships for transport.  It is said to be the most polluted site on Vancouver Island.  Though the pollution consists of spilled coal, which does not support organic life.  In my mind this seems a lot less polluting then harsh manmade chemicals, or some other such contaminant.

There is a residential development here that seems in limbo.  Roadways and sidewalks have been constructed, lots are surveyed, and services have been installed.  Yet there is no housing underway.  I'm not sure if that is somehow tied to the coal pollution.  Nearby there is a ship breaking yard that we hoped to photograph.  But it has been the site of some protests and the entire matter seems very controversial, and secretive.  Our requests to access the ship breaking yard for photography were denied.

Instead we spent a bunch of time down by the old wharf.  These pilings once supported the dock that ran out into the water to the ships that were being loaded.  There are some old historical photographs and films online that show steam locomotives on the dock.  Now this is all that is left.

I took two shots of these pilings, one with a faster shutter speed, and this one.  I thought the extended exposure would blur the moving water and yield a more interesting image.  I think I was right.

I shot this on October 23rd 2023 at around 1:30 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony view camera and a longish 200mm lens.  A six stop neutral density filter was used.  This in combination with a small aperture of F45.0 resulted in a shutter speed of 1 minute.

Winter in Nordegg

I headed back out to Nordegg on Saturday January 20th.  I didn't get a particularly early start, as I slept in a bit.  And I had some packing to do, and supplies to pick up before I left town.  But by early afternoon, I was on the road.  Margarit and the girls decided to stay home, so this would be another solo trip.

Shortly after I arrived at the cottage, my former neighbor Dan stopped by with his Dad for a visit.  We caught up for an hour or so and had a nice visit.  After they left I finished unpacking, and then headed over to the rink in town to play outside hockey.  It seems there was a fair bit of interest in a skate as it has been so cold in recent days that previous games had to be cancelled.  We had two goaltenders and about a dozen skaters, which is just perfect.  The temperature was about -8C when we started, so pretty comfortable for playing.  But it was a good thing we didn't have any more players as then we would have spent more time sitting and waiting for a shift, than playing.  Under those conditions -8 starts to feel a little colder.

On Sunday the 21st I didn't do much of anything.  Just had a very relaxing and low-key day.  In the afternoon I slipped into town and stopped in at the Beehive Artisan Market.  I had a couple more small framed prints to drop off, and had a nice visit with Celina, the owner.  She said it has been surprisingly busy this winter, and now that Abraham Lake has frozen over, the "Bubblers" are starting to come.  The Beehive also owns three short term rental cabins in the townsite, and apparently things have been picking up.  Celina had some visitors from New York that came all the way out just to see the Ice Bubbles.

A year or two back Celina's brother Matt saw my "Keep Nordegg Weird" sign on my gate, and asked if he could use the slogan.  I had no objection to it and gave him my blessing.  Recently the Beehive had a bunch of stickers made up, and Celina gave me some.

By Sunday evening it got really quiet up in the subdivision as most of the weekend people that were out, and there were not a lot of them, went home.  Dan stopped by again in the evening and we had another visit, and like usual, a great discussion about all sorts of things.... politics, spiritual and other general nonsense.

Monday January 22nd was low key again.  It was about -15 in the morning, but by late afternoon it warmed up to about -5.  The forecast keeps saying that the warmup is supposed to come, but so far it hasn't materialized.  That said, this current weather is a lot better than the -45C that was experienced out here a week or so back.

In the morning I put some oats out for the deer.  At the sound of the oats being poured into the feeder, six of them came running out of my backwoods.  Later in the day, there were around a dozen of them hanging around, looking for yet more oats.  I went out to oblige them, and they didn't retreat very far.  One of them walked right up to within 20 feet of me as I refilled the feeder, and the others weren't very far away.  I love having them around, and enjoy watching them from the window of my breakfast nook.  They have trackways through the yard, that they travel daily to check out the feeder.  It's almost like Deer Highways.  I don't feed during hunting season, or in the summer when bears are around, but in the winter I don't mind helping them out, despite the expense.  I picked up three 50Lb sacks of oats on my way out of the city last Saturday and it cost me almost 60 bucks.

In the afternoon I puttered around over in the guest cottage.  I unpacked a bunch of dishes that Margarit and I picked up at antique stores over the last year or so.  Mostly these are from Medicine Hat Pottery and I remember this pattern from when I was a kid.

