Happy New Year’s Day
January 1st has been a good, and wonderfully relaxed, start to 2020 for us. The fireworks at the Redwood Meadows community sports field last night did a great job of ushering in the new year. All the best to you and yours in this new year.
The fireworks were great. Thank you to the people involved in the evening’s light show.
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Dalemead dawn
West of the hamlet, Desirée and I watched the sunrise over the frozen prairie. Despite the slightly wicked cold, the beauty of the snowy fields, black tree silhouettes and the deep hues in the sky was overwhelming. The lens was in my trunk so when I put it on, it frosted up. That was partially by design and partially due to a lack of planning earlier in the morning. I loved the haze around the frame that resulted and had a lot of fun shooting with that for a bit.
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Winter forest abstract
Sharing this post is welcomed - but please do not use individual images without permission from Christopher Martin in advance.
A pair on the prairie
I enjoy the backroads on the prairies. This afternoon I found a pair of ravens perched on the peak of this weathered homestead east of Dalemead. When they flew I tried to compose their flight against the field and the house.
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Photography in silhouette
I spend a lot of time photographing on the edges of the day. On this morning, as the winter sun cleared the horizon, I found my shadow watching me from the side of a hay bale.
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Autumn in the trees
It has come too soon but I am enjoying the beautiful colors that fall has brought. Snow is falling this weekend so autumn may be cut short this year – we’ll see.
I’ve had fun playing with longer shutter speeds and moving through the focal length during some of those. Some of the images have an abstract, painterly quality which I love. I still like photographing the changing landscape in more straightforward ways too. Most scenes I end up shooting in a few different ways to see which works in that moment. Here are a few from the past couple of weeks in and around Bragg Creek.
On a side note, it has been a long time since my last post. I have kept shooting but haven’t made time to publish anything for a little over two months. A lot went on through the summer. The biggest change has been falling in love with a wonderful woman. Aside from my children and how they continually amaze me, that has been the highlight of a summer that has absolutely flown by.
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Evening night morning in the Valley of the Ten Peaks
A good friend and I went up to Moraine Lake at the beginning of June. We photographed from dusk into dark, crashed out for a couple of hours and then shot the sunrise. These are a few of the photographs as the time rolled by.
Into the night…
Rising with the sun…
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A walk along Second Beach
When I visited Washington state’s Olympic National Park in April, I visited Second Beach on one of the afternoons. This was one of the first photographs after I exited the trail onto the beach. Shooting into the sun silhouetted most of the elements which helped to isolate these two people as they walked near the water.
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Sea spray and the setting sun
I visited Second Beach on the Olympic Peninsula in April. It was my first visit to this picturesque stretch of the Pacific Northwest. Heavy waves rolled in with sunset and I had a great time framing them amid the sea stacks, along the beach and against the rocks. When the sun was sinking into the water, one wave exploded inside the keyhole. The silhouette of the spray had me imagining figures and forms. It was a cool moment to recall a great evening on the ocean.
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Forest panoramas in a storm
(Please click on any image to open a separate window to see these panoramas in a larger version)
I have been enjoying creating panoramas by merging a number of shots into one wide image. The workshop that I went to on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington recently brought that approach back in to my plans. It’s been a while since I shot them with any regularity. The rainforests there are well into spring and were amazing to photograph for panoramic concepts. Forests have incredible depth, details and patterns and that was a focus while I was in the Pacific Northwest.
When I returned home, a cold weather pattern was knocking around Alberta. When a snowstorm blew in, I headed out to photograph the forest and see if any pano opportunities jumped out. The storm grew into a blizzard. It was cool to have the increasing density of snow as a variable to the images. We’ve had a few really good days in the week afterwards. Before the next one comes in this weekend.
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Port Angeles – the ocean in motion
When I was on the west coast a couple of weeks ago, I spent one morning photographing along the Port Angeles shoreline. It had been a little while since I have been on the ocean and I was hypnotized by the ebb and flow of the waves along the beach. I always am.
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A snowstorm’s abstract
Greedily, Old Man Winter has snuck past Spring once more and released another day-long blizzard across southern Alberta. The snow fell in thick flakes, speckling the sky then blurring the forest as it neared the ground. I’m looking forward to greenery, especially given how lovely Seattle was when I was there last week, but this was a storm which cast a beautiful spell over the landscape west of Bragg Creek.
