May Game Camera Photos

When Anna and I left the cottage on June 2nd, I pulled the memory card from the game camera.  The deer have not been coming around nearly as much... but are still common.  I think the construction activity in the area is keeping them away a little.  And, there is no shortage of food now that spring has fully arrived.  And, the females are about to have their fawns, so they are probably staying in hiding for a bit, until the little ones are mobile.  Sure look forward to seeing some of them in the coming weeks.

The Red Fox seems to be a regular visitor.  Anna and I saw it one day as it wandered about the yard.  The game camera must have captured well over 30 photos of it through the month of May.  The bucks are starting to see their antlers increase in size and they now have those rather goofy looking velvet knobs sticking out of their heads.

Sideboard

I shot this image back in early May, when I was out on a day trip with my friends Court, Fred and Arturo.  This is the interior of an old abandoned house in Camrose County.  We stopped here on our way down to the Diplomat Mine site and the Paintearth badlands.  I shot this on Kodak T-Max 100 with my Ebony 4x5 view camera.  I used a wide 90mm lens to include as much of the room as possible.  I'm quite happy with the way this one turned out.

Envoy

The Envoy brand name was created by General Motors Canada.  It was assigned to Vauxhall and Bedford vehicles imported from England for the Canadian Market, from 1959 to 1970.  I believe this particular vehicle is an Envoy Epic from the mid 1960's.  I took this shot back in mid-April when Arturo and I were out exploring in Lamont County.  I previously posted some snapshots from that day trip but this is the first of the film images that I have processed.

Progress on the Guest Cottage

Construction activity in the subdivision out at Nordegg is booming.  Almost every one of the two dozen lots that sold last year is in the process of being cleared.  Several foundations are already going in and a couple of cottages are in the process of being framed.

Scott and I finished up the excavation work at our place a couple weeks ago.  The septic tank is going to be delivered and placed in the excavation in the coming days.  While the site was all disturbed a power supply cable was trenched in from the road to the building site.  This is so that we can do a future power connection, if we need to.  Lumber for the building was delivered while Anna and I were out.  We stored it beside the driveway at our existing cottage.  There it is behind a locked gate, and monitored by security camera.  We aren't quite ready for it yet, as the foundation has to go in first.  I have my septic permit and my building permit in place.  The crews will be starting on the footings in the coming days.  Its exciting to see things finally start moving along.

Found My Style

While I was out at the cottage with Anna, I had a little time to putter around with my watercolor work.  Mostly Anna and I spent a bunch of time together.  But in the mornings before she got up, and a little bit in the evenings, I chipped away at some painting.  Before heading out I picked up some ink markers, and a couple more brushes that were on sale.

I've combined my watercolor work with some sketching.  My Mom gave me a couple of books about ink and watercolor combined, and that has been my motivation.  I based my most recent piece on a photograph that I took a couple of years ago, up in Lamont County.  It was an old abandoned house on the edge of a snowy field.

I started by sketching in the outline of the building and the background tree line.  Then I put a wash on the sky.  That was followed by adding the colors to the building itself.  I used masking fluid to protect a couple of areas that needed to stay completely white.  Once the color scheme of the building was complete I painted in the background treeline, and some foreground weeds.  Then I went to work with the pens and inked in all the details, and some of the deepest shadows.  That was followed up by some pencil work to fill in some lighter texture in select areas.  I have included a series of snapshots that show the work in progress.  I think this is the first piece that I am truly satisfied with.  This encourages me to push on and attempt more in this style.

Me an' Anna

My daughter Anna and I headed out to our cottage for an extended stay.  It was just the two of us, and the family dog Quinn.  We left the city on Friday May 28th, right after Anna and her sisters got their first Covid vaccination.  We ended up staying out in the mountains for almost a week, and returned home on Wednesday June 2nd.  

On the drive out on Friday evening we saw a Great Grey Owl sitting on a small tree right beside the highway.  This was near Misty Valley.  It was the first time we had seen an owl in quite some time.  Owls are a favorite bird of Anna's.   This would be the first of many different animals we would see during the week.  Later during the week we also saw lots of deer, a red fox, a marmot, squirrels, lots of songbirds, and some Bighorn Sheep.

One of our first chores, on the first day after our arrival, was to plant a bunch of seedlings.  I had twenty seedlings, a mix of Lodgepole Pine, Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir that I had ordered.  We planted them all, staked them and caged them with chicken wire.  The deer really like to eat these seedlings, and we lost quite a few to them last year.  The chicken wire is necessary.