Later in the afternoon I put a rib roast in the over, turned on some music, had a couple of beers and just kicked back to relax.  Even though I no longer have the guest cottage to work on, I'm really coming to enjoy just relaxing and not doing much of anything.... particularly in winter when there aren't very many people around.

Beer Parlour Project - BP 9.0 - Victoria Hotel

My recently processed batch of T-Max 100 sheet film also included a couple of shots from the most recent Beer Parlour Project outing.  This was back at the beginning of December.  We visited the Victoria Hotel in Bruderheim for episode BP 9.0.

I have no choice but to use faster films for all the interior shots and portraits that I take.  But every time we are out on one of these outings I try to take a couple of shots of the exterior of the building as well.  The nice clear, low winter light nicely illuminated the Victoria, and I chose to capture it with this slower film, processed in 510 Pyro Developer.

The first shot, cropped to panoramic proportions, is the east side, and technically the front, of the Victoria Hotel.  I shot this on December 2nd at about 2:10 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony view camera and a wide 75mm lens, with no filter.

About 15 minutes later I took the second shot, the side entrance to the lobby of the hotel.  This was taken with my Ebony view camera and a 150mm lens.  Once again, no filter was necessary.

The Beer Parlour Project is making a return visit to the Victoria on Saturday February 3rd.  We want to interview some of the elderly patrons that remember the original owner of the hotel.  They were unable to make it out when we previously visited in December.  I also have prints made of all the portraits I shot last time, and will hand them out to anyone that returns.  We actually tried to coordinate a return visit back in mid-January.  But then the deep freeze hit and temperatures plummeted to -40C.  It wasn't practical for Chris and Connie to travel all the way from Calgary, and the turnout likely would have been light.  So we rescheduled this next visit, officially to be known as BP 9.1, for early February.

Ford Cove Rocks

A short time ago I processed a batch of Kodak T-Max 100 4" x 5" sheet film.  Like the previous batch of HP5, this one was also developed in 510 Pyro 1:100.  Development time for the T-Max film was 7:45 minutes at 24C.

This batch of film included a number of photographs taken in late 2023, as well as a handful from the fall trip out to Vancouver Island with my friends Chris and Arturo.

This particular shot is of the eroded sandstone on the shore of Hornby Island, at a place called Ford Cove.  The white structure that is visible on the far shore is the ferry terminal on Denman Island.  

In order to get to Hornby Island you need to take one of the big ferries from the mainland, across to Vancouver Island.  Then you need to drive to a place called Buckley Bay.  From there you can take a small ferry across Baynes Sound to Denman Island.  Then you have to drive across Denman Island to the ferry terminal that is visible in the background of this photo.  From there you take yet another ferry across to Hornby Island.  It is a spectacular place to visit, and well worth the effort.  But to live there full time and have your life governed by all those ferry schedules would be a little much, at least for me.

This photograph was taken on October 22nd 2023 at around 10:45 in the morning.  It was a cool and rather blustery day as I recall.  I used my Ebony view camera and a 200mm lens.  A #25 Red Filter increased contrast and created a little separation in the sky.

Piano

This is the last of the scans of the images shot on Ilford HP5 film.  I processed these 4" x 5" sheets in 510 Pyro Developer.  This shot is a more recent one....   My friend Steve and I went out on a day trip, mostly to scout a few small town hotels for the Beer Parlour Project.  We managed to stop and sample the wares in a couple of fine establishments along the way.  We also made a stop at the abandoned Russian Monastery up in Smoky Lake County.

Someone left a piano, presumably as an offering of some sort, in a clearing in the woods where the monastery once operated.  That was a number of years ago and the piano has now succumbed to the elements and is giving up the fight.

I shot this image on December 6th 2023 at about 12:30 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony view camera and a 125mm lens.  No filter was needed as there was a beautiful clear winter sun on this day.

Beat Up

This is yet another scan from the recently processed batch of Ilford HP5.  Once again, development was in 510 Pyro Developer, 1:100, for 7:25 minutes at 24C.

I shot this at the end of the Fall Photo Weekend when I was out with the Monochrome Guild, at an abandoned cement plant.  It was taken on November 13th 2023 at about 2:00 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony view camera and a 210mm lens.  A yellow filter brightened some of the highlights a little.  The late winter sun was throwing a beautiful warm light onto these old vehicles and I think the filter might have supported that a little.

