Forgotten House

I'm circling back to a scan of a recently processed sheet of Fuji Neopan Acros 100.  This 4" x 5" sheet is from the batch of 20 sheets that I processed in mid August, while Margarit and the girls were in Austria.

I rated the film at 80 iso and processed in Rodinal developer, 1:50, for 11:00 minutes at 24C.  This shot was taken when Margarit and I were touring southwestern Saskatchewan in the fall of 2024.  There were only one or two occupied buildings left in this nearly abandoned town.  It seems that many of the places were abandoned when the elderly original owners passed on, and with little or no employment in area, aside from farming, no one ever moved back.

I shot this on September 16th of 2024 at about 3:15 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony SV45TE view camera and a slightly wide Fujinon W 125mm lens.  A #25 Red Filter increased contrast and created some separation in the sky.  The exposure was for 1/2 second at F18.0.

This old house is located in Saskatchewan in the Rural Municipality of Reno No. 51.

Whirlpool Point

On Friday August 29th I left the city and headed to Nordegg.  I stopped for some supplies along the way, and rolled into the cottage in the early afternoon.  I met up there with my friend Mike.  Mike is a fellow film photographer and we were close friends when he lived in Edmonton back in the 1990's.  He moved to Newfoundland for a few years to take a teaching position there.  Then after that he moved to Prince George and took a teaching position at the University of Northern British Columbia.  He recently retired.  We have remained in contact over the years and manage to get together every so often.  Mike was in Calgary and Kananaskis as he was involved in a competitive target shooting meet.  On the way back to Prince George we arranged to meet in Nordegg for a couple days.  Later that same evening, Braeden and Ryan came out as well.  It is somewhat remarkable the level of freedom and independence that is achieved once a person is able to drive.

On August 30th we all took a drive up the David Thompson Highway and stopped at Whirlpool Point.  The oldest tree in Alberta, an ancient Limber Pine, grows here.  It is said to be between 2500 and 3000 years old.  Just that thought makes a person feel rather small and insignificant.  Mike and I wandered about for a while with our cameras, taking some photographs.  Whirlpool Point is a rocky ridge that extends right down into the North Saskatchewan River.  There is a large eddy in the river created by the outcropping rock.  The kids had a blast exploring, as Braeden had never been here before.  

As the afternoon wound down we made our way back to the cottage and put together a dinner of steak, baked potatoes and corn on the cob.  Later we had a fire, and sat around listening to some music and visiting.  I attempted to play guitar and sing along with the music, but it probably only sounded acceptable due to the volume of beer that was consumed.

September Calendar Image

This is the image I selected for the September page of my 2025 Fine Art Photography Calendar.  I found this old car on private property in Clearwater County.  Obviously it's been there for a long time.  I know the car was a General Motors product, but other than that I'm not sure of the make, model or year.  I suspect it is close to a century old, and has obviously been resting here for a long time.

BP36.0 Ferintosh Hotel

On Thursday August 28th I blasted out to the airport, shortly after noon, and picked up Margarit, Hailey and Helena.  They were returning, two days late, from their trip to Austria.  The return flight was supposed to be on the 26th, but it was delayed due to an issue at the airport in Edmonton.  They were forced to return to Montreal that day, and spend two nights there, before eventually making it home.

Right after I dropped the girls off at home I loaded up my camera gear and hit the road.  Chris and I learned that the Ferintosh Hotel, in Ferintosh, Alberta, was going to be closing for good at the end of August.  We had made arrangements to visit it just before they shut down.  Sadly this got very rushed due to the late return of the girls.  But there was no option to re-schedule, so I headed out.  I met Chris at the hotel, and later Arturo and Camillo joined us for the evening.  We had a great evening visiting with everyone in attendance and taking a few portraits with the big camera.  This particular beer parlour was very dark, and I neglected to bring along my studio lights, so the photography was a little limited.  But I managed to shoot a bit.  A lot of photos were also taken with digital and smaller cameras.  Chris did the usual interviews with some of the people there.  Things wound down about 10:00 and I hit the road for home.  The next day I needed to be in Nordegg to meet my friend Mike, who was passing through from Calgary, on his way back home to Prince George.  He was picking up a dry mount press and print washer from the lot of darkroom equipment that I was selling.

