Snowmobile

I bought a new snowmobile this fall.  I got a good deal on last year's model [2017] Ski-Doo Tundra Sport.  Just picked it up today.  I have the old 1979 Yamaha Enticer that I have mostly restored and put back together.  Just have to finish that up by putting a new set of skiis on it, and giving it a bit of a tune up.  Now that we have two machines we will be able to go riding up in the mountains around our place at Nordegg.  Looking forward to getting out there with the sleds...

Maligne Moose

On Sunday November 5th, the last day of the 2017 Fall Photo Weekend, we were stopped on the side of the road, beside the Maligne River, just downstream from Maligne Lake.  I had my view camera set up on the tripod and was telling my friend Steve a story about the only large format wildlife shot I had ever taken.  In hindsight that wasn't quite true because I have one other one... of some bison in Elk Island National Park.  But, that story is for another day.  I told Steve about how I had my camera set up in this very spot.  I had just finished taking a couple of photographs of the Maligne River back on that day fifteen years prior.  My camera was still set up on the tripod when my friend Jon announced that he had to take a leak.  He crashed his way into the bush beside the road.  As he did so, he startled a couple of moose, who walked out into the river and stopped beside the big boulder I had been photographing.  With my camera still set up I was able to capture a shot of the two moose.  I looked up this old negative in my archive and found it.  It is from 2002 and was taken with my old Sinar F1 camera and a Nikkor 210mm lens, on Ilford Delta 100 film, developed in HC-110.  Surprisingly it was taken on November 24th of that year... almost a full three weeks later in the season than this year.  

As I was telling Steve this story, I glanced up to take a look at the river.  To my surprise, two moose had wandered out into the scene.  I wasn't quite ready with my camera this time around, but the two moose were pretty patient and I managed to finish setting it up and was able to expose a couple of sheets of film.  That film is not yet processed, but when I get to it I will post a scan of the resulting negative.  I did manage to get a couple of digital snapshots, and those are included below...

Winter Large Format Photography

Gabor took this shot of me, trying to work some magic with my Ebony view camera.  It remains to be seen whether or not the resulting negative lives up to the hype.  This was up at Medicine Lake on the third day of the Fall Photo Weekend.  Just "stylin" in my Elmer Fudd hat.  Looks like I should be hunting wabbits... but mostly I was just trying to keep warm.  Can't operate the knobs and controls of the view camera with gloves on so mostly it was my fingers that suffered over the weekend.  The rest of me was well dressed and pretty comfortable despite temperatures in the -10C to -20C range....

Fall Photo Weekend 2017 - Day 3

On Sunday morning daylight savings time came to an end so we rolled our clocks back and got an extra hour of sleep.  We repeated the same drill as Saturday, and had the free continental breakfast at the hotel.  Then we packed up all of our gear and checked out.

After leaving the hotel we decided to take a drive back up the Maligne Lake Road.  We drove all the way up, past Medicine Lake, to Maligne Lake.  Then we turned around and slowly made our way back down the valley.  We stopped at a number of places along the way to make photographs.  Mostly this was in two or three different spots along the river as we visually explored the ice formations.  By early afternoon we wrapped things up and began the drive back home to the city.  We made one final stop out at the dunes along Jasper Lake.  The sand was mostly covered with a thin layer of snow, but there were some interesting snowdrifts along the shore of the lake.  There were some heavy clouds forming in the west and the light coming through them, highlighting the drift patterns, made for some interesting shots.

It was about 3:30 when we finally finished up here and we reluctantly packed our stuff into the truck, changed out of our heavy winter clothes, and hit the road for home.  About five hours later we rolled up in front of my house.  We sorted out all the gear from my truck and Steve and Nigel, who had been riding with me, headed off to their homes.  I dragged all my stuff into the house, put it away, and closed the chapter on this years expedition.

The trip was a lot of fun, despite the less than ideal weather conditions.  I really enjoyed being out with all the guys and look forward to doing it all over again next year.

Fall Photo Weekend 2017 - Day 2

We all got up around 8:00AM on Saturday morning.  There wasn't much point getting up any earlier than that as it just doesn't get light, or warm up much, until a little later in the morning.  The restaurant in the hotel was closed for renovations but they had a free continental breakfast that we all enjoyed.  After breakfast we headed out.  We decided to go and check out some of the ice formations along the creeks and rivers on the Marmot Road [Highway 93A].  Our first stop was at Portal Creek and the thermometer in the truck read -19C when we arrived.  Fortunately there was very little wind.  But the site was sheltered and in the shade, and it was very humid down by the water.  It was a pretty chilling experience to photograph there but this time we were dressed for it, and made the best of it.  I did three setups with my view camera and hope that I captured something good on film.

Later we moved a short distance up the road to the Astoria River.  Conditions were similar here but it had warmed up a degree or two, and the sun was coming out a little.  This is the spot where I found all the cat tracks down along the river, as per the previous blog post.  This river had a little greater water volume and velocity as compared to the creek and the ice formations were a little different.  We photographed here for a while and I managed three or four more set ups with the view camera.

