Can Bill Schwab and Les Mclean handle the strong Canadian Beer

Bob Carnie said:

....Les the silly bugger poured a whole beer on his crotch at one dinner and I had to pretend he was my senile old grandfather , it was soooo embarassing.

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Don't forget the impromptu shower I got from Mr. McLean upon his succumbing to Dinesh humor with a mouthful of water just swigged from a bottle.

Note to self.... never stand in front of Les while he is consuming liquids... At least while Dinesh is in the house.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of the work that you guys did in Toronto. Sounds like it went well.

Jerry

Andrew here,

Just in the midst of recovering from 3 days with Bob and then topping it off with a full day one on one in the darkroom with Les. I'd brought a few negs with me to work with Les but didn't end up needing them as I had produced a number of shots I was really happy with during Bill's course (especially on the 2nd day, credit to Bill's excellent instruction there). Working with Les in the darkroom was incredible, I feel particularly lucky to have had the chance to do it one on one. Thanks to Bob for working with my tighter schedule (due to flying up from Halifax) to enable me to work with Les and then still keeping it on when he couldn't get a larger group together.

Les immediately adjusted to my level of skill in the darkroom and walked me through his method of split grade printing as well as some other darkroom wizardry. Right from the beginning he got me involved with the decision making process rather than dictating it. For the morning he worked on one of my negatives showing me how you build up the print with the split grade printing and with my input on how I envisioned the final print. We ended up with 1 print that was much softer and another that was printed with more hard filtration. I then had a crack at the same neg with the steps we'd come up with to get a chance at it and other than a little bit of problems with my burning in not being as precise as Les' was able to follow the steps quite well. After lunch Les stepped back and had me firmly in the driver's seat (Les in the back cracking the whip all the time) making the decisions and working the printing. Les stepped in at times to help or offer advice but I definitely feel like these were much more my prints.

Thanks to Bob for organizing the weekend and the Bill and Les for being wonderful instructors. I know I'm heading back to Halifax with a whole new set of tools to add to bring into my photography.

Things I learned this past weekend.

If you ever get a chance to take a course by either Bill or Les, you would be doing yourself a disservice to not jump at the opportunity. As great as they are as photographers and printers, they are even better people.

Similarly, if you get a chance to go to Elevator, do it. Bob and Kevin are great guys and the prints on the wall will inspire you to be the best photographer/printer that you can be.

Andrew and John (the Banana) are fun guys to be around. Andrew has a great sense of humour and John likes to take off his pants during darkroom demonstrations. Note to self, next time stand at the back.


And finally the answer to the OP is no. They cannot!

Dinesh said:

Things I learned this past weekend.

If you ever get a chance to take a course by either Bill or Les, you would be doing yourself a disservice to not jump at the opportunity. As great as they are as photographers and printers, they are even better people.

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I completely agree about this one. The weekend would have been worth it just for the courses alone but the fact that they're both such great guys hang around with just made it all the better. Both of them are completely unselfish about sharing what they know about photography as well.

Similarly, if you get a chance to go to Elevator, do it. Bob and Kevin are great guys and the prints on the wall will inspire you to be the best photographer/printer that you can be.

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Yes, it's worth your time to pop down to Elevator just for the sake of looking at the prints hung up throughout the place. Then you deal with Bob and Kevin and the rest of the crew and find out that they're a great bunch on top of things too. I owe a huge thanks Bob for opening up his darkroom for both Bill to do a demo in his workshop and then for me to spend the day working with Les.

Andrew and John (the Banana) are fun guys to be around. Andrew has a great sense of humour and John likes to take off his pants during darkroom demonstrations. Note to self, next time stand at the back.

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Yeah well, let's just say we all know why he's called "The Banana" now.

And finally the answer to the OP is no. They cannot!

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From what I saw, that Nova Scotian brew (Keith's) was too much for the weak-kneed upper Canadian bunch as well. Then again Dinesh, you probably shouldn't start drinking it at 10am.

Dinesh said:

Things I learned this past weekend.

If you ever get a chance to take a course by either Bill or Les, you would be doing yourself a disservice to not jump at the opportunity. As great as they are as photographers and printers, they are even better people.

Similarly, if you get a chance to go to Elevator, do it. Bob and Kevin are great guys and the prints on the wall will inspire you to be the best photographer/printer that you can be.

Andrew and John (the Banana) are fun guys to be around. Andrew has a great sense of humour and John likes to take off his pants during darkroom demonstrations. Note to self, next time stand at the back.


And finally the answer to the OP is no. They cannot!

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That's pants as in trousers LOL?!