Chris ended up staying for two nights at the hotel in Ferintosh.  The next night, Friday the 29th, was the big send off party.  A band was playing, and a lot of people were out.  Sadly I missed that part of the event, and of course, as a result, the big view camera was not there.  But our colleague Byron blasted out from Calgary and joined Chris and they made the best of it.  I guess it was pretty crazy and hectic keeping up to all the people and all the goings ons.  Hopefully the two of them got a bunch of digital photographs to round out the event.

Old Store

Here is another scan of a recently processed Fuji Neopan Acros 100 negative.  This sheet of 4" x 5" film was processed a week ago or so, in Rodinal Developer, 1:100.  I shot this one last fall when Margarit and I were touring around southern Saskatchewan.  I assume that this old building was one a store of some sort.  There were a handfull of residents remaining in this small town, but not much else.

I shot this with my Ebony SV45TE view camera and a wide 90mm lens.  A #8 Yellow filter created a little separation and contrast, without losing any detail in the shadow side of the building.  The exposure was for 1/15 second at F18.0.  The image was taken in a small town in the Rurual Municipality of Wood River No. 74, on September 21st 2024, at about 11:15 in the morning.

Willow

My previous post showed a large thunderhead building in advance of a strong storm.  This photograph was taken the next day... the aftermath.  It was still blustery and cloudy and very humid.  There was debris washed over the roads in many places, and the ditches and fields were flooded in low areas.

I shot this image on a sheet of Fuji Neopan Acros 100 and developed it together some some of my previously posted images.  I shot this with my Ebony view camera and a long 400mm lens.  A #25 Red filter pumped up the contrast and created some separation in the sky.  The exposure was for 1/2 second at F250.0.

I took this shot on September 18th 2024 at about 2:45 in the afternnon.  This big tree, which I believe is a willow, was found in the Rural Municipality of Pinto Creek No. 75, down in southern Saskatchewan.  

Before The Storm

This is a scan of another negative from my trip to Saskatchewan last fall.  Margarit and I toured around for about a week last September.  This was a 4" x 5" sheet of Fuji Neopan Acros 100 that I recently developed.  The film was rated at 80 iso and developed in Rodinal developer, 1:50, for 11:00 minutes at 24C.  I shot this on September 17th 2024 at about 4:20 in the afternoon, using my Ebony SV45TE view camera and a Fujinon 125mm lens.  A #25 Red filter deepened the value of the sky and created some separation of the thunderhead.  The exposure was for 1/4 second at F18.0.

Margarit and I had been touring the west block of Grasslands National Park.  As we left the park in the afternoon we made our way north, through the Rural Municipality of Mankota, towards the rental that we were staying at in Cadillac.  We spotted this old school, which later became a community hall, and thought it made a nice foreground for the big thunderhead that was building.  As it turned out this became quite a massive storm.  By the end of our drive back to Cadillac the rain was coming down in sheets and we could barely see the highway ahead of us.  I can't recall the rainfall total but it was something like 6 or 7 inches that came down in less than 24 hours.  There was some hail, and the storm spawned a tornado that touched down north of where we were staying.  The next day there was evidence of the storm everywhere.  Fields were flooded and there were numerous places where water had been running over the highways and roads.  I think it was the most intense storm that I have every personally experienced.

Most Photographed Car in Saskatchewan

Well.... my absolute distrust of airlines was confirmed... again...!  Margarit and the girls were supposed to arrive home last night.  Their flight was on schedule, and they were more than half way back... somewhere over Manitoba, when there was a problem.  One runway at Edmonton International is under construction, and there was a damaged plane stuck on the second runway.  So their flight got diverted back to its starting point in Montreal.  Now they are stuck there for a couple of extra days before they can finally return home.  This is why I don't fly...!

This car is probably the most photographed car in Saskatchewan.  It sits at the edge of a small ghost town in southwestern Saskatchewan.  It is a British import.. an Austin.  I believe the model is an Astro, but I'm not certain of that.  There were a large number of these brought into Canada back in the 1950's and 1960's but they proved unreliable in our harsh climate and on our rough roads.  They more or less disappeared shortly afterwards, except for a few abandoned ones left lying around.

