Upper Kananaskis Lake image featured on National Geographic’s Daily Dozen Website
This image of a summer sunrise at Upper Kananaskis Lake in the Peter Lougheed Provincial Park has been selected as one of National Geographic’s Daily Dozen for October 5th.
The yellow border is a siren call for many photographers – and certainly is for me. I have had several images published on National Geographic’s websites but the novelty never wears off so it’s a great start to the day!
There is voting on each day’s twelve images that are selected by one of the National Geographic editors. The image which receives the highest number of votes has the potential to be published in the National Geographic magazine. If you do check out the today’s Daily Dozen, have a look at the images and vote for the one that you like best. I really love Nguyen Tat Thang’s photograph of mist and fog over the city of Dalat in Vietnam.
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A window of sunlight
As a storm cleared out of the Bow Valley, the clouds rose off the floor and climbed over the Massive Range. Here, the sun lit up one of the Brett Mountain’s ridges for a moment.
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A step towards winter: morning at Moraine Lake
I spent the morning at Moraine Lake today. A cold front swept in last night and when I caught my first glimpse of the valley when I drove up, the snow line was visible amid the layers of forest, rock and cloud.
At the lake, daybreak started cold with a steady drizzle of rain. The blue water’s hue varied as the amount of light let through by the clouds changed. I enjoyed the morning with the whole valley changing steadily.
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Sunset across the prairies
Fuji X100S with fixed 23mm lens: 1/45 of a second at f/11 on ISO 800
A few days ago, the clouds were anchored along the eastern edge of the Rockies all afternoon and I was not sure how the sunset would develop. Well, I guess I was sure that the winter sun would go down early and fast but what the light would do was the question.
Fuji X100S with fixed 23mm lens: 1/70 of a second at f/11 on ISO 800
I found myself on the edge of Springbank, west of Calgary, at 5:30 and the clouds had stretched east across the prairies and were catching and filtering the rich glow from the sun now hidden behind the mountains.
Fuji X100S with fixed 23mm lens: 1/50 of a second at f/11 on ISO 800
It was a scene that didn’t require much input from me to create images. I did like the reflections on my car’s glass and hood so that provided an opportunity to play around a bit.
Fuji X100S with fixed 23mm lens: 1/60 of a second at f/11 on ISO 800
Fuji X100S with fixed 23mm lens: 1/40 of a second at f/8 on ISO 1600
Bobbi and I are off to Sedona, Arizona tomorrow for a week – this landscape session provided a nice warm-up for the spectacular red rock scenery I’m looking forward to photographing down there.
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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.
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Canadian Rockies Landscapes: A Kananaskis Rainbow
My wife and I took the children for a morning drive along Highway 40 through Kananaskis this morning. This rainbow followed us in from the edge of the Bow Valley Parkway into Kananaskis and along the peaks of Heart Mountain, Grant McEwan Pea and Mt. Lorette. With the clearing storm clouds still dark the rainbow really stood out against the sky.
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Canadian Rockies Landscapes: The Ramparts of Tonquin Valley
I was on a horse for 6 hours last week to travel into the Tonquin Valley west of Jasper in the Canadian Rockies. I was working with a great group of people on a photography tour and we had a lot of fun (that dimmed a bit when the snow and rain were pelting us for the last two hours of the ride but spirits returned when we got into camp). The mountains on the western side of the valley are collectively known as The Ramparts. They rise straight up from the edge of the two lakes in the valley, Amethyst Lake and Moat Lake, and are spectacular.
The first evening and the next day we had overcast skies which reinforced the forbidding nature of the peaks. These images are from my first two sessions on the lakeshore getting familiar with the landscape.
Framing the peaks with the rocks provides a sense of the area and with the beautiful lichens add nice color to the scene.
The following two days that we stayed in the Tonquin Valley, the weather picked up pace, changing from snow to rain to sun steadily. The resulting light played wonderfully with the landscape and I look forward to sharing those images in the next couple of posts.
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Bow Valley Trail Mountain Sheep
A large group of ewes were walking along this ridge with a gang of frisky youngsters in tow. A bit further down the road were 12-15 rams that looked to have separated from this group as they were grazing on the south side of the highway. Maybe they were sneaking away for some guy time. This is around the time lambs are born but I didn’t see any really small ones here. Not sure if they will be born soon or if they have been already and their mothers are keeping them in more remote spots for now.
These two younger lambs did not have the sure-feet and confidence of their more mature brethren which made their traverse of this steep, jagged part of the rock below the ridge an interesting walk to follow.
There are a number of great locations to see Bighorn Sheep when heading into the Rocky Mountains from Calgary. The place where I made these pictures is one of the most accessible: it is a long stretch of the Bow Valley Trail between Exshaw and Canmore. The sheep can be frequently seen right beside the road, up the mountain slopes on the scree or, more dramatically, on the cliffs that loom 60′ above the road just north of Lac des Arcs.
This ram came up a few minutes after the herd of ewes and lambs had gone. He was a beautiful animal and we loved watching him stride across the rocks. This ended an incredible day on a fine note after having seen a herd of elk, a moose, a Barrow’s Goldeneye, a grebe, a mating pair of osprey, several hawks and a bald eagle between sunrise and sunset.
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Elbow Falls: stars and starlight
I went up to Elbow Falls to see if the aurora borealis wanted to come out and play. Recently I have been dreaming of images of the falls with the northern lights reflecting off of the water and casting an unusual glow on the land. So, I sat on a snow-covered boulder for a couple of hours after sunset waiting. The ionosphere was quiet while I was there and I didn’t see any trace of the lights (I checked AuroraMax the next day for the night’s activity and things picked up around 11:30, an hour after I left my perch above the river). However, the sky fading into night was beautiful to watch and when the stars emerged from the thin haze above the valley they were brilliant. Here, Betelgeuse is the orange star above the three stars that form Orion’s Belt and the large star above the ridge is Canis Major.
With time on my hands waiting, I kept busy photographing the river from a couple of spots and shooting the sky. Two great subjects to work with. In the image above, a high ISO and wide aperture setting allowed for a relatively short exposure in the darkness which kept the stars from tracing their march across the sky while allowing the water and clouds to stretch and blur. The grain in the image doesn’t work for some people but I like it here and I chose to leave most of it in during the processing.
Turning my back to the falls, I was facing east out of the mountains towards Calgary. The urban glow was faint to the human eye but I tried a long exposure and was struck by the colors and textures captured by the haze and wispy clouds. I played around with settings trying to get as many of the stars as possible to be visible as they created a great pattern amid the colorful sky.
So, I’ll be back up at Elbow Falls again to watch for the northern lights soon. The peak of the sun’s current active phase if forecasted to be in 2013 so there should be great opportunities to realize at least a few of the visuals rolling around in my head.
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Edges of the day at Elbow Falls
I have been up to Elbow Falls in Kananaskis a couple of times over the last while. It is a beautiful spot and it had been a few months since I spent any serious time up there with my camera so I’ve enjoyed these outings immensely.
This image was made well after sunset using a tripod, a long exposure and a bit of light painting on the water. I went crazy over the moonlight reflecting in the water, it has such an incredible tone to it.
30 seconds, F/4 at 10pm on August 20th
I took the following photograph this morning with the falls at my back, looking east towards the brightening sky. I waited to see how the morning light would develop ahead of the rising sun and was rewarded with some clouds that moved in from the west and caught the early light.
2 1/2 seconds, F/16 at 6:40 am on September 4th
Christopher Martin Photography 