The Weeping Wall

When my friend Rob and I were out shooting in late June, one of our first stops was at the Weeping Wall, in Banff National Park.  I rattled off these snapshots with my digital camera.  Then I put that piece of junk away and dug out a real camera.  We spent an hour or so here shooting with our 4x5 film cameras.  I haven't processed any of that film yet, but once I do I will post some of those images here on my blog.

Cathedral Grove

Taken in heavy rain, at Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island.  This was one of the first shots on the trip out to the Island last October with my friends Rob and Brad.  All of my camera gear got totally soaked during the couple of hours we spent shooting here.  My notes got so wet I have trouble reading them.  Had to spread all the gear out at the rental home in Courtenay that evening so that it could dry out.  Fortunately the weather improved drastically for the rest of the week we spent out there.

ATV Ride

Back in late June Hailey and I took an ATV ride out at Nordegg.  We drove up into the hills behind town, where back in the day there had been some mining activity.  Later we stopped in town and took a short walk along the old rail line.  The tracks that once ran all the way up to the Brazeau Collieries are long abandoned.  We found some date spikes in the ties that said "1959".  This must have been near the end of the line.  There was once an old railway station along the line, just above the church.  The church still stands and sees fairly regular use, but the station is long gone.  Hailey and I found several rail sidings, and old switch, and a platform.  Not sure if that platform was the station, or just a dock for unloading freight.  Kind of cool to find all this stuff right in our own backyard.

Rickenbacker

This is another one of the guitars in my collection.  This was the first electric that I bought, a couple years ago when I returned to the guitar.  I took this studio shot back in April with my Sinar P 8x10 camera.  Its a Rickenbacker 330 semi acoustic Mapleglo.

Saunders Ridge

This is another image from the recent batch of Ilford FP4 sheet film that I processed with HC-110 for plus development.  Similar look to the last one, but vertical format instead of horizontal panorama.  This was taken in the fall of 2019, up on Saunders ridge near Nordegg.  I haven't nailed these hillside aspens the way I want to, but will keep trying and one of these days the light conditions will yield the image I'm looking for.

Floating Leaves

I kind of wrote this one off as a failed experiment....  It was a shot of some fall aspen leaves floating in a puddle in the forest.  The exposure was quite long [about 5 seconds] and the focal length also long [500mm].  There was enough movement in the leaves drifting around in the breeze that they blurred out, while the reflection of the aspen trunk stayed relatively sharp.  Being a zone system practitioner, drawn to uber sharp images, this one just doesn't make the cut.  But nowadays there is so much photography being promoted as "fine art" and much of it is dreamy and soft and out for focus.  In the past, and to a large degree in the present, I write much of that shit off as the crap that it is.  But hell... maybe I should jump onto that bandwagon and try to promote my garbage as fine art too...!

Panorama

There is a blank patch of wall at the cottage in Nordegg that is ideally suited for a panoramic image.  I have been shooting a bunch of stuff over the past six months or so, trying to find something that will work.  I need it to be a scene of something nearby, as I want to cottage to be decorated with images from the surrounding area.  I shot this one a week ago when my friend Rob and I spent a week out at the cottage.  It was taken on Ilford FP4 large format film, cropped to panoramic proportions.  It was a somewhat dull and overcast day with flat light, so I pumped up the contrast a little by giving extra development time in a vigorous developer.  Kodak HC-110 Developer, dilution B, for 15:20 minutes at 20C.  This is the forest edge, along the bank of the Blackstone River, by the Forestry Trunk Road.  I think it is a strong candidate for this spot....

Tangle Falls

Tangle Falls is a spectacular waterfall, right beside the Icefields Parkway.  It is located in Jasper National Park, just north of the Columbia Icefields.  At this time of year the spring snowmelt is at its peak in the high country, and the waterfall is just roaring.  Later in the fall the volume of water coming over the edge is significantly reduced.

Rob and I stopped here twice last week.  The first time we photographed it from the roadside.  We were rather frustrated as the place was crawling with tourists and it was difficult to work.  I'll bet that there are thousands of pictures taken of this waterfall every day.  The vast majority of those are taken with a smart phone, from down at the side of the road.  A small percentage of the visitors actually climb up the trail to the falls themselves.  Its not very far, and only a minor little scramble over a small outcrop, but this seems to deter most people.  The second time that we visited, Rob and I took our large format cameras up to the base of the falls.  Mine was soaked with mist on one of the shots that I took.  There were a few others that ventured up there, a few with digital cameras, and one even had a tripod...!  The percentage of images taken at this location on film, and in particular with large format film, is minuscule compared to all the snapshots.