Milk River

Another scan from the recently processed batch of Ilford HP5 4" x 5" sheet film, developed in 510 Pyro.  Last summer Margarit and I took a trip down to southern Alberta with our friends Arturo and Sharon.  The main purpose of the trip was to photograph at the Turner Valley Gas Plant.  But, we also headed further south, almost to the US Border, and photographed at Writing-On-Stone Provincial Park.  We thought that some shots of the native rock art might work for our Apparitions project.

We were unable to book in advance for a tour of the restricted access area of the park, where most of the rock art is located.  But, it was National Aboriginal Peoples Day so the park staff were conducting short tours out to the site.  This really didn't afford enough time to properly photograph anything, but we got a taste of the possibilities.

After the tour ended we wandered around the park a little and took some landscape photographs.  I took this shot of the Milk River Valley with my Ebony View Camera and a 300mm lens.  It was taken on June 21st 2023, at about 4:00 in the afternoon.  A number 25 red filter created some separation in the clouds, and increased contrast somewhat.

Buckskin

This is one of two wild stallions that I regularly see along the David Thompson Highway between Rocky Mountain House and Nordegg.  They are more common in the winter and early spring.  In the summer and fall I think they must move away from the highway, and back into the forest.  In winter the south facing ditches get some sun, and there is often exposed grass for them to feed on.

There are hundreds of wild horses in the foothills and mountains of Alberta.  They are said to be descendants of horses that were turned loose from coal mining and lumbering camps.

This past winter has been really mild, with very little snow, so I haven't noticed any horses recently.  In the past several days there has been a bitter cold snap and some fresh snow so perhaps they are coming back to the roadsides again.  

This image is another from the batch of recently processed Ilford HP5.  This large format 4" x 5" sheet film was developed in 510 Pyro Developer for 7:25 minutes at 24C.  I shot this on April 2nd 2023 at about 1:30 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony 4x5 view camera and a long 400mm lens.  The image is cropped somewhat.  There were two stallions present at this time and I tried to get in as tight as I could on this buckskin.  They are definitely wild and although they tolerated me stopping my truck on the opposite side of the highway and setting up my camera, they never stopped moving and wandered off into the forest before I could shoot any more than just a couple sheets of film.

Nordegg Burn

This is another one from the recently processed batch of Ilford HP5 4" x 5" sheet film, developed in 510 Pyro.  Like the roadside bush, this one was also taken along the Forestry Trunk Road near Nordegg.  This time around I was south of the David Thompson Highway, right near the Nordegg Industrial Park.  This is an overview of the burned area near town, dating back to a fire about 15 years ago.  The fire never made it all the way to town, but it got really close.

This shot was taken on January 22nd 2023 at about 1:45 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony view camera and a slightly long 200mm lens.  A #25 Red filter deepened the value of the sky and added some overall contrast.

Roadside Bush

I was drawn to the way that the low winter sun caught this bush on the side of the Forestry Trunk Road, and painted it with light.  The dark background of evergreens really made it stand out.  I suppose I could take a drastic departure from reality and print this with a lot more contrast and moodiness.....

Back in early December I processed a batch of Ilford HP5 sheet film, in 4" x 5" format, in 510 Pyro Developer.  This has become one of my favorite combinations.  Development was for 7:25 minutes at 24C, with the concentrate diluted 1:100.  I'm just now getting around to posting some of the scans from that batch of film.

I shot this back on January 22nd of 2023, at about 1:00 in the afternoon.  It was a milder day and I was out for a drive with my camera, looking for subject matter to photograph.  It seems I am always lacking some winter shots when it comes time to putting together my annual calendars.  To that end I have made a point of trying to get out a bit during the winter months.  

I shot this with my Ebony 4x5 view camera and a slightly wide 125mm lens.  A #25 Red Filter allowed the values of the background forest to fall off a little.

Nash Metropolitan

I found this old car beside the highway in southern Alberta when Margarit and I were out on a road trip last summer with Arturo and Sharon.  We were shooting the Turner Valley Gas Plant, and a few other locations for the Apparitions project.  One morning I headed out early to take some photographs while the others stayed behind at the rental house and slept in.  I returned to this old car, that we had spotted the evening before.

The Nash Metrolpolitan was assembled in England.  It was produced from 1954 to 1962.  It was called the Hudson Metropolitan from 1954 to 1957, and later the Metropolitan by American Motors, from 1958 to 1962.  It was a tiny little vehicle with a wheel base of just over seven feet [85"] and an overall length of just over twelve feet [149-1/2"].  It was available with either a 1.2L or a 1.5L engine.  I'm not sure exactly which model this one is, so perhaps some research is in order.  I believe this one is the Series III version, produced in 1958...?

