Keith Cartmell Photography: The bridges over Fish Creek

A few things came together for this. Some of my very first photos were of the bridges in Fish Creek. For a while I was musing about a photo project of getting nice photos of each of the bridges in each of the seasons, preferably within the same calendar year. I might still do it.

But last week I was in the mood for a bike ride in Fish Creek, and in the mood to capture all the bridges the same day, in the same light, on 35mm Delta 100. I'm not sure if the bike ride was an excuse to use the camera, or the planned subjects were an excuse for a bike ride.

As I was getting ready, I was thinking given the time of day and the particular lens, my desired vantage point would be from the south side looking north to avoid lens flare. This isn't my typical vantage point. It would mean a fairly long ride, given the park is about 20 K from end to end, and I figured I might be on the bike for 50 K to get all the bridges in one trip.

However, I hadn't figured on it being so hot! I got to bridge 10, just west of Bow Valley Ranch, and turned back. Even so, I was flirting with heat stroke on the hill out of the park. I stopped at our community centre to say hi to one of our employees and sit in the air conditioning for a little while.

The next day I drove over to the east part of the park to get photos of the remaining bridges. They're in a group not far from Bow Valley Ranch. I had a breakfast date with a buddy so I couldn't dilly dally. There are 3 more pedestrian bridges in Fish Creek, but they span the Bow River and are difficult photographically. I decided to limit my scope to just the ones over Fish Creek itself. I'm ignoring what I think is an unofficial bridge over a dry gulch.

Starting from west to east, the bridges are numbered from 1 to 15 currently, and I'm guessing the new one just south of 22X will be 16. One of 12 or 13 is a vehicle bridge, but I'm not sure which is which. I didn't do them in that exact order, but for simplicity I'll present the photos in the order I took them, plus some of the nearby scenery that caught my eye.

1. B1. Not a particularly attractive bridge. It's just east of where Stony Trail crosses over Fish Creek using two huge highway bridges, and the traffic noise is usually intrusive. It's a good place to catch your breath and gird your loins for the nearby hill of death. Also nearby is a huge burl in a tree that I like to try to photograph. That might be a blog idea, find all the photos and post them together for comparison purposes.

2. B2 is by far the most photogenic bridge. There are several nice angles to capture the great setting. A photographer can choose a wintery evergreen background, or fall colours.

3. Looking upstream from B2. This is often a good spot for watching dragonflies. The only problem is that it's really close to the Shannon Terrace parking lot, and there can be lots of people around. I once abruptly turned to follow a dragonfly and nearly hit someone with my 70-200 lens. I hadn't known they were there.

4. B3 is also fairly attractive, but it's harder to work with. There are fewer vantage points and the setting isn't quite as nice. I was photo bombed on this one, and hadn't realized it till I developed the film. This bridge is also pretty popular since it's near Bebo Grove parking. Lots of people like to bring their dogs to splash in the nearby shallow areas. The stream bed is a nice gravel.

5. B4. This style of bridge was used to replace the bridges damaged or destroyed during the floods. I think they're ugly, but some of the settings are nice. This exact spot is a great place to hang out and wait for dragonflies. As I was working the scene, a buddy stopped his bike to say hello for a quick chat.

6. B5.

7. B6

8. I saw the log while trying to find a nice angle for the bridge.

9. B7.

10. B8. This is an ugly bridge and very difficult to get a nice photo of. I'm actually standing almost underneath the LRT and railroad tracks. Unless you're into industrial stuff, the railroad trestle bridge is not the least bit attractive. A little further behind me is McLeod Trail, the other major north south artery crossing Fish Creek. Depending on the time of year and water flows, there are sometimes some nice photos of the water under the highway.

All of these so far are in what I think of as west Fish Creek, an easy bike ride, a nice run (not that I'm running any more), or longish walk from my place. During my triathlon days I often ran through this part of the park, and know it quite well. It's one of the most beautiful places in Calgary.

11. B10, not far from Bow Valley Ranch. I have tough memories of this bridge, as it was the turnaround point for my first half Ironman. I was suffering on the first loop, and even more on the second. It's on the main part of the path so there's lots of people around. I had to wait a few minutes to get an empty bridge. There is a lot of fencing around it just now, so I wasn't able to get the vantage point I wanted. I'm a bit bummed that I chopped off a bit of the tree.

12. B9, taken on a big detour on the way back. It's off the direct east west pathway. A boy was fishing, and I had to wait a bit so he wasn't actually in the photo. He said he was going to be there till he caught a fish, and I wasn't going to wait that long. I wonder if he made it back home before dinner time. Maybe he was told to bring fish home for dinner.

B9 and 10 are out on the the bald prairie portion of Fish Creek east of MacLeod Trail. They are a long way from car parking, so are tougher to visit on foot. There's very little shade nearby and no particular reason to hang around.

13. Looking downstream from B9.

14. B11, south of Bow Valley Ranch, in difficult light. I couldn't get at my desired vantage point. Lots of places in the park are fenced off to allow vegetation to regrow.

