Dawn at the Lion’s Gate Bridge
(as always, please click on any image to open a higher resolution version)
In March, I spent a weekend in Vancouver photographing birds, Granville Market and a few other things with a good friend. On one of the mornings we headed down to Stanley Park around 4:30 AM to see about sunrise. We walked to the seawall along the Burrard Inlet and worked for a while with the lights of North Van across the water.
As dawn came in, we moved slowly towards the Lion’s Gate Bridge and I had a lot of fun working with this dominant structure. I was very happy that they left the bridge lights on right through sunrise. I used to spend a lot of time exploring the park when I went to school in Vancouver but this was one of only a few times that I have photographed there. It is a beautiful place to spend time – with or without a camera.
With morning came the runners that pile on miles along the pathways year round. I enjoyed working them into a few photographs before packing up for breakfast.
Sunrise over Mount Rundle
The second sunrise at Vermilion Lake this weekend produced some wonderful images this weekend. There was a break between clouds and mountain peaks farther east so the clouds above Mount Rundle and the lake were painted with this amazing light. One of the best mornings that I have had in the Banff National Park.
The hot springs that seep into the water along the chain of lakes allow for a few pools without ice to remain open through the winter. These pools pull many photographers to their shores and this morning was no exception. It’s always interesting how quiet these moments become even with five other photographers nearby. The better the light gets, the quieter it usually becomes. It was silent at the peak of this morning’s sunrise.
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Backyard Chickadees
It was a sunny morning today so I spent some time photographing the Black-capped chickadees that live in our backyard. There are several of them that share the bird seed we put out with a large flock of Common redpolls and a few Red-breasted nuthatch through the winter.
As from a couple of weeks ago with their redpoll cousins, the chickadees were elusive to capture nicely in flight. But it was a very nice time with my backyard neighbours.
A couple from the morning.
I like my backyard, it’s a cool place.
Calgary’s cityscape at dawn
The sky to the east was beautiful this morning. I had a chance to photograph from a good elevation which let me see the horizon towards the east and the downtown cityscape in the other direction. I loved the explosion of color in the clouds preceding the sunrise and those added nice reflections in some of the glass facades of Calgary’s prominent buildings.
Winter landscape: fire in the sky
The glow before sunrise caught bands of clouds above the forests in West Bragg Creek. With the temperature below -20°C, it was warming to see this early fire in the eastern sky. I enjoyed taking a break from following moose tracks for a few minutes to watch the morning arrive.
Spirits on the beach
Ahead of a stormy sunrise, people were moving along the beach, talking with others and taking photographs. I used a 20 second exposure (with f/16 at ISO 200) with the intent to blur the water and the clouds. When I saw how the people took on an ethereal quality in varying amounts, dependent on how long they stayed in place during the exposure, I played with that idea for a while.
A veiled sunrise along Nukoli’i
(please click on the image for a higher resolution version)
The first sunrise of this visit to Kaua’i was spectacular. I watched the clouds retreat towards the horizon under the moonlight before dawn and when the day started to come, they were a heavy veil stretching up from the ocean. A few minutes after sunrise, the sun shone red through a thin spot in the clouds. For the next twenty minutes the sun broke free here and there while the waves kept crashing in and the sky steadily brightened. Nukoli’i Beach is a long stretch of sand along Kaua’i's eastern shore. At this time of the year, the sun rises directly off the beach. When the clouds cooperate, the mornings can be exceedingly beautiful. This morning was exactly that.
Winter at Lake Minnewanka
Lake Minnewanka has a beautiful shoreline on its southeastern edge. I have not spent much time along the rocks there but a few days ago I was there for about an hour in the morning and really liked the area. The ice coating the rocks where there were gaps in the snow worked in nice contrast to the stormy skies crowding over the ridges of Inglismaldie on the far side of the water.
With a horse at sunrise
This morning I hiked up a hill for the sunrise. As the light started to brush the clouds stacked above the eastern flank of the Kananaskis mountains, a horse came up close to where I was set up. She nuzzled around for a bit but I didn’t have any carrots with me. Just after turning back towards her colt, she paused for a few seconds and I framed her against the bright horizon.
Gold at Elbow Falls
(please click on this image to link to a higher resolution file)
Clouds blocked the early pink light at down this morning but as the color went to gold, nice breaks higher off the horizon let the sunlight in. The light reflected on the water and the look of the rocks under the water made a very pretty scene.