This is a scan of one of the sheets of Fuji Neopan Acros 100 that I recently processed in Rodinal Developer, 1:100, for 11:00 minutes at 24C.  The film was rated at 80 iso.  I shot this with my Ebony SV45TE view camera and a Nikkor 210mm lens.  A #11 Yellow Green filter lightened the value of the grasses.  I took this shot on September 19th of 2024, at about 4:30 in the afternoon.  The exposure was for 1/15 second at F20.0.  This town is in the Rural Municipality of Coulee No. 136.

Cloverly and First

Margarit and the girls are returning home from their visit to Austria, later this evening.  They have been away for most of the month of August.  While they were away, I stayed in the city and kept my middle daughter Ryan, and her boyfriend Braeden, company.  Initially, when the girls left, the other kids didn't have a drivers license so I had to drive Braeden to and from work every day.  But Ryan practiced driving, and went for her road test on the 18th.  She passed, and right after that I signed over our old SUV to her, and the two registered and insured it.  Since they have this new found freedom they are out and about all the time, and I don't see them as much.

I also got caught up on a bunch of chores around the house...  cleaned the eavestroughs, cut the grass, watered the plants, looked after the pets, got all of the vehicles serviced, the list goes on.  In between all of that I spent a bunch of time in my darkroom.  I developed over 125 sheets of 4" x 5" film, as well as several rolls.  I never did get around to any printing, as I had hoped, but I put a significant dent in my backlog of film processing.  That said, I still have 21 sheets left from 2022 to be processed, and 24 from 2023.  But this is an improvement of the previous situation.

One of the batches that I processed was 20 sheets of Fuji Neopan Acros 100.  Sadly this film is no longer made in sheet format, so when I current stock runs out, I will no longer be able to shoot it.  I really like the way that it renders mid tones, so I will likely ration my last few sheets for suitable special occasions.  Most of the images in this batch were from my trip last fall to southern Saskatchewan, with Margarit.

This old abandoned service garage was in a small town in the Rural Municipality of Arlington No. 79.  I shot this on September 16th 2024, at about 11:00 in the morning.  I used my Ebony SV45TE view camera and a slightly wide Fujinon 125mm lens.  The film was rated at 80 iso and exposed for 1/4 second at F16.0.  Development was in Rodinal 1:50 for 11:00 minutes at 24C.  This yielded a slight push in contrast, which was further enhanced by the use of a #25 Red Filter.  I may have posted another version of this image in the past...?  But I really like the way that this one turned out.

The Next Beer Parlour Project Outing

The Beer Parlour Project team is heading out to visit the Ferintosh Hotel in Ferintosh, Alberta.  This will be destination number 36 on our growing list of hotels visited.  So... BP36.0.  Most of the team will be there on Thursday August 28th, starting at about 4:00 in the afternoon.

The hotel is potentially closing at the end of the month and they are having a last blow out before they are done.  This will carry over with a celebration on Friday August 29th.  I will be in attendance on the 28th with my big view camera, but sadly I have a prior commitment on the 29th.  My colleague Chris will be staying for the festivities on the second night and it will be part of our visit, though the big view camera will not be present on the second evening.

Darlene, the owner of the hotel is working on a plan to try to keep the hotel operating.  It remains to be seen if that is successful.  So this may be the end... or it may not...  If you are in the area on either evening, please feel free to stop by for a visit.

Hank

Margarit, Hailey and Helena travelled to Austria in early August.  They are visiting with family there.  They will be coming back home in a couple of days.  I stayed behind in the city with Ryan and her boyfriend Braeden.  It has been a really busy time.

Initially Braeden needed a ride to and from work everyday.  But then, after extensive practicing, Ryan took her road test last week.  She passed and got her Class 5 drivers license.  I signed over our old Honda Pilot to her, and she now has it registered and insured in her name.  Braeden has had his Ontario license for a number of years, so now they are both able to drive.

That newfound freedom and independence has seen them out and about doing all sorts of stuff.  With this milestone behind her, Ryan can now focus on finding work.  She has a few applications in, but nothing has come through yet.

