It's Official - Exhibition Season is Underway!!

My friend and photographic collaborator Rob Michiel and I have our duo exhibition showing at SEVEN galleries over the next 15 months or so.  Most of these exhibitions are for our show, Procession West, which previously showed in 2013 at three galleries... The Art Gallery of Regina, McMullen Gallery here in Edmonton, and the Spruce Grove Art Gallery.  We also have a variation on that show that we call Ag2.  This is Ag, the atomic symbol for silver, and 2 for squared, or duo, because it is a show that includes two photographers.

The Ag2 show will be exhibited at the Leighton Art Centre in Calgary as part of the province wide Exposure Photo Festival in February.  There are photographic exhibitions showing at venues province wide through the month of February.  Here is the official invitation to our upcoming exhibition.

I have a couple of prints included in a group exhibition here in Edmonton, that is also part of this same festival.  The show here in Edmonton is called InFocusYEG.  I was included in last year's version of this show, and I now have two prints included this year.  The curator of the Edmonton show, Alexis Marie Chute, has included a neat feature as part of the group exhibition.  There is a People's Choice Award and everyone is invited to vote, up to once per day until the start of the festival, for their favorite image.  There are a selection of images on line that are included, and one of mine is in this group.  Please feel free to have a look and vote for whatever you like.  This is NOT a call for people to vote for me, please consider this in the true spirit in which it is intended.  Here is the link...

http://www.alexismarieart.com/index.php/infocus-2016-peoples-choice/

Once the festival wraps up I will be kept busy shuffling our prints from place to place and attending gallery openings and artist talks.  

Procession West will show at the Okotoks Art Gallery through March and April.

After the Exposure Festival, the Ag2 show will move to the Lebel Mansion Gallery in Pincher Creek, Alberta for April and May.

Procession West will show at the Armstrong Spallumcheen Art Gallery at some point later this spring, probably May.

Procession West will move to the Summerland Art Gallery for August and September.

In early 2017 we will show in the Vancouver area and in Saskatoon.

There are still a few more submission packages under review by juries and further shows could still materialize.

I am also working on a couple of solo projects that will be sent out in the months to come and hopefully that leads to further opportunities.

Winter Hockey - Game 12

The Renegades played a late game on Monday night against a team called the Flyers, at Bill Hunter Arena.  This is the first time we've played this group of guys.  The game seemed really slow paced compared to the hockey that we recently played in the holiday tournament.  We should have easily been able to win this game because I thought we were dominant.  But, this team is a really chippy, dirty team that really got under our skin.  We had the lead several times but kept letting these guys back into the game when we took dumb retaliation penalties.  We ended up tied 6-6 at the end of regulation, but lost the game in a shootout.  This leaves us in 5th place in the divisional standings at roughly the half way point of the season.  We have a record of 5 wins, 5 losses and 2 overtime losses.

Christmas Vacation Draws to an End

My extended Christmas break is drawing to an end.  I have to return to work in the morning.  The girls have been off from school for a few days longer than me but they too have to return to their routine in the morning as well.  It's been a pretty enjoyable and relaxing break this year.  We started out with the usual family get-togethers for Christmas, first with my side of the family on Christmas Even and then with Margarit's side on Christmas day.

I've spent some time in the darkroom working on all the prints that I need to have ready for all my upcoming gallery exhibitions in 2016 and 2017.  Most everything is printed now but there are two that I want to redo and see if I can improve upon.  I will retreat to the dark later tonight and give those one more shot.  I already spent some time cutting up all the glass and frame stock when I got together with my collaborator friend Rob, just before the break.

The hockey tournament was a lot of fun and helped me to shake off the flu bug that I had, and to skate off some of the pounds that I put on with all the eating and drinking over the break.  I managed to get out for a short drive a couple of times with my camera.  The weather has been pretty mild and in recent days we have had some nice sunny skies.  I will be posting a couple snapshots from those short drives over the next little while.

We are not big New Year's Eve fans and didn't really do much.  The girls and I walked over to our local community league on December 31 to watch the local fireworks display.  I think I was asleep before the clock struck midnight and the year rolled over.  The three girls were up until the wee hours watching all the celebrations on TV.  All the musical performances used to be really cool to me when I was younger, and now it is their turn.  Personally most of the music nowadays is just crap to me and I prefer to put some oldies on the stereo.

We got together with some friends on the evening of New Years Day and had a good visit and some snacks and listened to some oldies music... at least until the neighbors shut us down....

Margarit and I went over to the local ski hill yesterday with Anna and took a skiing lesson.  Anna took a lesson a couple weeks ago with her older sister and just went skiing.  This was the first time ever on skis for Margarit, and only my second time ever.  My first time was 20 years ago and I only slid down the bunny hill two or three times on that occasion.  This time we were at the hill for over five hours which included two hours of lessons, a lunch break, and some time to practice.  The other two girls didn't want to go so just the three of us spent the day at the hill.  It was a lot of fun and I'm sure I'll go again later this winter.