15. I found this big log just off the path near B11, and really liked the light on the weathered wood.

16. B12 and 13. It gets complicated here. There's a pedestrian bridge and vehicle bridge right beside each other, and both are ugly. But the reflections in the water were lovely!

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21. A sign with a map of Fish Creek. Several times I've stopped to help people figure out where they are. It is quite easy to get turned around and lose track of where you are, or how to get back to where you parked your car. It's not difficult to be out for a walk, thinking you'll be able to finish a loop, only to find the river, or a hill much steeper than you want to scramble down.

22. Bow Valley Ranche. (Yes, with an 'e'.) There's a nice restaurant in there. We ate there once a long time ago, but haven't been back. I just took a look at the menu. Eek! Won't be back any time soon. It's hard to shell out that kind of money for food we can make at home.

23. Walking along the west bank of the Bow River north of B14, heading for Bankside. I was originally going to park there, but the City has a non-potable water pumping station set up there. The parking lot was full of trucks waiting to load up. If you look carefully at this tree you'll see a big bird. I think it's a heron.

There are any number of times I've thought the silhouette of trees against the sky would make a nice photo, and I'm often disappointed. Something to work on. An orange filter might have brought more contrast to the sky.

24. A lovely reflecting pond near B14.

25. I really liked this stump, but the photo disappoints me. My eyes saw something quite different, with the wood being much more silvery.

26. Another of B12, mainly because of the reflections.

The rest of the bridges, FYI. Bridge 14 is just south of the Ivor Strong bridge (currently under construction) where Deerfoot trail crosses the Bow River. Bridge 15 is kind of in the middle of nowhere, about halfway between bridge 14 and where 22X crosses the Bow River. What I think will be called bridge 16 is new, just south of 22X crossing the Bow River.

Much of the rest will only be of interest to other film photographers, but scroll for 3 more photos.

I'd started the roll before my first darkroom class. I hadn't realized we would be asked to expose a specific film for the second class, so I needed to finish off the Delta 100 so I could put in the FP5 400 for the class. I've got an idea about exposing that roll. As it turns out, that photo session had to be delayed, so I need to come up with a new idea between now and Thursday. If you've missed it, I'm using a Canon EOS 3 with a 50mm f1.8 lens.

If you've been following along you know I've developed several rolls of Delta 100 in medium format. You can see the results of the first try here. It's exactly the same process to develop 35mm as medium format.

Getting the film out of the canister and onto the reel is much easier for 35mm. Why? Because when the camera rewinds the film, I have it set to leave the leader poking out. It's easy to trim off that leader, pull out just enough film to slide into the reel and engage the little ball bearings. Then turn the lights out, gently tug the canister away from the reel to expose the film, and ratchet it onto the reel. Easy peasy, no muss, no fuss. When it stops, cut the end right at the canister and finish putting it onto the reel.

If the film leader gets rewound right back into the canister things are a bit trickier. All this takes place in complete darkness. There's a tool to rip the top of the canister off. Then pull out the film and spindle, hopefully not letting it go sproing to collect dust from whatever is nearby. Cut the leader off, and feed the film into the reel. As near as I can tell, you need three hands. One to hold the tank reel and keep the little tabs aligned, one to feed the film into the reel, and one to hold the film and spindle. Then again, the same trick that works for medium format will work for this. (You can see a photo and description in the link above.) Then again, again, there's a style of reel where the film gets hooked into the centre of the reel and wrapped around from the inside out.

From there the reel goes into the Patterson tank, and development is as normal. I was thinking I maybe should have put an empty reel in the tank as well to keep the loaded one submerged, but it wasn't a problem. This time I didn't warm up the water at all. The basement is almost exactly 18 C, so I compensated by adding a bit of development time.

It turns out that the 35mm version of the film has a slight curl when dried, but it's not a problem. I cut the film into 7 strips of 5, plus the bonus photo. If I should want to print a contact sheet, I'd cut out the one photo that is out of focus, and slide the last photo into that sleeve. I found the hardest part to be cutting the film. There isn't much space between the photos. There's probably better ways of doing this.

I actually ended up editing 29 of the 36 photos, which I think is pretty good. The ones I didn't edit were experimental photos, so I'm not crying about them not working out.

Maybe the big question you have is, will any of these make it into the darkroom to be printed? Probably not. I've got lots of photos I'd print before any of these. I just hope exposing the roll of HP5 that I get some nice photos I'm not ashamed to show other photographers.

The first two remaining photos are from a walk in North Glenmore park. There is a lot more water there now compared to a walk earlier in July. Most of where you see water here was bone dry. Scroll past the language rant to get to those photos.

27. Part of the view from the bridge in photo 28.

28. The bridge over the Elbow River, right where it turns into the Glenmore Reservoir. If it has a bridge number I don't know what it is. During the walk earlier, the river here was so small someone could jump over it.