Clearing Skies at Sunset
Sunset along the Rocky Mountains when looking west is often worthy of enjoying when possible. I was able to watch this interesting sky develop a few days ago as the daylight slipped away.
Here the sun just slipped behind the ridges of the mountains of eastern Kananaskis. I underexposed this scene to avoid burnt out highights near the sun. I like the resulting detail in the clouds and the golden hue of the image. Eight minutes later, I captured a larger scene of the sunset. The cotton candy texture and beautiful colour in the upper clouds steal the scene in the image below.
One of the last photographs I made was well above the mountains. Here I did not underexpose yielding a brighter scene. This has a heavenly feel to it that I find interesting.
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2010 Favourite Photographs – Landscapes
I photographed a pretty wide variety of landscapes through last year. Here are the ones that, for one reason or another, stand out to me.
A full moon setting over the mountains above Elbow Falls in Kananaskis, Alberta.
Sulphur Mountain and a shrouded Mount Rundle are reflected in the Third Vermilion Lake in the Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada.
The blowing snow, bright sunshine and cool colours showed a lot of the moods of the Canadian Rockies.
Sunset on the Elbow River as it was tightly wrapped in winter’s trappings.
Silhouette of the Rocky Mountains against clouds lit up by the setting sun.
Springbank sunset just west of Calgary, Alberta.
Sunrise over a prairie marsh in Springbank.
A scenic farmstead on the Prairies south of Gull Lake in Saskatchewan.
A storm rolling east out of the Rockies and onto the Albertan Prairies.
First snowfall in Kananaskis at Barrier Lake in September.
A stand of trees long dead cast ghostly reflections in a small lake near Elbow Falls in Kananaskis, Alberta.
A long exposure of the rocks and ocean along Sunset Beach near Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Bagan in Myanmar provided an incredible setting for landscape photography. I was able to enjoy sunrises, sunsets and even shoot from a hot air balloon while I was there in February.
We spent New Year’s Eve at our friends’ home, the Folk Tree Lodge, in Priddis. This was one of my last photographs from 2010 and certainly a favourite of mine.
2010 was a great year. I’m looking forward to this new one.
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Folk Tree for New Year’s Eve
We were invited by Alvise and Paola to enjoy New Year’s Eve at their home on a corner of their Folk Tree Lodge property last night. Very glad that we took them up on the invitation as we joined a small, wonderful group of people for a delicious potluck dinner, skating on a pond with a bonfire in the middle and a steady stream of good conversations.
Paola and Alvise have a very beautiful property just west of Bragg Creek in Priddis and it looked amazing as I wandered the path between the house and the pond. I had to take a few photographs away from the evening.
Thank you to our hosts and the other guests for ending last year on a great note. For those of you who might be looking for a retreat in the Bragg Creek area on the edge of Kananaskis Country in Alberta, Folk Tree is a special place run by a very special family.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
A Winter Scene – Sunset on the Elbow River
On Boxing day the afternoon gave way to evening in a rush of color that pulled me outside, running down the path to the river. I had enough time to get the tripod set up and make a few photographs before the pastel hues evaporated, leaving the dark shades of blue to fight briefly against the night.
This river is the Elbow and it runs down from the Canadian Rocky Mountains, east through forests in Kananaskis and out onto the Albertan Prairie through Springbank. The Elbow River’s source is Elbow Lake, from there it runs through a large section of Kananaskis, past Bragg Creek and enters Calgary at Weaselhead Flats. West of the Calgary Zoo, the Elbow joins the Bow River and they continue eastward joining the South Saskatchewan River and finally entering Hudson Bay. It does not draw as much attention as the Bow River which runs through Banff, Canmore and Cochrane before reaching Calgary. However it hosts many beautiful locations and is where I spend much of my time photographing when I’m outdoors throughout the year.
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Ice and Water Forms at Elbow River
I spent Sunday morning working upstream of the Elbow Falls in Kananaskis. I really enjoyed looking for patterns and shapes in the ice and the water.
I used a macro lens to get close to the ice and a tripod to keep the camera steady during the longer exposures that I used vary the blur of the water.
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
Kananaskis, First Snow
I got out on the Friday morning for an early shoot in Kananaskis and I was met by an inch of snow outside my front door. Rather excitedly, I carried on to the back country and the snow had raised up to two inches off the grass.
I went to the South end of Barrier Lake and walked along the beach looking for images that would convey an autumn snowfall. This was my favourite, taken just off the water across the lake.
It would have been great to get a bit of sunlight this morning but it was very beautiful and quiet. A really wonderful morning up in the mountains.
O’Shaughnessy Falls in Kananaskis along Highway 40 near Barrier Lake.
I’ve driven by this small set of rapids a number of times and this looked like a great morning to stop and look for some different looks to this waterfall.
A bit of a hike up along the stream into the forest, I liked this scene of a lone flower amid the dark trunks and patches of snow on the ground. It has been a strange year weather-wise and this first image in this post seemed to speak to that. Below is a couple of alternative compositions of that scene.