By the time we finished up here it was early afternoon.  We decided to move on and headed up the Maligne Road to Medicine Lake.  The sun broke out a bit and the light was quite nice as we photographed in the snow covered boulders of Medicine Lake.  After a couple of setups here, we all moved down the valley and explored the lower reaches of the Maligne River, below Maligne Canyon.  By this time it was getting to be mid afternoon, and the light was falling off quickly.  We called it a day and headed back to our hotel.  After unpacking our gear and warming up for a while we ended up watching part of the Edmonton Eskimos football game on TV.  Once it became clear that the Eskimos would defeat the Saskatchewan Roughriders, we decided to walk into town for dinner.  We ended up at the Downstream Pub and had a great meal.  Most of the guys had burgers, I had a steak and salad, and Mark tried the Elk sirloin.  After dinner we walked back to the hotel and spent the evening visiting and having a few drinks.  I for one was pretty exhausted from all the cold fresh air and the exertion of packing around camera gear.  I think the others all felt about the same.  Gabor had turned in earlier than the rest of us and we all made it a relatively early evening.

I always really enjoy these fall weekends out with my friends.  The experience of being out in the mountains in the off-season is spectacular and the throngs of tourists, so prevalent in the summer, do not exist.  And the camaraderie of watching what other people photograph and how they compose, as well as the visiting after the days shooting is done, is very enjoyable and something that I look forward to every year.  This year was no exception and it was great for the six of us to get out together.  Gabor and Nigel were out for the first time with the group and they really fit in well.

Fall Photo Weekend 2017 - Day 1

This past Friday, the gang from the Monochrome Guild set out for our annual Fall Photo Weekend.  This was the 17th annual trip, and I've been on every one of them...  mostly because I've organised them all, and make sure that it always fits my schedule.  This time around, like most years in the past, we headed out to Jasper National Park.  There would be six members of the Guild taking part this time around... Steve, Arda, Nigel, Gabor, Mark and myself.  We rented two suites at the Jasper Inn and it made for a very economical weekend when the cost was split six ways.

Nigel and Steve met me at my place on Friday morning at 7:30AM.  We loaded all of our gear into my truck and hit the road.  The others would be heading out a little later, and meeting up with us in Jasper.  We ran into some rush hour traffic, including a collision on the overpass at Whitemud Drive near my house.  This slowed us down a little and it took nearly 45 minutes for us to get out of the city.  By the time we got out to Parkland County, traffic had thinned considerably and the drive was easy.  It was cold, and recent snow had accumulated.  Amounts varied by area and in some places there was about 8 inches.  The highway itself was mostly snow free, but in some areas the passing lane was partly snow covered.  Once we got into the park the snow accumulation was less and in the Athabasca Valley near the townsite there was almost none.

We made a brief stop out near Talbot Lake and then decided to spend the day scouting around.  We took a drive up the Maligne Road as far as Medicine Lake.  We made a stop along the Maligne River and also wandered around a little at Medicine Lake.  We were dressed in lighter clothes for the drive and none of us really felt up to getting out and hiking.  So we continued driving around and made it an afternoon of scouting locations for the serious shooting to come.  

Next we took a drive up Highway 93A.  Portal Creek and the Astoria River were showing some great ice formations and we made plans to return the next day when we were better dressed for the weather.  The ski hill at Marmot Basin was not yet open for the season.  The Edith Cavell Road was closed, as was Highway 93A beyond the Whirlpool River.  I pulled the big view camera out of the truck and did a couple of setups at the Whirlpool.  

After that we packed up and took a drive up the Pyramid Lake Road.  Once again the big camera came out to do a shot of the aspens.  The daytime high never got up above -10C.  There was a mix of sun and cloud during the day.  In sheltered areas it was OK to be out but when the breeze picked up a little, it quickly became very cold.  The breeze picked up while we were exploring the aspens on Pyramid Lake Road.  It is nearly impossible to operate a view camera with gloves or mittens on and my bare fingers quickly became numb and frozen trying to operate the metal controls of the camera.  This was a rather painful experience that lingered with me for some time afterwards as the heater in the truck thawed out my fingertips that had become hard and crisp in the cold.

By this time is was around 4:00PM so we headed over to the hotel and checked in.  We off loaded all of our gear and relaxed with a couple of beers.  A short time later Arda and Gabor arrived and checked in as well.  Later that evening we walked into town and went to a local restaurant for dinner.  Later still we retired back to our rooms and visited until late in the evening.  We shared some Japanese whiskey, some fine Scotch, and some German pear brandy.  Around 10:00 Mark arrived and checked in with us.  We eventually turned in with expectations of getting out in the morning to return to some of the locations we had scouted on this day.

Cat Tracks

I just returned to work this morning, rather reluctantly, after being away for three days.  I booked Friday off... one of the few days that I have been able to take off this year.  In fact I think this is only fourth day I have had off all year.  This time around it was the 17th Annual Fall Photo Weekend and six members of the Monochrome Guild headed up to Jasper for a weekend of photography.  I will be posting a detailed report on the activities of the weekend in some upcoming blog posts.  Those will include snapshots from the trip.  Then later, when I get around to processing all my film shots, there will be more postings.

