Winter Hockey - Game 11

The Renegades are on a roll....  Another late hockey game on Tuesday evening, and yet another victory.  We faced off for a rematch with the Buzzards.  This time the game was at Callingwood Arena.  Usually the ice here is pretty rutted and chipped as there is a figure skating club that practices here all the time.  This time around is wasn't as bad as usual.  The Buzzards are an older team and this time around didn't get very many of their guys out to the rink.  Probably the fact that is was a late weekday game on a cold night.  They only had 10 or 11 skaters.  We had a full bench and outshot and outscored them badly.  The final score was 11-2 for the Renegades.  This helps to strenghten our hold on first place in our division.  The league may even consider moving us up one division, we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Print Session

Last Friday evening I worked on printing a couple of my negatives.  Arda and Tanja from the Monochrome Guild came over to watch me print, and learn my split filter printing technique.  This technique involves giving fiber-based multigrade paper at least two exposures, one filtered for high contrast, and the second filtered for the mid-tones.  The exposure times of the two exposures are adjusted to achieve the desired overall contrast.  Then selective burning and dodging is undertaken, to specific areas of the print, to adjust local contrast and exposure.  It sounds a lot more complicated than it really is, which was the reason that the two of them wanted to see it done first hand.  Hopefully I was able to demonstrate the technique successfully and they left having learned something.  After they went home, I worked on second negative... well into the morning hours.

On Saturday the prints sat in a holding tray of water while we celebrated my mothers birthday.  My parents, by two brothers with their families, and my girls all enjoyed a family dinner together.

The next day I returned to the darkroom to finish fixing, clearing, toning and washing these prints.  Here they are being toned in a tray of selenium....

Movember

My girls have been commenting to me in recent months that they would like to see me with a moustache.  So this November, I finally gave in and agreed.  This is Movember... the month when men that typically don't have any facial hair, grow a moustache.  It is to raise awareness for Prostate cancer, and the need to get checked.  So here I am, about half way into the month...  can't wait till the month comes to an end and I can shave this thing off...!!!

Winter Lifestyle

Winter has settled in a little earlier than usual here in central Alberta.  When I awoke on the weekend, this is what I found outside my living room window....

More than a little depressing... to say the least....

When I returned home from my hockey game on Saturday night/Sunday morning at around 1:00AM, it was -19C.  Not so bad all things considered.... My friend Frank tells me that it was -36C in Drunheller on Sunday morning when he got up...

At the encouragement of my business partners... who probably took the day off... I decided to open my shop on the holiday monday... Remembrance Day.  With the current weather conditions we are winding down for the season.  Although we have lots of things to clean up, there is a mood of hibernation in the air as we look towards our down time.  Nonetheless my staff will get an extra paid day over the Christmas break as we worked on Monday.  After work I came home and hit the darkroom, anxious to start printing...

T'is the season...

Now that shooting opportunities are limited to fair weather days, it is time to hit the darkroom and start printing.  As Ansel Adams used to say...   "the negative is the score, and the print is the performance..."

Not much point investing the time to capture all these images, and then spend the time processing the negatives, if I am not going to follow through and produce the finished work.  With two gallery exhibitions upcoming in 2013, it is time to get busy.

This time around I worked on two images that may end up being included in the Procession West exhibitions upcoiming in the summer of 2013...

As I fixed and toned these two prints, I took a couple of snapshots of the finished work intensifying in a bath of selenium toner...

Oops... who left that bottle of old Number Seven sitting there....

Winter Hockey - Game 10

The Renegades played a game on Saturday night against the Icebreakers.  This time around, unlike the last time we played them, they had a full bench and all of their better players.  I guess maybe the Renegades are being taken a little more seriously this season, as we remain solidly in first place in our division.  The game was close and we traded goals all evening.  Late in the third period we went ahead by a score of 5-4.  The Icebreakers pulled their goalie for an extra attacker, trying to tie the game.  But, we scored an empty net goal and coasted to a 6-4 victory.  This secures our hold on first place with a record of 7 victories, 2 loses and one overtime loss.

