Moose on the Prairies
Driving the gravel roads that divide up the fields north of Calgary, I found this moose in the tall grass near the end of August this past summer. She was alone and seemed relaxed laying down under the late afternoon heat. I stayed for a minute, the peaceful scene one to enjoy before retreating to leave her as she was.
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In a misty field…
A humid afternoon slipped away into dusk with peels of fog rolling over the long grass inviting the darkness of night in earlier. This whitetail walked past Desirée and I a few minutes before I took this photograph. When the visibility dropped away, she raised her head to sniff the air. She wasn’t on edge, her tail stayed down, it seemed just a focus on one sense with another being curtailed. Her profile created a beautiful shape and the moment felt calm and intimate.
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A Water Valley trio
These horses were walking slowly alongside one of Water Valley’s backroads. We pulled over and I took a few minutes to compose them and a couple of cows in a few different ways. This was my favorite. The animals were languid on a nice afternoon in the Foothills. This field was beautiful to my eye with green and pale gold sharing space across the uneven ground. I used a small aperture of f/22 to keep the three horses each in sharp focus while separating them from the forest in the background. Beautiful country there. I’ve enjoyed wonderful encounters with great gray owls there. It was nice to enjoy another aspect.
I liked it in black and white too!
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In a sea of prairie green
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Sunset over Springbank fields
Sunset over a field in Springbank west of Calgary.
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Photographing through dawn on the prairies
I spent a morning photographing the sun rising over the prairies west of Calgary on the weekend. In the image above, the alpen glow to the west heralds the sun’s coming approach. When the sun came up, the pink quickly washed out of the sky and painted the eastern flanks of the Rocky Mountains and then these stands of trees that break up this field along Highway 8. I love watching these transitions as colors deepen, fade and change altogether.
Facing a low sun, shadows stretched out long across the snow. I played with those for a bit under the increasingly blue sky before heading home.
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First owl flights in May
Owls don’t care about what day it is, but, on some level I guess I do. I went out this morning when the sun was shining and the day was quickly warming up. I was happy that the first day of May picked up where April left off as I was able to continue spending time with owls. This owl was hunting around a farm field and a horse meadow in Bragg Creek.
This Great gray owl was landing on some strategically placed posts in the middle of the field and successfully grabbed a couple of mice over a short span. I haven’t watched owls hunt on this field before but I will be back as it appears to be a very productive spot for this owl.
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Irricana Dawn
I returned to Irricana recently to look for Snowy owls. I left early and arrived well before night had given much ground to day. Having criss-crossed the backroads west of the town, I have a decent feel for the farmland in the area and took the opportunity to photograph a couple of locations while the clouds were glowing pink ahead of the sunrise.
A lost wallet and a flat tire, both noticed about an hour after the last of these photographs was taken, made me feel like I earned these images a bit more than usual. The wallet had fallen out of my pocket unnoticed when I was at the farmstead above. A fair bit of time spent retracing my stops before finding it undisturbed in the middle of the gravel road. When I picked up the wallet, I noticed the flat rear tire. Along the way to Irricana, I apparently drove over a hardware store as Phil’s Auto in Irricana (very friendly people – thank you for the coffee!) later showed me the 3 inch long screw that had lodged into the tire. The wallet was recovered before I found the first owl and by the time of my appointment at 3 pm, I was happy to have had several good encounters with 5 different Snowies. I will share those soon. These prairie landscape images from a beautiful morning heralded what became one of the more interesting days I have had out on the prairies.
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Autumn sunrise on the prairie
I enjoyed taking a little time earlier in the week to watch a sunrise from a range road on the prairie just west of Calgary.
Autumn brings with it layers of clouds which often stretch across the morning sky and catch wonderful colors before and during the sun’s rise.
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A bull at sunrise
Canon 5DIII and 24mm lens: 1/25th of a second on f/11 and ISO 800
The early morning sky was beautiful this morning. I stopped for a while to watch the clouds move from the pinks and purples to the reds and oranges and then into the yellow and golds. This bull was not impressed by any of that – he was calling from his solo field to the cows in the field across the road. He stared at me at one point and that worked for me.
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A creature of the mist
With the cooler mornings of late August, mist becomes a frequent visitor before dawn in Bragg Creek. This young White-tail stag stared at me from a field near the hamlet which gave me a moment to photograph him surrounded by, and almost a part of, the mist on the weekend on a day that started very close to freezing.
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Prairie storm
So far, spring has come in fits and starts. Over the weekend we had a day long snowstorm on Saturday and then it was warm enough to wear shorts outside on Sunday! Crazy stuff but not too far from normal in April on the prairies.
My son and I were out for the day and I photographed these horses when we were in Springbank, west of Calgary. I appreciated their ignorance of sleet falling and the cold winds.
Christopher Martin Photography 