We also spent some time working on building a bunk bed for Anna.  This bed is actually for her room back in Edmonton.  But, because most of my tools are out at the cottage, it was easiest to work on it out there.  Once it is all complete, we will bring it back to the city.  It will be a rather rustic looking bed made from spruce and pine.  At the cost of lumber these days we had to stick to something economical.  We cut up all the wood and built the frame to support the mattress.  Anna sanded this and stained it.  We also started on the end frames that will support the mattress, but didn't finish those.  We will have to return to the cottage at some point, for another extended stay, to continue working.

We also did some relaxing while we were out there.  One day we took a drive down the David Thompson Highway up to the Kootenay Plains.  I took a photograph up there with my view camera.  We also took numerous ATV rides around the Nordegg area and explored a little.  I also took a couple of photographs while we were out on those rides.  We saw a Spruce Grouse and a pair of Swans while we were out riding around.

We did some cooking and baking while we were at the cottage.  We had dinners of Beef Stroganoff, Chicken Mushroom Alfredo, and a couple of BBQ's.  I grilled some steaks for myself and Anna had chicken and salmon.  We also baked a batch of French Bread, using a new recipe, and it turned out really well.

The weather was beautiful and by the end of our stay the temperature was getting up to near 30C.  There were quite a few people around the subdivision over the weekend, but during the week hardly any of the residents were around.  Almost all of the 20+ lots that sold over the past year are in various stages of construction.  Most are in the process of being cleared.  Several are putting in foundations.  And a handful are already at the framing stage.  There are quite a few trades working at various properties during the week.

There was some progress on our second property as well.  The power cable was trenched in and a load of lumber was delivered.  On the last day of our stay we had to reluctantly pack up and head back home to the city.  We both commented that we never got around to a lot of the things that we wanted to do, and are already planning a return trip.

Glowing Aspens

There is a technique called "Orton Imagery" that used to be common back in the days of color slide film.  It was invented by a photographer by the last name Orton, a Canadian I believe.  The process consisted of two combined images.  Both were overexposed, but one was in sharp focus and the other deliberately out of focus.  The two slides were mounted together in alignment and when projected, the result was an image with proper exposure, and glowing highlights.  It worked best with minimalist images with good contrast, and not too much detail.  There are plenty of examples on line, and nowadays there is a tool in the Photoshop program that allows this to be recreated with digital images.

Several times I have attempted to replicate this in camera, with black and white slide film.  Mostly it has been unsuccessful, and the "glow" just didn't materialize.  I tried it again recently, and I think I'm getting a little closer to the desired result.  I'm still not getting enough of the glow around the highlights, but I think in this most recent attempt, it shows a little.  This is a shot of some Aspen trunks on my property out at Nordegg.  It was taken when I was out at the cottage in early May.  The trees were in nice morning side light, and the background forest was fairly dark.  I shot this with my 4x5 view camera and a 300mm lens on Kodak T-Max 100 film, developed in 510 Pyro.  It was a double exposure, with the out of focus shot first.  The camera was set deliberately out of focus and a glass diffuser was held in front of the lens for an exposure of 1/8 second at F40.0.  Then I focused the camera and took a second exposure, onto the same sheet of film for 1/2 second at F45.0.  The two exposures added up to what I properly metered with my spot meter.

In hindsight I probably should have given more exposure to the out of focus shot and less to the properly focused one.  I did it the other way around, thinking I needed to hold more detail.  I will attempt it again one of these days, and hopefully get a little closer to what I am trying to achieve.  The next time I am out with my camera and find the right subject, another attempt will be made.

Apple Blossom

The ornamental crab apple tree in front of our house in Edmonton amazes me, every year.  In late May it explodes into a mass of pink blossoms.  What is amazing is that the tree is alive at all, never mind the explosion of color.  About ten years ago, in a big wind storm, one of the main branches of the tree was broken off.  It split right back into the trunk, and left a large hollow in the center.  To this day only the perimeter of the main trunk is alive, and there is a huge hole in the middle.  Yet, year after year the tree continues to survive and every May graces our property with this colorful display.

June Calendar Image

This is the image that I selected for the month of June, for my annual calendar.  This is a shot of Tangle Falls in Jasper National Park, that I took last June.  My friend Rob and I were out photographing for a few days and this was one of our stops.