Delta 100 - PMK

Just before I left for the Fall Photo Weekend I processed a batch of Ilford Delta 100 4x5 in PMK developer.  This batch was given N+1 Development to increase contrast.  PMK is a developer formulated by Gordon Hutchings and it consists of Pyro, Metol and Kodalk [Sodium Metaborate].  It is a staining developer that yields a brown negative.  The stain is proportionate to the amount of silver in the emulsion and it adds some density to the image.  Negatives developed in Pyro hold extreme highlight detail.  I quite like this particular developer and use it with both Delta 100 and Kodak Tri-X Pan.  I have to remember to process it with my Jobo processor as every time that I tray process the negatives, as I did this time, I end up with some scratches in the emulsion.  I finally found time to scan a few from this latest batch.  Most of these date back to 2009, but a couple are from 2011 and 2012.

Winter Hockey - Game 9

While I was away in Jasper, the Renegades played Game Nine of the winter season.  I understand that it was a really close and hard fought game with the Oil City Wings.  But, the Renegades managed a win in a shootout, helping to solidify our first place standing in the Division.  I will be back out to the rink with the guys for Game 10.

Fall Photo Weekend

This past weekend was the annual Fall Photo Weekend.  I have attended every single one of these photo outings since my friend Jon and I started the tradition about 15 years ago.  Unfortunately Jon was not able to join in this time around.  Five members of the Monochrome Guild headed out to Jasper for a weekend of photography.  This included Arda, Court, Rob M., Tanja and myself.  We met up with local Jasper photographer Ron Brown.  Ron has lived in Jasper for many years and knows the area very well.  We were counting on his expertise to get us out to some new areas. 

I booked Friday November 2nd off from work and headed out of town early in the morning.  There was a fair bit of fresh snow as I entered the foothills, particularly at the Obed summit.  I met up with Rob and Ron just inside the park gate.  Rob had just spent the last three weeks shooting out at Vancouver Island, and was meeting up with us on his way back home.  We spent a few hours exploring and photographing along a small forested stream in the Athabasca valley.  It was heavily overcast with not much direct sun, so we were forced to turn our attention to small detail shots.  Later in the day Arda, Court and Tanja arrived and met up with us.  By mid-afternoon we decided to take a drive up the Maligne Road and did some shooting at Medicine Lake.  As the sun went down in the late afternoon we checked into our hotel rooms, and went out for an evening dinner.

The next morning we were up early.  After breakfast we headed south on the Icefields Parkway.  We made a brief stop at the Mount Christie viewpoint and then carried on to Beauty Creek.  Once again it was heavily overcast.  It was quite warm... up around +5C by afternoon, but there was several inches of wet snow on the ground, and it rained off and on.  We hiked up Beauty Creek to Stanley Falls and spent most of the day shooting here.  In places the canyon is quite narrow and deep and we had to be careful about our footing in the wet and slippery snow.  There were no tracks so obviously no other hikers had been in the area for a while.  The creek was still flowing reasonably well and there were a lot of interesting ice formations where it spilled over a series of small waterfalls and through some rapids.  Stanley Falls itself was difficult to photograph as it was obscured by trees from above, and the snowy slope was too steep and slippery to safely get down.  By evening we headed back to town and again went out for dinner.  Ron joined us again, and this time his wife came along as well.  They have just sold their home in Jasper and will be travelling to the south pacific for three months before eventually retiring out to Vancouver Island.  It was great that we had the chance to connect with Ron and get out shooting together before he moves away.

Sunday morning we again got up early and drove over to Old Fort Point.  We hiked up the ridge to the overview above the Athabasca valley.  The stairs and the trail were fairly treacherous with all the packed snow turning to ice.  I was surpised that we found some fresh bear tracks up on the ridge... probably a Grizzly judging by the size and the claws.  I would have expected that they had bedded down for their long winter nap by this time.  There was not much of an opportunity for photographs as the skies remained fairly overcast again.  We all attempted a couple of shots of the valley and of Pyramid Mountain, but nothing exceptional.  We eventually packed up and headed back down to begin the drive back home.  We had hoped to stop at a few places along the way and shoot our way out of the park, but the wind picked up, the clouds settled in and it began to rain.  We stopped a couple of times and checked things out but weather conditions just did not allow for any shooting.