December Day Trip

Way back on December 5th I headed out into Lamont County for an afternoon drive.  This would turn out to be the second last time of 2015 that I did any shooting with my large format camera.  It was a pleasant day with clear skies and mild temperatures.  I found an old farm yard with a couple old buildings that were pretty photogenic and took a couple of shots here.  Later, in the late afternoon, I came upon an old time worn church and took a couple of photos here as well.  During the 20 minutes that I was at the church, shooting from the road, two cars stopped and questioned what I was doing, and two others gave me a long, hard look without stopping to say anything.  Obviously the folks around these parts are a little paranoid...

Efke PL25M... And... Happy New Year

The batch of Efke PL25M 4" x 5" sheet film that I processed way back on December 14th included a number of shots from the Spring Photo Weekend, and various weekend day trips.  Here is a handful of scans from that batch...
It seems this will be my last post for the year 2015.  Thanks to everyone that reads my blog and continues to come back from more.  In 5-1/2 years there have been over 36,000 page views... a rate of over 6000 per year.  This encourages me to keep plugging along.  All the best to everyone for a healthy and happy 2016!!!

Christmas Hockey Tournament

Ten of the guys from my Renegades Hockey Team joined forces with six guys from another team and played in a Christmas Hockey Tournament out at the River Cree Resort and Casino on the west boundary of the city.  For $500 we were guaranteed to play at least three games.  Each of our guys kicked in $45, which gave us enough to cover the tournament fee and provide some extra beer money.  The prize for first place was to be $5,000.00.  

We went in expecting to play three games....  The organizers at the casino provided us with gift cards and coupons good at the lounge adjacent to the rink.  We also each got a beer mug.  Our first game was on Sunday night, December 27th, at 11:00pm.  We said our hello's to each other and skated out onto the ice to be soundly thumped 7-0 by our opponents, who went on to finish second in the round robin.  Our next game, at 2:00 in the afternoon on December 28th, was against a team from our league, playing a couple of divisions above us.  We were leading for a good part of the game but they got a couple of late goals to beat us at the end.  This was enough, based on goal differential, to put us into the playoff round.  On Tuesday morning around 10:00AM we played our third game of the round robin.  This was against a team from Enoch.  It was a hard played, fast-paced game and we managed to get ahead and coast to victory.

Our first playoff game was in the late afternoon on Tuesday.  We faced off against a team called Channel 4 News.  These guys were a big, fast team, but were short a couple of players.  They jumped out to an early lead but we managed to bounce back and eventually won the game 6-4.  This put us into the second round of the playoff, this morning, December 30, just before lunch.  By this point the competition was getting a lot stiffer.  We faced off against a team from Hobbema.  They were a big, fast team that had obviously been playing together for a while.  The play was pretty lop-sided but we hung in there and with a couple of minutes left in the game, we were only down by a 6-4 score.  We tried to put on a late push but they pumped in a couple of last minute goals and coasted to victory.

We hit the lounge and had some beer and some snacks, using up all the coupons and gift cards that we had been given.  It was a great few days of hockey with five hard played games over four days.  I don't think we had any gas left in the tank and probably couldn't have accomplished much in the later rounds even if we wanted to.  The entire tournament wraps up tonight and the finalists would end up playing 4 games in under 12 hours.

But it was a great experience and all the guys on our team really enjoyed ourselves.  The hockey was fast paced and hard played and should really tune us up for a push going into the latter half of our regular season of league hockey, continuing right after the new year.

Portal Creek on Efke PL25M

On December 14th I processed a batch of Efke PL25M film.  I continue to shoot the hundreds of sheets of this now unavailable large format film that I still have in my inventory.  It is a very slow film, rated at 10 iso.  Even in daylight this requires shutter speeds measured in seconds, ideal for images that show motion.  This is exactly why I chose to use it when I was out with the guys on the Fall Photo Weekend up at Portal Creek in Jasper.  Here are scans of four of my images, which perhaps illustrate why this place is such a favorite of mine.  I will post some of the other images from this batch in the coming days.

Winter Hockey - Game 11

The Renegades played our 11th game of the regular season just before the Christmas break, on December 23rd.  I was down with the stomach flu at the time and had to bail out of the game at the last minute.  I'm told that we fell behind 7-0 early in the game, but then pulled it together to win by a score of 9-8.  This game was against another south division team, this time out at the new Meadows Recreation Centre.  I'm really disappointed that I missed this one as it sounds like it was a great game.

With league play taking a break over the Christmas holidays I still find myself with lots of hockey to play.  Myself and about nine other players from the Renegades have signed up with some guys from another team, and are playing in a Christmas hockey tournament out at River Cree Resort.  Our first game is later tonight at 11:15.  It's a good thing that I'm on holidays and don't have to work tomorrow otherwise it would be really tough getting up in the morning.  We play again tomorrow afternoon and then again on Tuesday morning.  After that, if we win any of our games, we hope to advance to the playoff round and Tuesday evening and Wednesday.

