Last weekend I was touring around Bragg Creek’s back roads in the morning looking for wildlife. I did not have any close encounters but had this great moment where I watched this moose dash across the meadow and into the dormant forest. Moose have a grace of movement that you wouldn’t expect from a huge animal. With the mild winter so far, the grass hasn’t been blanketed by snow which allowed this bull to keep a fast pace and he was gone in a few seconds up a slope that would have taken me a few minutes.
I went down to the Stampede Grounds yesterday with my kids to tour the World of Wheels on its stop in Calgary. When I told Kian that Bigfoot would be crushing and jumping over cars in a hockey rink he was buzzing with excitement.
1/30 seconds, f/8, ISO 1600
I was impressed with the truck’s driver, Kyle Doyle. Driving a huge vehicle inside a hockey rink would be challenge enough. Throw in the jumps, brake stands, racing from end to end and tight cornering and it was a great show to watch.
1/15 seconds, f/13, ISO 1000
1/15 seconds, f/11, ISO 1000
1/250 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 3200
Bigfoot finished the main act with a park on the crumbled automotive heaps – seemed a fitting end to the last of the four shows over the weekend.
1/40 seconds, f/9, ISO 1600
Kezia was a bit ambivalent about the monster truck, the loud engine turned her off a bit, but when the motorcycles came out she got right into it.
1/60 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 1600
As soon as she they started performing stunts, Kezia was mimicking their moves while standing in the seating aisle – with the encouragement of the crowd nearby.
The storm blew over in waves as I trekked around the Upper and Lower Kananaskis Lakes in the Peter Lougheed Provincial Park yesterday. Obscuring the far shoreline first, then moving across the ice and rolling over me. This cycle repeated at both locations and allowed for some moody landscape photographs.
At the Lower Kananaskis there was a stretch of open water below the control station which manages the flow between the two lakes. The patterns along the edge of the ice worked nicely with the distant lines in the forests and mountains.
Away from the water’s edge there was a man ice fishing on the lake. I made this one image of him standing over his fishing hole – the compression of the lens telephoto lens makes him look quite close to the edge but he seemed a safe distance.
Upper Kananaskis Lake is completely frozen over now. The blizzard was at its height when I was there so I waited between waves where I could see across the lake to the rock island and silhouettes of the peaks looming over the west edge of the lake.
Saturday was cold and clear, -19°C and blue sky. It was a perfect morning for a drive and I headed out on the prairies east of Calgary to see what I could find. I ended up working with a stoic, one-eyed snowy owl but along the way I found this weathered barn and weather vane that lured me to stop.
I originally had a black and white image in mind when I was composing this but the color version looks alright too.
Thursday night I was downtown photographing night scenes. Hunched over my camera, concentrating on some abstract composition my attention was torn away by a blur of motion above me. Looking up, I saw a flash of red and then… nothing.
I climbed up a fire escape on a lovely old brick building and that’s when I had a good look at the cause of my distraction. He landed on the flight of stairs above and then leaped over the railing (as seen above).
At this point he was well positioned for an action pose and I managed to take one photo as he was staring at me. A second later and he was scaling another wall up towards the roof top. Keeping up to him without a jet pack, flying surfboard or some other speedy contraption was unlikely so I just stood and watched as he spun a web and swung out of sight.
I went back down the escape and walked around the corner keeping an eye out for the webbed one. I turned around intent on heading up the alley and saw him scaling a brick wall. After clearing the doorway our neighbourhood friend launched upwards into the darkness where I lost him again.
I didn’t see the masked vigilante for a little while and thought he might have gone. I was heading back to my car when I looked back over my shoulder and caught a sliver of his mask peering around a gate entrance. I carried on to my car in one of the city’s underground parkades and was still rather surprised when the man spider ran down a line of parked cars and vaulted over my car. I wish I had captured the whole sequence but I was only able to take one sharp shot.
At that point I was thinking that my chance encounter wasn’t chance. I know photography was one of this particular superhero’s interests but I can’t say whether he was watching me out of curiosity about just what I was photographing or if he thought I may be a villain up to no good. I should have asked, not that it was likely he would have responded. When I pulled out of the garage, I had one last good look at this mysterious fellow.