I look forward to processing my film to see if I captured the raw force of the place.  In the meantime here are three images taken in the same format as the masses... with my smart phone.

Vacation

I just returned from a one week vacation.  This is the first time I have had any days off since last fall when I went to Vancouver Island.  This time around it was a lot more relaxing as I was NOT on call and not working from my computer in the evenings.  The new management team took control of the company and I was truly on vacation.  This is the first time I have had a true escape from work in about thirty years, and it was wonderful.  Makes me really look forward to my retirement.

Hailey and I went out to the cottage together on Saturday June 20th.  We had several visitors drop by, all out in the area for the weekend.  My cousin, a Monochrome Guild member and a couple of other friends.  On Sunday afternoon Hailey returned to the city.  She had to return to her part time job on Monday, her first scheduled shift since the virus pandemic erupted in March.  I stayed at the cottage by myself.  Later that evening my friend Rob arrived from his home in Vernon.  Rob and I were to spend the week photographing with our big cameras.  We have done this many times before including on our trips to Utah, to Vancouver Island, and locally to the mountains and badlands.

This time around we made a couple of trips up into the National Parks of Banff and Jasper, as they have recently re-opened following the pandemic.  Mostly we explored up around the Big Bend area and up near the Columbia Icefields.  One day we wandered around Nordegg and checked out the Historic site.  And another day we took a drive up the Forestry Trunk Road to Blackstone River.  Wednesday was the worst day of the week and it rained most of the day, fairly heavily it times.  This was the day that we set aside to finish up the electrical work at the cottage.

Rob is a retired electrician and this was his third time out to Nordegg to help me with the wiring.  Actually it was the fourth time.  The first time was when the cottage was in the process of being framed and we were going to start the rough in.  We got 16 inches of wet snow that September of 2017, and our plans were cancelled.  The following March we stayed at a nearby rental cottage and did the rough in work.  Later that summer, after the insulation and drywall was completed, Rob returned and we energized the building and installed all the fixtures and controls.  This past week was his first time back and there has been a lot of change from the empty shell of a cottage, to a nearly finished home.

On Saturday morning Rob packed up and hit the road for the return drive to Vernon.  I stayed on through the rest of the weekend and extended my break to a full nine days.  Margarit and the girls stayed in the city while I was on my break, so I really had the place to myself.  I have never been at the cottage for that long at one time before.  And with no work responsibilities it was very relaxing.  I sure look forward to spending a lot of time out there in the years to come.

The Commute

The trips to and from the cottage at Nordegg seem like a blur.  I have been very busy out there with all sorts of small projects, and also been relaxing a little in between.  The girls have been living out at Nordegg most of the time, ever since the virus pandemic broke out.  I've had to stay in the city and work full time, but have headed out to the cottage every weekend.  For most of the past three months this routine has been repeated, with me heading out after work on Friday.  I spend the weekend with the girls at the cottage, usually working on a bunch of odds and ends, and then rush back to the city on Sunday evening to prepare for the upcoming work week.  I've kind of lost track of time and can't differentiate one weekend from the last.

This past weekend Hailey and I were out there, and the other girls, for a change, stayed in the city.  We got dumped on with a heavy thunderstorm that dropped about 3/4 of an inch of rain in less than an hour, on Saturday evening.  This was part of the same system that hit the City of Calgary with heavy rain and hail.  That resulted in some localized flooding and severe hail damage so I guess we got off easy.

Some of the other stuff that has kept me busy in recent weeks is as follows.  We've been accumulating a bunch of new furniture.  I bought some bed frames so that we can get our mattresses off the floor.  I also brought out an old mates bed for the girls bedroom.  Margarit bought an antique dresser at a shop in Rocky Mountain House and we picked that up last weekend.  I also bought some rustic barstools online, but they were damaged in shipping and I've ordered replacements.  Also bought a chaise lounge for Margarit, and an antique mannequin.  Set up some storage shelves down in the basement too.

We have a bunch of signs that I've been putting up.  Some are rustic and humorous and have been installed inside, and others I have mounted outside on our gate.