Sunrise along the Cowboy Trail
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The Cowboy Trail runs through Bragg Creek and is lined with evergreen forest on either side of the town. On the weekend I was heading out to Wild Rose to see about some of the birds there. I left home as the morning colour was coming into the sky. I was not planning to shoot the sunrise but within a few minutes of driving down Highway 22X, the road’s less evocative other name, I pulled over and spent a few minutes watching the clouds soak in the warm light. It was an easy diversion and a great start to the day.
Emerald Lake Landscapes
We stayed one night in the lodge on Emerald Lake in British Columbia so I was able to be on the water’s edge well ahead of sunrise the next morning. In the deep blues of the early morning, I could make out some heavy clouds in the sky so I was uncertain if a fiery sky was coming. The mountains that ring the eastern edge of the lake were streaked with thick fog rising off of the water and mixing with the clouds.
The sunlight was held up by a bank of grey so the drama never painted the sky however the details in the canoes, the bridge and along the shore as well as a slow shutter to drag out the sky and its reflection made for an enjoyable scene to work with.
I’m looking forward to getting back to this literal jewel of the Yoho National Park near the town of Field. A glowing sky of pinks, reds and oranges would be wonderful to see in this valley and reflected in the lake.
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A screaming hawk in Springbank
This Red-tailed hawk is often perched on one of the telephone poles which line a gravel road along Highway 8, west of Calgary. This morning I turned off to see if I could find her. I did and she wasn’t overly pleased to see me. As soon as I stopped near her pole-top perch, she took flight. I felt like I stole this one before she flew further down the road. I was happy with this image and didn’t want to harass her further so I left her alone.
Coyote along the water in Wild Rose
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A coyote checked me out for a minute while I was waiting for birds to start fishing. It watched me for only a few seconds before retreating away from the lake’s edge.
Morning dew on a spider web
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I noticed one of the first hints of summer fading when I was out in West Bragg Creek this morning. The night air has cooled noticeably over the past week and today the dew had coated the leaves, flowers and grasses across the countryside. This spider web did not escape and I moved around so that the sun was lighting it up from behind. The backlighting on the threads made it glow. It looked like an elaborate, if somewhat haphazardly designed, piece from a weaver’s loom. Summer should run on for another month and a half or so but this is one of those early signs that fall is somewhere over the horizon, not so very away.
Swimming in the Okanagan
This duck was out for an early swim across the water from Kelowna. Me and the bird were the only creatures moving around near the shore at that time. The ospreys, eagles, grebes, loons and a muskrat stirred soon after. But, for a few minutes, this one duck was sole proprietor of the inlet.
Moraine Lake – a night and a day in the Valley of the Ten Peaks
Moraine Lake is one of the Canadian Rockies most iconic landscapes. I have been there many times and it continues to share new magic with each visit. I was up on top of the rock pile with a couple of good friends for a quiet evening and we returned a few hours later for a cloudy sunrise. Both times presented views of the Valley of the Ten Peaks and the lake that I had not seen previously. I enjoyed them all immensely.
The evening watched as the clouds ran towards the horizon leaving open sky above the peaks that loom above the lake and curl west down the valley. The soft light near sunset looked beautiful where it touched the peaks and provided a very subtle contrast to the deepening blues and greens that ushered in the night.
When I was crossing the stream where the lake most visibly drains out, the bright colors in the landscape’s palette had been wrung out so I was drawn to the speck of orange upstream. I liked how this small information shelter’s log frame stood defiantly against the gloom. At this point, some great clouds had stretched out above the water and they provided an abstract mirror of the river’s folds as revealed in this 13 second exposure.
When we returned around 5am, the clouds had staked out all four corners of the sky. We watched breaks in the sky expectantly for more than an hour, taking us through sunrise without any light painting the peaks or the clouds curling around them. We were joined by a hopeful couple from Japan and two Chinese ladies on top of the moraine. Quiet chattering among the separate groups along with the occasional shutter click marking the time shuffling by. It was nice, not the dramatic alpen glow or early light that I have seen before but another interesting side of this valley.
Around 6:30 a large break in the clouds developed in the east and 15 minutes later the first shafts of sunlight hit the mountains. The light was still pretty warm and the drama I had been looking for unfolded for the next 45 minutes before the sun had risen too high for my landscape photography tastes. I enjoyed watching the color in the lake swirl and change as the house lights of the day came up. With stray clouds still wrapping peaks occasionally and the sunlight marching down the forest side of the lake, there was a lot to watch and to photograph.