This is more just a record shot as opposed to any sort of fine art photograph.  I am reminded of my childhood growing up in the Lendrum neighborhood in Edmonton in the late 1960's as a little old lady at the senior's lodge on the end of our street drove one of these.....

Even Colder

When I got up on Sunday morning, it was even colder than it has been the past few days.  The thermometer registered a temperature of -36C.  Fortunately there is little to no wind, so the wind chill is not really a factor.  I popped out on Saturday afternoon to pick up a few groceries and supplies.  At that point it was only -28C, but there was a bit of a breeze.  It felt pretty damn cold... "colder than your ex's heart"... as one of my friends commented.

There is a heavy fog this morning, which will likely result in some beautiful hoar frost once the sun burns through.  But sadly it will likely be too cold to get out and photograph it.  I was somewhat disappointed that we were forced to cancel the outing for our Beer Parlour Project this weekend.  But it would have been too difficult to attempt to get out in this bitter cold weather, and the turnout would have been minimal.  We shall re-schedule for another weekend in the near future.

Hailey is still out at the cottage in Nordegg.  We have suggested that she stay a couple days more until this cold spell breaks.  Of course being the belligerent young lady that she is, she will likely defy us and hit the road anyway.  It was -38C out there this morning according to my weather station.  In the past couple of days it has dropped below -40C out there.

Conditions are forecast to improve in the coming days....  up to -14C here in the city by Tuesday, and up to -8C out in the mountains.  Last night as I was watching the Oilers game on Hockey Night in Canada a warning was flashed on the screen asking Alberta residents to turn off any unnecessary electrical appliances and lights as the power grid was at the limit, and that rotating black outs may be needed.  Fortunately it never came down to that.....

Politicians are so stupid....  they encourage immigration into Alberta and Canada, without any consideration for the needed infrastructure...!   There's a shortage of affordable housing, we have major problems with homelessness, the power grid can not keep up to demand, particularly with so many electric vehicles being forced onto the population, the quality of education is deteriorating, and our health care system to stressed to the point of collapse.   Geez, I wonder what the solution might be...?

Deep Freeze

Earlier this week I spent an evening in the darkroom.  I made work prints of eleven different negatives, and at least two copies of each.  These photographs were all taken during the Beer Parlour Project outing to the Bruderheim Hotel in early December.  Our team officially refers to this outing as BP 9.0.

My friends Chris and Connie were supposed to travel up to Edmonton this weekend, and we planned to make a return visit to the Victoria Hotel in Bruderheim.  This would have been BP 9.1.  We hoped to be able to interview a couple of locals that were unable to make it out last time.  And, I planned on handing out all the prints.

But winter officially arrived earlier this week.  We got about four or five inches of desperately needed snow.  But we also ended up in the deep freeze.  For the past few days the daytime high temperatures have been up around a balmy -25C, and the night time lows below -30C.  Going into the weekend it is forecast to get even colder.

We were forced to postpone and re-schedule our BP 9.1 return visit to Bruderheim.  We are hoping we can arrange that at some point in the next couple of weeks.

My daughter Hailey is out at our cottage in Nordegg and it is even colder out there.  The weather station is showing a temperature of -40C.  I think it might be a little colder than that, but I believe the lowest that the unit can record is -40C.  We are asking her to stay put and keep warm and not risk driving the highways back home until this cold snap breaks.

InFocus Exhibition 2024

The InFocus Photo Exhibition is coming up here in Edmonton in late January.  Two of my images were accepted for the show, and I recently printed them.  I actually did the printing shortly before the Christmas break.

Last time I was out at Nordegg I used the chop saw to cut up the frames.  In recent days I cut the mats, dry mounted the prints, and assembled the frames.  Earlier this week I delivered them to the curator, Alexis Marie Chute.  She has been running this event for ten years now and this year there is an anniversary celebration.  The exhibition has expanded to multiple venues and a book is also being printed.  One of my two images is to be included in the book.

