One of the Kananaskis Guardians
All along High,way 40 which runs through the heart of Kananaskis and winds through spectacular scenery, there are Columbia ground squirrels (Urocitellus columbianus) scurrying around. They are pretty low on the food chain so they are wary critters. When there is any noise or motion approaching they stand upright and assess the danger. When something gets too close, they chirp out a warning and then dive for one of the holes connecting to their hillside tunnel complex.
This little guy watched me from his mound above the pullout while I was loading up for a hike near the Peter Lougheed Provincial Park entrance. I was happy to have this little creature stand for a short portrait session.
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Kayak Training Session in Kananaskis
Kayaking is a sport I’ve always been interested in. On the weekend, my friend Jeff and I met up with a team of kayakers at Canoe Meadows on the Kananaskis River. We had arranged with their coach to meet the team during one of their training sessions and photograph them while they practiced on the water.
Good guys, strong athletes and great water made for some fun photography. Here are a few images from the session.
An aggressive charge by the kayaker and a longer shutter speed created an image which suggests the power of the sport and of the water.
The fast pace of the downstream sections provided a nice opportunity to drag the shutter and abstract the action a little.
Photographed just after dropping into this hole, the paddler drives in his oar and pulls himself up and out.
The course at Canoe Meadows is highly configurable and the setup on Saturday appeared to be a good challenge that these guys had fun attacking.
A lucky break in the sheet of water splashing up affords a window into the concentration needed when you are playing in, wrestling on and fighting with a strong river.
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Elbow Falls – Metallic Duotone Collection
Following on from the color images of Elbow Falls here are a set of duotone images from the same evening up on the river.
I created the metallic effect using Lightroom’s Split Toning feature. Using gold for highlights and navy blue shadows gives a look that works really well with water.
This is a hard place to leave.
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Late Spring Runoff at Elbow Falls
I went out for a photo shoot of the Elbow Falls in Kananaskis, Alberta with a couple of fellow photographers last week. The flow of the water and the textures created by the currents and the rocks were mesmerizing.
The river is still rising from the spring runoff from the snow. Spring was late and so is the peak of the high water from the melting snow and ice in the mountains. The flow is very different from the rest of the seasons. The waterfall is engulfed right now so that the normal lip is overrun. This creates a very different face for the falls which is great to explore with a camera. Here are a few from the edge and around.
As night took hold, blue colors were accentuated creating a cool, dreamy feeling to the long exposure images. This is one of my last from the evening.
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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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Elbow Falls: Winter’s Last Gasp?
I went up to Elbow Falls on Sunday following a heavy snowstorm over the weekend. There were a few warm days leading up to the blizzard so I was hoping for heavy snow in the trees and on the rocks with some good stretches of open water on the river. I was not disappointed.
I’ve tried to stay away from this section of the river but haven’t been able to do it with any consistency. It is a beautiful place and a very special location for me to photograph.
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Spending the morning with moose
On Sunday morning I went into West Bragg to look or wildlife along the backroads and a few trails. When I got to Wild Rose, there was a moose cow halfway up a driveway. I didn’t have a good angle but it was nice to watch it eating branches for a few minutes. While I was waiting to see if she would walk into a better position, another moose walked into another stand of branches that was much closer to me. About 20 meters away! She didn’t seem bothered by me so I set about photographing my new friend.
After about half an hour, her curiosity got the best of her as she walked out of the bushes, onto the driveway and walked towards me. I stepped back towards the rear of my car and she walked around the front.
She snacked on a small group of brambles right beside where I had parked my car for a couple of minutes and then retraced her path back up the driveway.
She stopped at a few branches as she walked up the rise and then laid down on the lawn in the snow.
I took this last picture before I left her to relax. I hope spring comes soon so that all of the wildlife get to forage on some greenery. I think this winter’s early start, cold spells and deep snow have taken a toll on their reserves.
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The Chief of Elbow Falls
(Click the image above to open a larger and more detailed version)
The flow of water above, over and below the layers of rock that create Elbow Falls is a beautiful photographic subject at any time of the year. In winter, with the ice and snow draped around the waterfall, I find the magic a little easier to work with and creating some compelling images a bit less elusive.
For as long as I have been photographing this spot, I have always seen the face of a chief in the rock outcropping that sits just below the waterfall. Not only a face in the rock, the lines that draw the lips, the cheeks, chin and nose outline a sketch of the man who watches over this stretch of the river west of Bragg Creek in Kananaskis Country.
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Winter’s Art: Ice, Water and Snow
An early morning at one of my favourite places in Kananaskis, Elbow Falls. With the stretches of deep cold this winter broken up by the occasional warm chinook arch, the layers of ice along the river and the waterfall that shares its name are really beautiful right now. The color didn’t build in the sky this morning but that allowed me to stay focused on the ice. A very nice morning to spend outside with a camera in hand.
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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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Strix Nebulosa – an evening encounter with a Great Grey Owl
On my drive home last night I spotted a large, oblong shape perched on a tree branch just off a gravel road on the forest’s edge near Bragg Creek. Going at highway speed and being a couple hundred meters away from the object, I wasn’t sure what it was but I quickly turned around hoping that it was an owl of some type. When I pulled up the gravel road, I was very happy to see it had not yet flown away. I grabbed my camera, a telephoto lens and a flash and walked slowly towards the bird. Even in the failing light, it was easy to identify my new friend as a great grey owl. I kept the flash off as I approached giving the owl time to get used to my presence and decide if it wanted to model for me. Great greys are mercurial, one encounter they will fly away as soon as they see you, another time they will stay but keep their eyes away from you. This was one of the great encounters where it allowed me to come close and was not agitated. At one point it flew away but then circled around me and came to land on a fence post about ten meters from me. I photographed this beautiful creature for about fifteen minutes and then left it to continue its wait for the ground creatures to start their nightly forays into the open.
Perched on the top of a tiny branch this is where I first found the owl. Given the size of these birds (wingspans average 1.4 meters), I’m always surprised when I see a visible demonstration of how light they are (average of 1.2 kilograms).
I thought the owl was leaving here but then it banked to the right and landed on the fence post across the gravel from me.
At this point, it was quite dark and the colors in the scene were restricted to blue hues and gray tones. I turned the flash on to capture the brown color in the feathers and the yellow in the eyes. The image I wanted to finish with was of the owl flying where you could see the motion and power in its flight before finishing the shoot. I used a slightly longer exposure to get movement in the wings and panned with the owl as it launched and flew past me.
It doesn’t always turn out but when I can create the image I’ve imagined in my head it is a good day. This is pretty close to what I was trying to capture in the photograph. Thank you to Bobbi for managing the three-ring circus at home for an extra while longer last night to let me play with an owl for a little bit.
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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.