Packing up, I retraced my steps down the path back towards the lodge. Crossing the river once more, I was drawn in again. This time the wet rocks were sparkling in the sunshine and I found the light on Yamnee (Mount Bowlen), Tonsa and Sapta (Mount Perren) particularly attractive. Breakfast was calling my friends (and me too – if I had been listening) and it was a good final image to complete this time with the lake, the valley and these wonderful peaks.
Great Gray Owl – Flight through the open woods
(please click on the images for a higher resolution version)
The last week has held a series of great encounters (and here) with one of my favourite animals, the Great Gray Owl (Strix nebulosa). Through the course of these moments, I have been able to make some in flight images that I’m really happy with. I have photographed this same owl for the past four years. I have photographed it in all seasons but sometimes several months have gone between sightings. So far, this May has exceeded even my most out of reach expectations.
I had a gentleman express some concern via Twitter regarding me spending that much time following the owl. I strive to not impact all of the animals that I photograph and I feel I am successful at this. Particular to this owl, I know where its nest is but I have never ventured close to that stand of trees because that represents risks that I do not have the knowledge and experience to be sure I will avoid (like driving the mother away from the nest, stressing the owlets, etc.). I do not use blinds or hide from these owls – I make sure they see me and know where I am at all times. I have spent a lot of time learning what owls like to perch on and where they like to scout from.
I try to use this knowledge to anticipate a spot where an owl may choose to fly to and launch an attack from. In the open meadow and mixed forest settings I usually find owls in, they have many options and I select one that I think they may choose. It’s a bit like laying down a bet, if they fly my way, I’m in luck. If they choose one of the myriad other options, I may be too far away or just not in a good location for photography. I do not follow right behind the owl – it makes for many shots of them flying away which aren’t what I am looking for. I stand a few yards away from a perch I think they may like and wait. When they fly away, I may stay there and see if the owl comes back or I may move to another location to see if they go there. Either way, I don’t chase the owl and to me, that helps to allow the owl to continue its activities (hunting, watching, preening, eating, etc.) uninterrupted.
With this owl, several times of late I have set up my tripod in a location more than a hundred yards away from the bird and, after some time – up to an hour later, the raptor has flown in my direction and landed within ten feet of me. That is an incredible experience and I strongly believe it is due to the comfort level the owl has with my presence. During the encounter when these images were all taken, the owl stayed beside me as it scanned the meadow for about 15 minutes. When it left, it dove on the far side of the gravel road and came away with a field rodent of some type.
When it was close, I used the long telephoto lens I had attached to take a couple of portrait shots. Rarely have I had a better model. Two days later, on the holiday Monday, I spent some more time with this owl on an open meadow about a mile south of this location in West Bragg Creek.
Prairie Landscapes: Fog in the Foothills
Driving in the dark before dawn the fog was thick and slowed us down a bit. As the light came up we came to the edge of the fog, near the Sibbald Creek Trail underpass on the Trans-Canada Highway west of Calgary. We were on a dirt back road and drove up a small hill to get some separation from the wall of fog blocking the horizon.
It was fun to work with the challenging light and minimalist elements in the landscape.
Prairie Landscapes: An autumn sunrise at Lake Newell
We were on the road for much of this weekend driving to Shaunavon, Saskatchewan for some family business. To break up the drive there and back, we stayed just outside of Brooks on Thursday and Friday night. We spent both nights at the Lakeshore Bed & Breakfast which backs onto the northern shore of Lake Newell – a lake that family friends used to take me boating on when I was 4! I have scattered memories of those days but I remember the massive number of birds that summered there so I was eager to see what I would find when I got out before dawn on Saturday morning. As we are halfway through October and winter is one storm away, I was not surprised when I felt the biting cold carried off of the water and across the beach. With ice on the car windows, I took that as a cue to layer up so I headed down to the beach decked out for an Arctic expedition.
It was about 6:30 when I started photographing and I started with just a faint line of colour to the east. With the sky brightening quickly, I kept reducing the length of my exposures to hold the intensity of the orange glow pretty consistent across the images I made over the next hour. Starting with two minute exposures (f/11 and ISO 400), I was down to 1.3 seconds (f/16 at ISO 100) by 7:30.