Fuji Neopan Acros 100

The twenty sheets of Fuji Neopan Acros 100 4" x 5" that I processed back on December 5 included a real mix of stuff.  All twenty sheets were exposed during the 2015 calendar year.  I've already posted images from that batch that included the recent Utah trip, the ice bloom and the stone house.  The remaining sheets in the batch included one image from the spring trip to the Oregon Coast, and various images from day trips and travels closer to home.

For those interested in the nerdy technical crap associated with the film processing, this is what I do.  I expose Acros at 80 iso and process for slightly increased contract, the equivalent of about a half a zone expansion, or N+1/2.  I process in Rodinal diluted 1:50, for 11:00 minutes at 24C.  Agitation is minimal, for about 5 seconds per minute.

The Stone House

Back in September I spent a weekend down at the shop in East Coulee, installing a new skylight.  When the work there was complete, I met up with my friends Chris and Connie of the "Off the Beaten Bath" blog.  Their blog can be found at www.bigdoer.com.  We ventured out onto the prairie, searching for an old stone house that we had been told about.  We soon found it, and hiked in.  I previously posted a bunch of digital snapshot from this day trip.  Recently I processed a batch of film that included two negatives from this outing.  This was Fuji Neopan Acros 100 4" x 5" sheet film, processed in Rodinal.  The third image was shot on Efke PL25M, also recently processed in Rodinal.  Scans of those three images are below...

Ice Bloom on Acros 100

Back on December 5th I processed a batch of Acros 100 film.  These were large format 4" x 5" negatives, processed in Rodinal developer.  I previously posted some scans from the north rim of the Grand Canyon that were part of this batch.  These three more recent negatives were all exposed back in November, when the ice bloom was underway on the North Saskatchewan River.  That ice is moving deceptively quickly and you either have to use a relatively fast shutter speed to stop it, or a long one that allows it to blur out and become streaks.  I tried both methods during this outing.  This was the day that little Helena came along with me, and was running around like crazy despite having recently split open her knee for ten stitches...

Last Sheet of Film from 2013

Earlier this week I processed a batch of sheet film negatives.  This was the now discontinued Efke PL25M sheet film.  The batch included 18 - 4" x 5" sheets that were given Normal development in Rodinal developer, and 2 sheets that were given plus development for increased contrast.  One of these plus developed sheets was my last sheet remaining to be processed from 2013.  I shot 347 sheets of 4" x 5" black and white film during the 2013 year and they are now all processed.  This last one is a somewhat abstract image of an ice formation on Medicine Lake in Jasper National Park.  It was taken during the Monochrome Guild Fall Photo Weekend in November of 2013.  I will scan and post the remaining images from this batch, all much more recent work, in the coming days.

Winter Hockey - Games 9 and 10

The Renegades continue to play games against teams from the South Conference of our league in the days before the Christmas break.  This week we played back to back late games, on Tuesday and Wednesday.  After two in a row I'm really feeling the effects of these late nights and need to catch up on some sleep tonight.

On Tuesday night we played a game against a team called the Canadian Mooseheads.  The game was at Millwoods Arena and didn't start until 10:30PM.  We had the lead a couple times during the game but it ended up tied at the end of the third period.  It went to a shootout to decide the winner and we ended up losing the game by a score of 6-5.

Then last night we played out at the Leduc Recreation Center against a team called the Griffins.  This one wasn't quite as late an ice time, with the game getting underway at 9:15PM.  We fell behind early by a score of 2-0 but then battled back.  At one point we were up by three goals and eventually coasted to a 7-5 victory.

We have now played three games against the south conference and have a record, so far, of 2 wins and an overtime loss.  Nice to get 5 of a possible 6 points and move our way up in the standings a little.  We have one more game before Christmas, and then there will be a break from league play over the holidays.

Darkroom Printing

Several times over the past couple of weeks I've been down in my darkroom printing.  I'm starting to work on the exhibition prints that I will need for my upcoming shows.  So far I've been working on making some 11x14 prints.  I finished up the last of those yesterday.  In my next darkroom session I will start working on some of the larger 16x20 prints that I need.  Once the printing is done I will need to move on to mounting, spotting, matting and framing in preparation for the upcoming exhibitions.  Here are a few of the prints, still wet in the trays, as I was working on toning and clearing them...

Fuji Neopan Acros

Last week I processed a batch of twenty 4" x 5" sheets of Fuji Neopan Acros 100.  I have fine tuned my exposure and development of this film over the past year or so.  I meter my subject with a spot meter, placing the lowest values on Zone III.  I rate the film at 80 iso.  And I develop in Rodinal developer, diluted 1:50, for 11:00 minutes at 24C.  This is all very subjective and dependent upon a lot of variables including water quality, agitation, etc.  I feel that this gives me the equivalent of about 1/2 stop of expansion.  I know this all sounds like mumbo-jumbo to all those non-darkroom people that might read this... but it works for me.  

This current batch included a number of shots taken over various outings through the late summer and fall.  I will continue to post scans of those shots over the coming days.  For now I have included scans of five negatives from the recent trip down to Utah and Arizona.  These were all taken on the north rim of the Grand Canyon on October 18th...