The entire weekend I was so focused on large format shooting that my little point and shoot digital camera just never found it's way out of the truck.  So I have no snapshots to post and share on my blog.  I guess I will have to wait until I get around to processing some of the film that I shot, before I will be able to share them.  It was a successful weekend and I ended up coming home with nearly 30 exposed sheets of black and white film, as well as a few color shots.

It rained heavily most of the way home.  In places there was significant accumulations of nearly a foot of snow in the ditches, with the trees all covered, yet the rain was pouring down heavily.  Fortunately we were on the road early enough in the day that the rain didn't freeze.  But the temperature was dropping down to near zero by mid-afternoon and I'm sure the roads would have been really dangerous by later that evening.

Winter Hockey - Game 8

On Tuesday October 30th the Renegades played our 8th game of the winter season.  This was yet another late ice time.  We faced off against the Ice Hawks at Russ Barnes Arena.  We came out on the top side of a 6-3 score and helped to solidify our hold on first place in Division XI.  By the time I got home, showered and got to bed it was nearly 2:00 in the morning.  It sure was tough to get up and head off to work the next morning.

Halloween 2012

A very busy time of year for young girls.  On Saturday October 27th Margarit and I took the girls to the Halloween Spooktacular down at Fort Edmonton Park.  Weather conditions were less than ideal.  It was rather cold, and quite humid, with a brisk wind.  We struggled to keep warm as we wandered the grounds.  There were Halloween activities set up in various buildings around the site, and an opportunity for the kids to go "Trick-Or-Treating".  We checked out the restored Merry-Go-Round and then wandered around to the Haunted House, the Blood Bank, and to the lab of the Mad Scientist in the Pharmacy.  The girls had a lot of fun, but there were numerous stops to warm up...

Then on Monday October 29th we took the girls to a Halloween party at Kel-J-Do Stables, where they have been taking riding lessons all year.  Once again it was cold, humid and brisk.  We had a hot dog roast and some treats, and then there was a pumpkin carving contest.  Mostly the two younger girls were in and out of the vehicles warming up.  But Hailey was a pretty good sport and actually gave the pumpkin carving a go.  She ended up winning a ribbon for her efforts.

Finally on Wednesday the real Halloween came along.  I took all three girls out door to door with some neighbors for some Trick-Or-Treating.  Earlier that evening the girls reminded me, as they always do every year... "Dad, this is the best day of the year".  Of course they tell me the same thing every Christmas too...!

The weather remained unchanged... cool, humid and with a brisk wind.  Helena only lasted for a few houses before I had to take her back home.  Hailey went out with a friend and came home with a pretty good haul.  I stayed out with Anna, while Margarit stayed home and handed out treats.  After our neighbors called it a night, Anna and I pushed on down one more street, and hit another dozen houses or so.  She did really well on this last stretch, as we were one of the last groups out.  When neighbors saw what a cute little witch she was, they basically dumped the last of their treats into her bag.  I think she collected more in those last few houses than she did in the previous hour.  Eventually we headed home to warm up, and sort the spoils.  When the evening finally wound down, we had about 45 little ghosts and goblins stop by our door to collect their treats.

VAAA Open Photo 2012

Margarit and I attended the opening reception of the VAAA Open Photo Exhibition at the Kaasa Gallery in the Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium.  This was on October 26th.  Attendance was moderate and the catering mediocre.  We felt somewhat overdressed as most of the crowd was very casual and not very fitting of the occasion.  I must say that there were more present and a better mood at the Monochrome Guild's recent Friends and Family show.  My print, "Anna's Swing" was awarded an honorable mention.  It appears that mine, and two by fellow Guild member Gord Dinwoodie, were the only traditional prints.  All the rest were digital.  I did not agree with the selection of the judges as, for the most part, they seemed to prefer abstract and highly manipulated work.  Perhaps my honorable mention was not such an honor after all.  Nonetheless I accepted my certificate and we enjoyed the evening.  

Winter Hockey - Game 7

The first lop-sided loss of the season for the Renegades last night.  This was a late weekday game but we still managed to get out a nearly full roster.  The game was played pretty close, but we weren't getting any bounces, and for the Wolf Pack, everything was going in.  Despite the shots being even at 32, the score was not and we went down to defeat, 7-2.  Another late game coming up next Tuesday so we'll try and turn things around.