I've also been catching up on a bunch of chores at home.  The list is long and includes cleaning eavestroughs, cutting grass, pruning trees, servicing vehicles, paying bills, looking after paperwork, repairing the dishwasher, etc.  We have also been looking after the rabbits and Hank while the other girls are away.  We have been watching baseball and football on TV, heading out to play trivia at the pub, and I've started to catch up in the darkroom on processing film.  I also squeezed in a couple of Beer Parlour Project outings.

Every couple of days Helena has been asking me to send her pictures of Hank.  I guess she misses the little guy.  So I've been taking phone snapshots from time to time and sending them to the girls.  

BP33.0 - Blue Saloon

This is a portrait of Doris.  She visited with us at the Blue Saloon in Carseland, Alberta, on July 25th.  This is the outing that was recorded by CBC News out of Calgary, and the one that we refer to as BP33.0.  Chris interviewed her and I look forward to hearing what she had to say.  Generally while Chris is interviewing a patron or staff at a hotel, I'm busy taking portraits with the big camera.  Chris records the interviews with a laptop, and then transcribes that interview, using a software program, which converts it to a text file.  From there he selects a few interesting quotes and tidbits to add to the write up that he puts together for each hotel.  Chris does the bulk of the work on this part of the project, as he also does the research into the history of each hotel.  I try to help out a little bit, and convert his notes to a rough draft of an essay, that he then further refines and adds the quotes.  It all seems to work out just fine.

This scan is from a 4" x 5" negative, Kodak Tri-X Pan 320.  This is one of the eight sheets that I recently experimented with.  The film was pushed to 1600 iso and given 2-1/2 hours of development in highly diluted HC-110 developer.  It seemed to work pretty well, so I'll continue to experiment with this combination.  The only downside is that it takes a LONG time to process any quantity of film.

BP32.0 - Marengo Hotel

This shot is from the Beer Parlour Project visit to the Marengo Hotel, in Marengo Saskatchewan, back in July.  This is Kaila, the daughter of owner Penny, and Ronan, the son of Kaila.  It seemed kinda weird to see a little kid in the bar.  But, aside from being family of the owners, the bar also serves as a restaurant and a small convenience store.  They sell a few snacks and pop to the locals as there are no other services in the town.  So kids are allowed in until some point in the evening, when it switches over to just a bar.  I can't recall... around 8:00PM or something like that.

This one was somewhat of an experiment for me.  So far I have been using two large format films for my Beer Parlour Project portraits.  Those are Kodak T-Max 400 and Ilford HP5.  They both work reasonably well, but I've been investigating other options.  This shot was taken on Kodak Tri-X Pan 320, rated at 1600iso.  The development was in highly diluted Kodak HC-110 developer, 1:100.  The development time was for 2-1/2 hours, with very minimal agitation.  I just gave the film very gentle agitation for a few seconds, every 30 minutes.  I have a plastic cover that I put over the tank of developer, that had the film and stainless steel hangers in it.  This allowed me to open the door and leave the darkroom after the development had started.  I slipped back in every half hour to agitate the film.  Then after two and half hours I returned to the darkroom, left the lights off, removed the cover, and continued with the stop, fixing and clearing baths.

The idea of this extremely long development time is that the dilute developer becomes quickly exhausted in the areas where there is a lot of exposed silver (the highlights), but continues to work in the areas with little exposed silver (the shadows).  It seemed to work quite well and the eight sheets that I developed on the afternoon of August 12th all turned out reasonably well.  Once I process the duplicate shots taken at the same time, on one of the other two film types, I will be able to compare and form a more realistic opinion.

Merlin

These little falcons are pretty common in our part of Alberta.  They are really skittish and active and rarely let you get close to them.  I've never been able to get a close up photo of one.  This is not the way that I wanted it to happen.  This poor little guy crashed into the picture window of my Mom's house and was killed.  What a beautiful little bird... so sad...

CBC News

Here is a link to the CBC News article about the Beer Parlour Project and our visit to the Carseland Hotel, on July 25th.  This was outing BP33.0.  I missed the news story when it originally aired the day after our visit, but its nice to see it was finally up on the CBC website.

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.6872937