I'm going to build some headboards for the beds.  These will be in the same style as the bunk bed that I built for the girls bedroom from peeled logs.  I recently cut down a couple of pine trees, but not before I dropped one of them on my foot.  Not sure if I cracked a bone or just bruised it but it was pretty swollen and purple for quite a while.  Seems mostly recovered now that a couple weeks have passed.  This past weekend I found a couple of crooked trees that I cut and peeled to be used on these headboards.

I bought myself a set of cheap golf clubs in the hope that I can play a few rounds at the nine hole course in town.  Haven't had a chance to do that yet as mostly it has been too wet.  But, I did get out with my fly rod once and headed over to a nearby stocked trout pond.  Only fished for about 15 minutes and managed to catch a couple of pan-sized rainbow trout.

I've also been doing a bunch of yard work.  Cut up and hauled away a bunch of construction waste and leftover lumber from the cottage construction.  And, I've spent a couple afternoons splitting firewood.  Still have lots of cut logs to split and this will be an ongoing job for the next year or two.  At some point I'd like to build a woodshed to store some of it and keep it dry.  I've been spreading some gravel into some of the low spots around the yard and Margarit spent a lot of time planting 75 pine seedlings that we bought.  We have another batch of them coming later in July. 

I have a few little electrical jobs remaining to be looked after.  My friend Rob is coming out for a visit later in June and he's going to look after this for me.  He is an electrician by trade and did most of the wiring for me a couple of years ago.  I've been buying a few supplies and doing a little of the rough in work in advance of his visit.  We are putting an RV receptacle in the garage so if guests visit with an RV they can plug in.  We are also putting a switch upstairs for the hot water heater in the basement.  There is still a high level alarm for the septic tank that needs to be hooked up.  And I've decided to put in the plumbing and electrical so that we can add a washer and dryer downstairs at some point in the future.  That will be handy once I retire next year and hopefully spend longer blocks of time out there.

Jacket and Pants

I came across this negative recently, when I was researching my archive for some old photographs.  This one was taken way back in December of 2011.  Some old discarded clothing in an abandoned building up in Smoky Lake County.  This was taken on Ilford Delta 100 4" x 5" film with my old Sinar F1 Monorail view camera and a 75mm wide angle lens.  I processed in PMK developer, a staining Pyro developer.  I gave the film extended development to increase contrast.

Stratocaster

Back in early April, while the girls were out at the cottage, I decided to do some studio photography one evening.  I set up my studio lights, and got out my big 8" x 10" view camera.  I took a few shots of some of the guitars in my growing collection.  This is my Fender Stratocaster.  I shot this on Kodak T-Max 100 film and developed in 510 Pyro developer.  I used a slightly wide Nikkor 240mm lens.  The guitar is teal blue in color, and is an updated version of one that Fender released back in the 1960's.  I bought my guitars to play as well as to collect and I do play this one from time to time.  But lately I find myself more drawn to acoustic guitars, and the electric ones haven't seen a lot of action.  Not that I'm much of a player anyway....  I only took up the guitar a couple of years ago and with my full schedule, and limited time for practice, I've not advanced much beyond basic chords.

Swale Road

On the last weekend in May Margarit and I took a drive up Swale Road.  This is a log haul road that extends north of the David Thompson Highway and  circles around the backside of Coliseum Mountain and Baldy.  We spent a pleasant afternoon driving around and exploring.  We stopped at a crossing over a small river.  I think it was the Baptiste River, but I need to check my maps to be sure.  We also explored along a small creek that is a tributary to the Nordegg River.  Margarit collected a few rocks, and in a couple of places I stopped and set up the view camera for a couple of photographs.  There are extensive clear cuts in this area as a lot of logging activity has and continues to take place around here.  There is also a pipeline, and a lot of oil activity.

The Haircut

"The Haircut" is usually a name that I reserve for our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.  All fluff and no substance.  Everything about him is very superficial and there is no meaning or planning.  In this instance I'm writing about an actual haircut, and not raving about politics.
A couple of weeks ago, out at the cottage, my oldest daughter Hailey announced that she was going to give me a haircut.  I was somewhat skeptical, given the fact that she had never cut hair before [other than the dog] and had no training.  But, with the Corona Virus pandemic and all the barber shops being shut down, I was getting pretty scruffy.  It was getting to the point that I desperately needed a haircut... or a dog license.  So, I gave in and let her do it.  She only knicked my ears twice... but the haircut turned out pretty good.  My regular barber may have lost a client....

Recent Game Camera Photos

Lots of visitors during the middle of May.