Cold coyote crossing
One of the many short blizzards that have been part of this spring’s personality caught this coyote’s passage through this field. She didn’t look particularly excited about the chilly wind or the snow that it carried down from the mountains. I appreciated how beautiful this animal was framed in the layers of this scene. For her part, a brief, disapproving glance was her only acknowledgement of our shared moment. After a few seconds, she sauntered into bushes ahead of her. I hoped she had a den to shelter in nearby.
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Trees taking a stand at sunset
My lady and I went out for a drive at dusk a couple of nights ago. After a drab, overcast day, the clouds cleared before the sun fell behind the mountains. The sunlight felt warm and made everything it touched glow. We drove over the rolling hills that are split by Lower Springbank Road west of Calgary and watched night soak in to the east after the sunset behind us. Short of the city we turned around and retraced our path. This stand of trees on one of the hills traced its silhouette against the clouds and the sky behind.
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A Subtle Aurora
At the end of May Desirée, Karen and I chased the Northern Lights late into the night. It was cloudy in Bragg Creek so we headed west looking for open sky and active auroras.
It was not a powerful geomagnetic storm but cast some beautiful pastels in sky and onto the clouds. I’m never disappointed whenever I get to watch to watch them dance.
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Water Valley dawn
On a trip to Water Valley a couple of weeks ago, I raced to find something interesting for the sun to silhouette as it rose above the prairies. These trees, still weeks away from any leaves emerging fit the bill very nicely. It was one of the prettiest mornings I’ve enjoyed in quite a while.
My favourite version was the wider view with the deep blue of the sky above in it. However, the tighter shot with the sun just above the trees and a color palette of gold, copper and bronze was a close second.
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Skyfall
Desirée and I caught the sunset on the first day of the new year this evening. It turned out to be a beautiful end to the day. We watched the clouds play with the last light in the foothills on the eastern flank of the Rockies.
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Happy New Year!
Welcome to 2021. Here’s to a happy and healthy year for you and yours. There is so much that will be nice to leave behind in 2020 around the world. I hope to remember the silver linings and the special moments from a long year and let the tougher ones fade sooner than later.
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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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A second night with the Aurora Borealis
Only three days after I was able to watch a great showing by the Northern Lights, they came out to dance over the foothills again. The clouds were heavier this time around and grew steadily through the night while I was out. That set up for some backlighting by the aurora that looked really beautiful. This time around, I started at the same small pond as before but then drive to a couple of different spots along Highway 1 before ending my night at the small lake beside the Sibbald Creek Trail (Highway 68) where it meets Township Road 252.
At first I was trying to get away from the cloud bank as it coalesced and then moved southwards and increasingly obscured my view of the night sky. Soon I became a little hypnotized by the glow around and through the clouds so I settled down and enjoyed the moment.
After 2am, the clouds broke up and seemed to return back to the north. I was too tired to see how far they retreated and made my way home just before 3.
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My first night with the Northern Lights this fall
September closed out with several strong Northern Lights displays that reached down to southern Alberta. I was happy to make it out to the Foothills to photograph in the middle of the night for two of them. These images are from the first foray which started around 11:30pm and continued rippling when I finally headed home around 2am on the 26th.
The clouds seemed to move in slow motion and picked up the glow from Cochrane differently as the night progressed. Above, the aurora’s color palette shifted into pastels. A few of the later images reminded me of cotton candy and were fantastic to watch slowly ripple then fade away. I imagined these were tie-dyed waves rolling in both over the pond but also the sky they were reflecting.
Ursa Major and its Big Dipper were constant companions in the sky behind the dancing lights. The stars would run in and out of the clouds, hiding at times and burning brightly at other times. There was good magic to watch throughout.
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Late afternoon along the Livingstone Range
Driving along Highway 22 after a day with the eagles, I was traveling parallel to the Livingstone Range of the Canadian Rockies. The foothills lead up to it in a couple of rounded hills and then the mountains jut up sharply from there. It was an impressive scene with the sharp contrast between hills and mountains as well as light and shadow of the late afternoon.
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Abandoned in the foothills
Canon 5DIII camera with a Canon 24mm f/1.4 lens: 1/320 of a second at f/1.6 on ISO 50
I love driving along backroads through the farmlands on the prairies and in the foothills of Alberta. The landscape is beautiful, wildlife (when they allow you to see them) abounds and I often have the roads to myself. On these tours, I keep an eye out for interesting farm vehicles and buildings. There are many unusual items designed for a specific agricultural purpose that can be very photogenic. As purposes move forward alongside changes in technology, some of these barns, tractors and other things fall out of use and weather. This tractor is a beautiful example of the worn down equipment that dot the landscape. This old Massey Ferguson seemed to be parked in an idyllic spot to enjoy a hard-earned rest after a long run of service. That’s a rather romantic notion and I could drive by there next week and find it out turning soil in one of the fields on the far side of the pond. Whatever the truth, it was a great subject to photograph on a summer day north of Cochrane.
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Sunrise in the Foothills
Once the horses moved on, I returned to watching the brightening sky. I didn’t have to wait long for the colour to brush into the clouds.
(please click on any image to open a higher resolution version)
And when the warm sunlight came in, it only stayed for a couple of minutes. It was great to shoot a few different images while the light was really nice. The sun cleared the horizon quickly, the light cooled and the day began.
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