If you’re looking for more rigs, check out the master drilling gallery here.
For the next four days (Nov. 30-Dec. 3) I am running a sale: 15% off all Panther Drilling prints. This includes Rigs 1, 2, 3 and 4. (Discount does not include shipping). You can order normal photo prints, canvases, metal prints (which are AWESOME) or even a coffee mug. The coupon code is: Panther
Do you have a rig you’d like me to profile in my 12 days of Christmas? Put your requests in the comments on my Facebook page. Don’t forget to share, and scroll down to see the other Rigs of Christmas. If you recognize any of your buddies, please share.
On the fourth day of Christmas, the toolpush gave to me… Panther Drilling Rig 2.
This rig was working really close to the U.S. border at the time. The pictures with the numerous pumpjacks are significant. That’s because that one rig, Panther Rig 2, punched all those holes.
The Panther Drilling Rig 2 gallery can be found here.
If you’re looking for more rigs, check out the master drilling gallery here.
For the next three days (Nov. 28-Dec. 1) I am running a sale: 15% off all Panther Drilling prints. This includes Rigs 1, 3 and 4. (Discount does not include shipping). You can order normal photo prints, canvases, metal prints (which are AWESOME) or even a coffee mug. The coupon code is: Panther
Do you have a rig you’d like me to profile in my 12 days of Christmas? Put your requests in the comments on my Facebook page. Don’t forget to share, and scroll down to see the other Rigs of Christmas. If you recognize any of your buddies, please share.
On the 12th day of Christmas, the toolpush gave to me, 12 different drilling rigs.
I had a hare time figuring out how to wrap this up with so I decided to pluck some from my travels, where I will stop on the side of the road and get a shot, as well as some other miscellaneous projects in various stages of completion. In this collection you will find:
One Alliance, one Panther, one Advance, one Stampede, one Savanna, three Nabors, three CanElson, and rig one we found in the foothills just as the sun was going to start going down. I have no recollection of what it was. It was orange, near Rocky Mountain House or Drayton Valley. Either way it had a nice fence.
See if you can figure out which is which, and put the company (and maybe rig number) in the comments under each picture.
Several of these pictures have found there way onto walls in the form of large canvases. Two are in Western Star Inns & Suites lobbies and one is in the mayor of Estevan’s office. If one of them catches your eye for a print, let me know via personal message or email brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net.
I hope everyone enjoyed this little project. I hope do do it again next year, but a little earlier, before the printing lab deadline.
If you haven’t had a chance to see all the 12 Rigs of Christmas, you can see them on the Brian Zinchuk Publishing Facebook page or my website at www.zinchuk.ca.
Merry Christmas to all the riggers, and to all the company men, a good night.
On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Panther Drilling Rig 1.
Panther Rig 1 was shot during the same frigid February week that Precision Drilling Rig 120 was. Indeed, they were operating within site of each other, about 4 miles apart, north of Macoun. This was my very first winter shoot of a rig, and man, was it cold. I have much better boots now in part as a result of this shoot.
This was also the first rig where I got the idea to catch a picture of the rig sign on the way in.
When I first came in Estevan in 2008, Panther was a 2-rig company. Now they are a four-rig company, as are Red Dog and Betts, with Stampede and Crusader at 3. I get the feeling 4 rigs is a comfortable place to be.
My 12 Rigs of Christmas is winding to a close, only two more to go. If anyone has a request, now is the time to let me know in the comments on my Facebook page.
The photo printing lab strongly recommends that orders be in by Dec. 8 in order to be sure they make it for Christmas, so I am accelerating my “12 Rigs of Christmas.”
What do you buy a guy who as all the toys and works in the patch?
How about a gorgeous wall print of their favorite rig? Over the past several years, I have photographed most of the locally owned rigs in southeast Saskatchewan, including rigs from Betts Drilling, Red Dog Drilling, Panther Drilling, Stampede Drilling and Vortex Drilling. There’s even an occasional Savannah, CanElson and Precision, too!
In that vein, I am presenting the 12 rigs of Christmas. Next up: Panther Drilling Rig 4, which was photographed just north of Estevan, on its first hole. It was nice and shiny as a result. To order find a picture just right for you, click here.
But don’t wait for your particular rig to come up. They can all be found here.
You can order any size, from tiny up to 40×60 inches, so there’s something for every budget.
Until Dec. 11, there is a 15% coupon on all Panther Drilling prints. This includes Rig 1, 2, 3 and 4. Enter coupon code: Panther
(HOWEVER, please noted orders should be in by Dec. 8 to be sure they will make it here by Christmas. There may be a rush delivery option, but I’m not sure.)
You can order prints off my website, perfect for delivery for Christmas. Just click on the green “Buy Photos” They can be printed as gallery wrap canvases, metal prints, or even on coffee cups. The turnaround for almost all these orders in 1-3 business days. Allow for shipping from California, where the lab is located.
It’s taken a lot longer than I had planned, but I was finally able to deliver the two largest canvases I have produced to date. Originally this was going to be one 8 foot by 2 foot canvas, but I eventually ended up making two 8 foot by 3 foot canvases, one highlighting Panther Drilling’s four rigs, and the second highlighting the men and the work that they do.
I had done several concepts a long time ago, but they weren’t so sure about them, and honestly, that was probably a good thing, because revisiting the whole project from a blank page ended up in a much better product.
The rig canvas was the biggest challenge – the four rigs were shot over the fall, before the snow, and winter, with entirely different lighting and weather conditions. How could I make it all work?
Finally I came up with the idea of one side being the fall, and then transitioning to winter. Rig 4, on the left, would provide much of the working material, and then Rig 3 and 2 would be painstakingly cut out and pasted onto the blue sky. Since I had to do Rig 3 twice, it ended up being about 10 hours of editing. That included going pixel by pixel through every wire and brace on the derrick, cutting away the white sky that it was shot against.
The canvases were a challenge to stretch, which has me strongly leaning towards a specialized 120 inch stretching machine in the near future.
Delivery meant using the ENTIRE back of my recently acquired Ford Expedition, with all the seats folded flat. I had built a special crate for such deliveries, but the SUV worked out well.
Printing canvases of this size turned out to be a proof-of-concept for another, even bigger, project I am working on. Details should be out in the coming months.
Panther was very patient in waiting for the delivery of these pieces, and they look amazing in their recently re-finished office.
As Panther’s office manager Nikki said, “It looks like a drilling company office now.”
Brian Zinchuk Publishing 