For the moment I just have this one iPhone snapshot to share.  We were down along the Astoria River in Jasper National Park photographing the ice formations on the rocks.  It was cold, and there was fresh snow.  There were these feline tracks in the snow.  Originally I thought they were probably from a Lynx... and they may be.  But when I got home I looked up some information on line and learned that cougar tracks are usually about 3-1/4" to 4" across.  That's about the size of these tracks.  The boot print in the snow is from my big size 10 winter boot.  It measures about 13" long and 5-1/2" wide.  Maybe someone out there viewing this can shed some light on what these tracks might be...

Update:  Checked the measurements of my boots and they are 12-1/2" x 5".  That would make these tracks about 3-3/4" wide...

New Work

I recently processed a batch of Kodak T-Max 100 4" x 5" in 510 Pyro developer.  This has become probably my favorite film-developer combination and I'm grateful to Seattle based photographer Jay DeFehr for sharing his experience and his formula.

This one is from the recent day trip that my friend Nigel and I took out to the abandoned industrial site west of the city.  I have a number of other recent images in this same batch that I will be posting in the coming weeks.

Badlands Hike

That recent batch of Bergger Panchro 4" x 5" film that I processed included two shots from a recent hike in the badlands.  After we had cleaned up from the premiere showing of Forgotten Prairie at the East Coulee School a couple weeks ago, Chris, Connie, Rueben and I went for a hike out into the badlands to try and find this old house.  I had a pretty good idea where it was, and sure enough we eventually found it.  It was down in the Red Deer River Valley bathed in beautiful clear, fall light.  I did three set ups with my big camera and exposed a number of negatives.  These are the only two that I have processed so far.  Initially I'm quite pleased with these images...

Last Weekend

On the day trip last weekend, Nigel and I explored the Industrial site that was detailed in a previous blog post.  On our way back into the city we stopped at an abandoned Russian Orthodox church.  We parked the truck on the nearby road and walked a short distance in.  The last time that I was here, back in 2008, there was a beautiful altar screen with religious icons painted on it.  I included an image of the interior of the building in the Procession West show that toured western Canada from 2013 to 2017.  When we checked inside the old church today, we found that it was almost totally empty, with the exception of an old worn-out mattress tossed in the corner, and a bunch of dried plants hanging on the wall inside the door.

I decided that the building was more photographically interesting from the exterior now, and set up out there to take a shot.  I'm not sure what the proper term is, but there was once an ornament... not really a dome... more of a finial on top of the main peak of the church.  There was a similar one on the smaller domed cupola in behind.  The main one had fallen off and was laying in the grass beside the building.  I remember it being in the same spot on my previous visit 9 years prior.  I set up a composition with this fallen ornament in the foreground, with the old building and the trees as a backdrop.  While I was attempting to shoot this we were approached by a man that seemed more than a little irritated.  He was the priest from the nearby church that had been built to replace this old one.  I struck up a conversation with him and showed an interest in the history of the building and he was quickly at ease.  He offered up a little information... that there had once been a sawmill on this location, and a prisoner of war camp across the road.  He also spoke about some of the restoration efforts being undertaken at the nearby "new" church.  It turns out that those altar panels that I had previously photographed had been removed from the old building just that morning.  How ironic is that...!!  Nigel and I were wishing we had stopped here on our way out, rather than on our way back...!  They were being sent to another church to be restored and preserved.  What a coincidence and somewhat of a shame that we were a few hours to late.  

Here are a couple of snapshots taken during our recent visit, as well as a scan of the image that I shot here in 2008 and included in Procession West.  I have some even older images of the same building that I need to locate in my negative archive.  Another neighbor stopped by and visited with us while we were there and showed an interest in seeing my images.  I also need to process the image taken on this day with my view camera and see if it turned into something worthwhile.

Morning Mist

This is another image from the recently processed batch of Bergger Panchro 400 4" x 5" sheet film.  This film is a dual emulsion film that is supposed to be similar to multigrade paper.  One emulsion records the harsh blacks and whites for contrast, while the other records the subtle greys of the middle values.  It was only released, at least to the North American market, a couple of years ago.  I have been experimenting with it processed in Ilford Perceptol developer, and so far I am quite pleased with the results.

In the fall of 2016 my friend Rob and I met up down in East Coulee.  We had plans to take my trailer and travel down to the badlands and prairie of southeastern Alberta.  But, it had been raining heavily for several days, and everything was very wet and muddy.  We thought better of the idea and decided to stay at East Coulee and explore and photograph nearby.  On our first day we headed east out onto the prairie and photographed mostly in a cornfield.  The next morning, October 2nd 2016, it dawned warm and sunny.  The warmth of the sun was causing a mist to rise off of the rain saturated badlands soils.  We stopped by the Hoodoos Recreation Area to photograph and the rising mist all around us was pretty spectacular.  It was most evident when backlit against the morning sun.  This presented some photographic challenges in trying to record the scene without any flare resulting from direct sun on the front element of the lens.  I think this shot worked pretty well and records the mood of what it felt like to experience this.