Here is a link to the website for the show.  There is an opportunity to vote on the "People's Choice" for best image, and also some details on the openings, and the event.

https://www.infocusphoto.ca/

January Image - David Thompson Country Calendar

This is the image I selected for the January page of my David Thompson Country calendar.  This image was taken in the winter of 2023, on Abraham Lake.  Obviously there was a lot more ice last year, than there has been so far this winter.  That will probably change very shortly, as we are in the first days of a severe cold snap.  When I was last out at Nordegg, about a week ago, the lake was still open.  With temperatures forecast to plummet into the -35 range, I expect that will change.

These calendars are available for sale at the Beehive Artisan Market in Nordegg.  I know they have been selling well, and there are only a handful left.

Small Prints

I made a number of small prints before Christmas.  These are actually just contact prints of 4" x 5" negatives, printed on RC paper.  I mounted some of them onto card stock and provided them with envelopes.  I also mounted and matted a few and put them into small frames.  The overall frame size is around 7" x 8".  

I finished up some of them before our last trip out to the cottage.  Since we've returned from Nordegg in the New Year, I finished up the last of them.  These are all being offered for sale at the Beehive Artisan Market in Nordegg, along with my 2024 David Thompson Country Calendar.

January Calendar Image

This is the image I selected for the January page of my Fine Art Photography calendar.  Arturo and I were out on a private tour of the Turner Valley Gas Plant Historic site last year.  We were accumulating some shots for our Apparitions project.  This is one of my better images.  This valve in the gasoline plant was manufactured by Crane Steel.  The company logo was a swastika, and this predates the Second World War and the reign of the Nazi's.  At some locations on the site the symbol has been chipped or ground off of the valve body.  I like the tonality of this shot and the composition of this image.

2024 David Thompson Country Calendar

In addition to my Fine Art Photography calendar, I also made a 2024 edition of my David Thompson Country calendar.  Like last year, this one is available to purchase at the Beehive Artisan Market in Nordegg.  This year I was a little more on the ball and got the calendars ready in advance of the annual Christmas Market in mid-November.  More than half of them have already been sold.

Tin Signs

On New Year's Day Margarit and I kept things pretty low key and just puttered around the cottage.  We hung out in the morning have a relaxing breakfast and giving some attention to Hank.  Later we unpacked a bunch of stuff for the guest cottage and got it set up.  As part of that process we came across a number of tin signs that I had accumulated over the past year or two.  Some of them will get put up over in the guest cottage, but others are for the main cottage.  I put most of them up...

2024 Fine Art Calendar

Once again I have produced my annual Fine Art Photography calendar.  I print about 30 copies of this every year, and distribute it to family and close friends.  I was not totally happy with the 2023 version of my calendar as the printing quality was not to my expectations.  For many years I printed with a small home based business.  They closed up shop in 2022, so for my 2023 calendar I tried PhotoBook Canada.  The calendar was OK... but not great.  This year I switched to Vista Print, and am much happier with the result.  That said, their design software is cumbersome and difficult to use, and their customer support was not helpful.  Their ordering process requires orders in multiples of 10, so I could not order 35 copies... it had to be 30... or 40.   But despite all that, the print quality is noticeably better, and the pricing is comparable.  

This is the cover of the 2024 edition of my calendar.  The photo is of Medicine Lake in Jasper National Park, and was taken on the Fall Photo Weekend outing with the Monochrome Guild in October of 2022.

Beaverdam

On January 2nd I took my camera over to Beaverdam Lake.  This lake is essentially just the widening of Shunda Creek.  I knew that the lake itself was mostly frozen over, as this is evident from the highway.  But I also knew that the creek, where it exits the lake, usually does not freeze.  This is partially because there are some small rapids here, as the creek tumbles over a natural dam of rock as it exits the lake.  But it is also because there is quite a bit of sulfur in the water, evident by the smell of rotten eggs.  I assume that this sulfur is coming off one of the many coal seams in the area.

This spot is only a ten minute drive from the cottage so it is quick and easy to get to.  At this time of year, before we have had any bitter cold weather, there are usually some cool ice formations on the rocks.  I was not disappointed.

It was a clear day, with almost no clouds, but the temperature didn't get up nearly as high as it has in recent days.  This time around it only made it up to about +2C.  And, the creek itself is down in the shade of some heavy evergreen forest, so there was not much direct light.  I always find that it is a lot colder down near open water due to the elevated humidity.  This was probably the coldest I have been taking photographs during this current fall and winter season. I suppose it was about the same at Athabasca Falls in Jasper back in mid November.

I only spent an hour or so down by the creek and managed to set up the view camera a couple of times.  My first shots of the 2024 calendar year...!