I wasn’t thinking about it in the moment but, looking at the pictures, I wonder why he wasn’t in full outfit – was he just exercising a little after the day job, the superhero’s equivalent of going out for a stroll? No idea, these and other questions are still puzzling around in my mind. The imagination wanders… it was a very interesting evening.
2011 was a good year for my landscape photography as I got into a variety of beautiful scenes and had the opportunity to create some interesting images. Tonquin Valley and Kaua’i stand out in particular and I also enjoyed working through the seasons on the prairie. Here is a large set of photographs which I was happy to add to my portfolio over the past year.
Pink sunlight streaked across the ceiling of clouds and painted the tips of The Ramparts in Jasper National Park’s Tonquin Valley.
The warm light of late afternoon in the Tonquin Valley wrapped around the mountains and the clouds just ahead of dusk. A polarizer allowed me to play with the reflection and transparency of different parts of Amethyst Lake and I loved how this image ended up.
I seem to have an addiction for this weathered log and this view across the Vermilion Lakes towards Mount Rundle. The hot springs that trickle into the lake open a large hole in the ice in the winter revealing the chaotic patterns of grass, sand and rock underneath.
I’m sure I’ll continue to work in this location again this year.
The Elbow Falls are in Kananaskis not too far from my home in Bragg Creek. I tour up there regularly throughout the year. Photographing the area in winter is a favourite when the ice and snow layer more patterns on the textures in the rock and running water.
I found this interesting chunk of ice just above the falls. I played with the shutter speed until I found a balance that I liked between the movement and energy in the water and the repeating patterns in the ice.
A late snowstorm in my backyard was illuminated by sunlight that broke through the clouds for a minute.
Northern lights lit up the sky north of Bragg Creek in a very unusual way. I was driving back from a late landscape shoot and had to stop and was happy to set everything up again. I had not seen a sky like this before and haven’t since.
A weekend at a friend’s cabin on Buffalo Lake, east of Red Deer, found me on the beach with a chair during a gentle slide into night.
A storm threatening rain and lightning curled and stretched above the prairie in Springbank, west of Calgary, Alberta.
A broken fence caught my eye on one of Bragg Creek’s back roads and led me into this forest which had the best of autumn’s colours on display.
Wedge Pond, along the Kananaskis Trail (Alberta Provincial Highway 40), captured my heart for the month where summer gave way to autumn. The classic shot is with Mount Kidd reflected in the calm water but I found opportunities for beautiful images from many locations all around the lake and the surrounding hills. Another magical spot I’m looking forward to heading back to soon.
There were a few sunrises over the prairies that I was amazed to be in the middle of this fall. The light was delicate and warm, washing over the fields and sharing an incredible glow. Here, in Springbank along Highway 8, the red landscape contrasted beautifully with the blues and purples in the sky.
Frank Lake is near High River and is an important staging ground for bird migrations in the spring and fall. Waiting for one of the flocks to launch off the water, I was enchanted by this abstracted landscape with the steam rising off of the lake and the more subtle elements which define the prairies for me. Namely, clouds, sky, farmsteads and long horizons.
Anticipating that winter would be attacking Alberta with frigid temperatures and heavy snow, we booked a December trip to Hawaii’s garden island, Kaua’i. The winter was, and remains, fairly mild but we had no regrets spending a great stretch of days on the coast, in the ocean and up along the ridges of this wonderful place. The images above and below are from separate sunrises from a stretch of shoreline just north of Kapa’a on Kaua’i's east coast.
Waimea Canyon is called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific and is worthy of as much time as you can spend there. On our way back down from the Kalalau Valley overlook along the Koke’e Road (Highway 550) the clouds rushing across the western slopes of the island were lit up by the evening sun with some light reflecting off of the asphalt for a little extra detail.
On our last evening in Kaua’i, Bobbi and I hiked a little north of Ke’e Beach and enjoyed the many faces of the Na Pali coast leading up to and following sunset.
Almost an hour after sunset, a long exposure revealed the colours still present in the sky over Hanalei Bay and further along the coast towards Bali Hai.
The collision of incoming waves hitting those rebounding off of the vertical cliffs sent sprays of water 60 or more feet into the air. With the sun filtering through the water droplets, a beautiful image was there for the making.