As dawn approached, I started to see more of the features around that part of the lake. We had arrived late on Thursday night, left early on Friday and returned in darkness again that night so I had not done any scouting of the shore before Saturday morning. Not ideal for planning but it was interesting to see shapes of trees, rocks, buildings and islands separate from the blackness. By 7:30, there were three things that had grabbed my attention and pulled the type of images I was working on in a different direction. Steady flights of gulls and ducks flew in front of the eastern sky and I could see hundreds of birds all gliding towards an inlet several hundred meters ahead of me. The cold air was rolling over the lake producing a steam that started gently but had increased to an endless rolling fog that would continue until well after sunrise. The third item I first thought was a tower as I walked towards the steam and the increasing congregation of birds but realized it was a lighthouse built on a small island at the mouth of the inlet to assist boaters sailing back to the marina in darkness during the summer months. The birds, the steam and the lighthouse were all in the same place so it was an easy decision to walk over there.
With the sun rising I worked with the lighthouse and shoreline in silhouette against the bright sky.
When the sun cleared the trees I worked several different compositions including this one below and the first photograph in this post.
Once the sun was up, the steam was rising higher and I was able to isolate these two elements against the clean background created. It was a great morning to play with different approaches and try to create a range of images across the shoot.
Lake Newell is a major birding lake on the prairies and I’m looking forward to returning next spring when the pelicans, cormorants and terns who summer there return and are joined by loons, four types of grebes and all manner of ducks and geese. As it was, for a late fall morning on the prairie, I had a great time there. The warm shower, hot coffee and delicious breakfast were the final pieces to a really good start to the day.
Rocky Mountain Landscapes: Wedge Pond
I have been spending a fair amount of time in Kananaskis Country as autumn has taken hold across the Rockies in Southern Alberta. A couple of mornings I have spent daybreak on the shoreline of Wedge Pond just off Highway 40 a few kilometers south of the Nakiska Ski Resort. Before the sun rises high enough to hit Mount Kidd’s ridges, the whole mountain glows red in the pre-dawn light.
After only a couple of minutes, the sunlight reaches over The Wedge and Mt. McDougal to Kidd and then it quickly runs down the mountainside as the sun climbs into the sky.
The image above with the sun drawing a red band along the top of the mountain was from September 5th where all the trees skirting the pond were still in summer green. The first two images were taken just under three weeks later. A couple of cool days got the seasonal change kickstarted and the transformation to yellow and orange was complete in just a few days.
Prairie Landscape: Red light over the fields
The sunrises have been incredible for the past week – beautiful light, textured clouds and great colors both in the sky and in the land as the summer gives way to autumn. This morning was no exception. In this image I put my back to the rising sun and photographed the land as the early red glow lit up the fields in Springbank, west of Calgary, Alberta.
A Weathered Truck on the Prairie
I was exploring the country roads that divide up the fields along the prairie west of Calgary and found this old Ford 350 farm truck long since abandoned overlooking a river valley. The truck looked like it had been left where it finally broke down, just past a cattle guard on a dirt track that led down to an old farmstead.
With the deep blue sky of the early morning, the weathered reds and oranges of the cab and the hood made a nice contrast. I liked working in the white line on the horizon where the Rocky Mountains are still covered with snow. I will be back to this lonely Ford again soon to work in some star trails and light painting. When the new green grass comes in, I’ll return to work with the three strong colors (two primaries – red and blue, and one secondary – green) as they will allow for some dynamic compositions by varying the amount of each color in a frame. A great subject to find and I suppose it will be returning to work after having had at least a few years rest.
In the image below, I de-saturated the sky to emphasize the color in the truck (both the body and the rust on the bed’s frame. It creates an interesting feel to this image as the relationship between the truck and the surrounding environment is different.
In this final picture from this set, I walked down towards the valley so that the sun’s position relative to the truck changed from behind and streaming over my shoulder to behind the truck backlighting the truck and throwing a lot of reflected light towards the camera. The washed out color that resulted allowed for an image very different from the others.
Downtown Train: Centre Street Station
The city was still fairly dark when I was downtown early on Wednesday. I dragged the shutter, using long exposures mixed with some panning to capture the motion of the commuter trains coming into and heading out of the core. Many of the trains were sparsely populated with passengers with the rush of people yet to start building. This afforded the opportunity pick out individual riders and follow them through the exposure to give the illusion of freezing the person while surrounding them with movement.
The station matched the trains at that hour – both were pretty quiet.
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