More Negatives

The second batch of 4x5 negatives is now dry, so I set about scanning some of the better ones.  These were all shot on Kodak T-Max 400 film with my 4x5 cameras.  Some of these date back to 2010.  On our Fall Photo Weekend in 2010 we stopped at an old barn near Drumheller.  The barn and the fence were covered with vines.  The walls of the barn were finished with cedar shingles.  Some of these shingles were starting to fall off, exposing the newpaper that was used as building paper.  This newspaper advertisement is from 1963, the year I was born, and advertises Chevrolet automobiles...

These fallen cottonwood leaves on a small pond were taken in a grove down along the Red Deer River on that same weekend trip.

I really like this image and it was an attempt by me to depart from my normal style.  This is very vague and abstract and invokes a feeling of the stark contrast between the bare branches of a dead tree and a field of wildflowers.  I really feel that I need to branch out in this new direction as this type of work is much more meaningful than my literal representations of the subjects before me.

The rest of this selection includes an image of Chungo Creek, taken earlier this fall at Thanksgiving, a cottonwood tree in black and white fall colors at TL Bar Ranch, some burnt trees up near Lodgepole taken on a day trip back in the summer, and a stand of aspen trees in snow from the winter of 2011.

Actually the comments about that vague abstract image and the mood that it invokes is really just a load of crap.  I just wanted to see if I could pass this off as art.  I actually double exposed a sheet of film by accident and decided to scan the resulting negative just for the heck of it.

Open Photo 2012

The Opening of the VAAA Open Photo Exhibition is coming up this Friday at the Jubilee Auditorium here in Edmonton.  The images have been on display at the Southern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium for most of the past month.  My print "Anna's Swing" won honorable mention and I will be attending the opening ceremony here in Edmonton to accept a certificate.  The show runs for the next few weeks so hopefully anyone that is interested has an opportunity to check it out.

Fall Comes to an end...

When we awoke on Saturday morning... rather late in the morning... it was snowing heavily.  This was a rather abrupt reminder that I still had a lot to do to get ready for winter.  Fortunately the snow came to an end just as abruptly and melted by early afternoon.  Nonetheless I accepted the wake up call and got busy.  The air compressor came out of the garage and I blew all the water out of our underground sprinkler lines.  Then I turned my attention back to our trailer.  I had winterized the plumbing a few days earlier, but still not unpacked it.  So I set to work cleaning all the summer groceries and clothing and general stuff out of the trailer and to get it ready to put into storage.  In between all of this I worked on processing a couple of batches of film.  This time around it was two batches of Kodak T-Max 400... one on Saturday and the second on Sunday.  In between the batches I took the trailer out to my parents acerage and parked it in their workshop for the winter.  With that chore finally out of the way, I turned my attention to the second batch of T-Max 400 film.  The first batch was dry by Monday evening, and I began scanning the best of these as I took the second batch out of the film washer and moved them over to my drying cabinet.  These will be ready to scan later in the week.  Slowly but surely I am getting caught up on the backlog of film that needs processing.

This current batch included a couple of images from 2009.  One a burnt stump and some new growth in Kootenay National Park that dates back to a spring photo weekend trip, and the second a shot of an old stump on the beach from one of our fall camping trips.

Most of the remaining images were taken in 2010.  This included a couple of sets of Triptych images.  These are three seperate negatives, taken with the intention of being presented as three seperate prints mounted together in the same frame.  The first is a shot of a fallen tree at Elk Island National Park, and the second a shot of the old churches at Dorothy.  Both sets were taken in the spring of 2010.

I also have a shot from my Playground Ghosts series... note the ghostly image of Hailey on the background slide at this old playground, as well as a panoramic view of an old grader in a Saskatchewan ghost town, and an image of a vandalized television set in an abandoned old house.

I also slipped a few sheets of film from the recent Fall Fossil weekend into this batch.  This includes a couple from Pronghorn Coulee, and one from the Krause Ranch.  I'm pretty confident that I can nurse a pretty respectable exhibition print from at least a couple of the negatives in this batch.  And there are a couple of good negatives in the batch that is currently being dried.  I'll be scanning and sharing those in the coming days.