Monday: A Day For Arts & Letters

Monday’s adventure would seek Kathleen and I once again cross the harbour into Halifax. This time, we would pay a visit to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

(And keep shopping for books.)

I had never been to the art gallery and Kathleen had not visited since 2017 after she returned from a job in British Columbia, so it was definite on our list for this vacation.

The AGNS is probably best known for its significant collection of Maud Lewis paintings, as well as the house she lived in. This section was easily the most popular when we visited, and it seemed that many of the visitors were only interested in that particular exhibit.

While it was an enjoyable exhibit, it’s a bit of a shame that we found very few other visitors in the remainder of the gallery, since there were a number other great exhibits. In particular, I enjoyed Oluseye: Negro Crossing, Ta’n A’sikatikl Sipu’l (Confluence), and Realism’s Reach.

Once we were finished with our visit, we paid a quick visit to the gift shop (it’s a rule that we must visit the gift shop of any museum or gallery before we leave), and headed toward Spring Garden for books and a break.

Since I’m in search of a medium-sized fabric purse, we stopped in at Black Market and Elsie’s Consignment, but unfortunately came up empty. As it’s less of a need-need and more of a want-need, I wasn’t too disappointed!

As for our continued book shopping, we stopped by The Bookmark, which Kathleen remembers well from her days at Kings. After a fairly lengthy browse, I once again found myself unaccompanied by literature. Kathleen was much luckier!

Since it was about lunch, we stopped at a large coffee chain for a little snack and beverage, and continued down to the Old Burying Grounds, so we could enjoy the shade and make a few photos, finishing off the roll.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Update: Having scanned the photos I made in Lunenburg with the same camera, I think I can conclude that the camera’s meter is out by a stop or so, leading to under-exposure.

It seemed fine for the two rolls I made before we left, but all four rolls I made with it on this vacation are under-exposed. The battery check seems fine.

Since I have so many working cameras from the 1970s (no other Canons though) and only really use the AE-1 for nostalgia purposes, I think I will just formally retire it.

Unfortunately, one of my post-vacation development habits has been to mess up at least one thing. Preferably two. After Toronto and Hamilton, for example, I managed to overdevelop a few rolls.

In this case, I managed to under-develop both of September 15th’s rolls of Tri-X. I’ve developed Tri-X in HC-110 *many* times and have never really had any problems with it, but when I pulled it out of the tank after nearly seven minutes at 22C, I saw that it was thin.

I tried to get the best I could from scanning and editing, but the scanner’s not going to get information from where it does not exist.

No real lesson (I might have misread the thermometer or agitated too gently), but the tension between “get vacation rolls developed sooner” and “mix a new batch of D-96” broke toward the former.

It could have been worse: I was clearly more motivated by art appreciation and book shopping than photo-making that day!