Shortly after the sun set into the ocean, the fading light took on a green hue. I have heard about that but it was the first time I seen it. The light changed from warm yellows and oranges to green quickly. I was very surprised how quickly it changed again to the purple hues of late evening in the tropics.
Thank you for wandering through a few of the places I dug my tripod legs into over the past year.
On Saturday evening, I was combing Bragg Creek’s back roads for a Great Gray Owl I have seen a couple of times lately. I did not find the owl but enjoyed the scintillating blues in the sky contrasting with the bright white clouds. I paused my search to watch the sky and see if any of the clouds picked up the sunset colors once the sun dropped. I was mesmerized by these colors and contrasts and the scene faded to gray and then black in just a few minutes.
I’ve been carving out a little time to review my photography over the past year. It’s been nice to recall some good adventures and revisit some of my favourites from 2011. I spent a fair bit of time sitting in the snow waiting, driving back roads looking and hiking game trails exploring so it was a great year. I crossed paths with a few animals and here are my favourite images from those encounters.
This moose and her calf were grazing along Highway 40 west of Highwood Pass in Kananaskis. She was beautiful and here I was able to make a nice side portrait of her as she watched her young one prancing around.
An early spring hike found me exchanging glances with a large female moose after I heard rustling in this stand of slender branches and saw her a few meters away.
I had some bull moose encounters throughout the year and the hour I walked parallel to this pair in West Bragg Creek near Wild Rose was a highlight.
Where we live we have a lot of opportunity to see white-tailed and mule deer. I photographed many groups and individuals of both over the last year. This white-tailed buck was wary of me at first but after passing his sniff test he returned to his wandering.
The mule deer at the edge of the forest was flanked by another, possibly younger deer, deeper in the woods. They stared at me for a minute before I drove on and they leapt further into the trees.
The Great Gray Owls are present throughout the woods and meadows that I often wander through but they seem to appear only when they want to be seen. I was able to have some long encounters throughout the year and I continue to be amazed by these magical creatures.
I wanted to photograph more bears this year and I spent a lot of time reading about behaviour, habits and their movements through the year. It paid off and I was able to enjoy some very good encounters where they were not threatened by my presence and I was able to photograph them safely.
This grizzly encounter was a surprise. Our group was busy photographing the raw wilderness in the Tonquin Valley on the eastern shore of Amethyst Lake when we noticed this boar walking over the rocks and bushes a couple hundred feet away. He saw us at the same time and though he didn’t seem threatened, he wasn’t interested in getting any closer either. He made a quarter turn and walked along the shoreline away from us.
This black bear cub was feasting in a dandelion meadow in the Kootenay National Park in eastern British Columbia.
These mountain goats were taking a break from their mineral foraging to look over the river valley along the Icefields Parkway in the Jasper National Park.
The warm springs along the Vermilion Lakes in the Banff National Park opened a stretch of water where an American Dipper came to reflect and enjoy a nice bath.
The ripples from this American Coot distorted the reflection of the dark telephone pole above a pond in Springbank.
The Sula sula (Red-footed booby) birds in Kilauea on Kaua’i, Hawai’i were great fliers that were a lot of fun to watch at the National Refuge there.
This last one is just a brief glimpse of a humpback whale that Bobbi and I had on a sail we went on in Kaua’i. I like the abstract aspects of the image overall and it is the source of one of my goals which is to photograph more marine wildlife in the coming year.
I felt sad banishing the runner-up images back to the library without giving them a chance to stretch a bit so I’ve put them into a slideshow here. Have a look at the near misses if you are so inclined. Thanks for taking a stroll through 2011 with me.
Yesterday, I went out for a morning photography tour along the Vermilion Lakes just outside of Banff. I enjoy returning to this area and usually am rewarded by the wildlife, the landscapes or something little thing that draws my eye. I settled into a favourite spot along the second Vermilion Lake where there are some hot springs that seep out of the mountainside, collect into a network of small streams and keep a few pools of water free of the snow-covered sheet of ice that hides the rest of the lake.
Mount Rundle stands directly between the lakes and the point where the sun rises at this time of the year so you need some broken clouds to be in the right place to catch the warm light.
Patience was rewarded on this morning as the clouds were perfect and the sky burned with fiery reds and oranges for a few minutes. It was a great morning to be out on the lakeshore.
