October 8’s Brilliant Aurora: A Celestial Spectacle
The Aurora Borealis rippled under the stars on October 8th. And then again two days later. These photos are from the first storm. Faint green streaks seen from our balcony compelled us out the door.
Heading northwest for darker skies to better enjoy the performance above. The intensity grew quickly, splashing across the starscape in waves from one horizon to the other.
At a few points they faded but never for long. We stayed out for several hours and it was a scintillating show all night. Easily among the very best Northern Lights that I have ever seen. Desiree saw multiple shooting stars as well. I caught a couple but only with my eyes. That was alright with me, I was more than happy to capture the greens, blues and pink.
Their streaks, balls, ribbons and sheets of mesmerized us as they courted and danced with one another in the sky. I was excited waiting for this blast of plasma from the sun to arrive. The resulting storm was pure joy and far beyond my expectations.
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Layering dusk from sea to sky in San Pancho
Sunsets on the Mexico’s west coast can be spectacular. We were able to enjoy a couple of them when we were in San Pancho last week. Ribbons of cloud were first painted gentle shades of rose and violet above the blue ocean as it stretched out towards the sky. It was a muted palette but whispered a suggestion of what may come.
A few minutes later, as the day slipped away, twilight deepened those colors. Deep purple and electric pinks growing from their soft predecessors. The foamy water of the Pacific blurred and reflected some of the color across the surface.
Increasing darkness allowed for longer exposures. The colors revealed were now beyond what my eyes could see. A glow coming into the photographs along with smoothing in the clouds and the water. The town’s lights caught on the breaking surf.
A couple of minutes later, the sky was much darker to the eye. The long exposures continued to reveal the rich colors of this beautiful evening’s sunset.
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Cloud spirits
The sky stole the show when I was out looking for photos a month ago. With the clouds low over a rise and the evening sun brightly coloring them, my exposure made the trees fall into dark silhouettes. Silhouettes are one of my favorite landscape elements so I enjoyed composing images of the clouds above them as the shapes appeared and quickly evaporated.
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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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Nightscapes from the past year
I’ve been wanting to put together a couple of posts with common themes using photographs which I have not published. These aren’t the best of the year series, I’ll look to have those out soon though. They are simply photographs that I would like to share.
So, I’ll start with a few images taken at night and see what follows after. Thank you for indulging me in a bit of reverie!
I’m often out at night to chase the Northern Lights, watch the stars or waiting for dawn to come. The moon always draws my attention when she’s up and I’m out.
Calgary’s downtown lights also have a definite charm. Here I stood over the Elbow at River Park just before Christmas.
Seagulls fly over the Bow River during a blizzard in Calgary’s downtown.
A reflection pooled in the cobblestone of Montreal’s old port district caught my attention during a night spent in the grand city.
One of the very best nights was watching the fireworks on Canada Day with my son at Mont-Tremblant.
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A view from under the flyover
On my path towards the water for sunrise a couple of weeks ago, I passed under the 4th Avenue Flyover Bridge. Curtis Van Charles Sorensen’s mural of the leaping foxes is a street art favorite of mine. I liked how the curve of the bridge allowed me to connect it to the Calgary Tower.
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Lightning strikes over Lac Mercier
A fierce thunderstorm in the Mont-Tremblant area of the Laurentians in Québec last night. Steady sheets of lightning, howling wind and hammering rain accompanied the thunder that rang across the valleys for hours. This photograph was from Lac Mercier just after midnight. When this lightning cracked, it shook the gazebo I was standing under. I left a few minutes later – I’d had enough and the rain that followed shortly afterwards was of an almost biblical level. It was time to get home. I will share a few more from the night soon but my son and I are off to Ottawa to visit Parliament Hill.
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Sunshine over Spillway
In December while my son was in snowboarding lessons at Nakiska, I drove further into Kananaskis Country. At Spillway Lake, along the Smith-Dorrien Trail, I found the sun laying low above the silhouettes of the forest and the mountain ridge lines.
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Early autumn alpenglow in Kananaskis
I’ve been lucky to enjoy a number of great mornings (here, here and here) in the mountains as summer has wound down. Last weekend I went to Kananaskis to see how the autumn colors were coming in at the higher elevations. I went to Wedge Pond ahead of the sunrise and waited for the darkness to lift. Soon enough it did, and quickly, revealing the larch along the shoreline were starting to turn but there were more lime greens than yellows and golds. I’ll be back again in a week or two to try to catch the stands of gold before the needles fall and the leaves blow away.
I was not disappointed in any way though. The mist swirled across the calm water, drawing a line through the middle of the mountains and their reflections as the early morning blue gave way to the alpenglow.
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Two mornings on Moraine Lake
Last weekend I spent two mornings waiting for, and then watching the sunrise, on Moraine Lake. The two days were definitely not alike. On Saturday morning, the clouds hung low obscuring the tips along the Valley of the Ten Peaks. The color palette was decidedly cool. It was reminiscent of the night before after the sun had set at Upper Kananaskis Lake.
The next day welcomed clear skies in all directions. I would have welcomed a few clouds above the mountains to catch the alpenglow but the peaks down the valley soon did. And that was beautiful to enjoy. It had been a couple of years since the valley had shared this particular scene with me.
Watching the peaks glow red is stunning and I love watching that light spread down mountainsides, racing against the golden sunshine’s imminent arrival. The transition is very fast with the alpenglow lasting 4-5 minutes before the sunshine blends in and the red disappears from the rock faces.
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Upper Kananaskis Lake – sunset and thereafter
On my way up to the mountains this weekend, the sun continued its struggle with the smoke from the wildfires. In the early evening I made my way along Highway 40 and stopped several times to watch the clouds and sun in this unusual scene.
I ended up on the shore of the Upper Kananaskis Lake about an hour before sunset. It was a warm night which I was grateful for – even in summer the wind can blow hard and cold across the lake at anytime. Over the next couple of hours a loon, a few people fishing and one large, extended family came and went. I moved down the shoreline slowly, taking photographs of the sun’s descent towards the jagged silhouette of the mountains the curve around the lake.
The smoke acts like a neutral density filter and drops the intensity of the sun’s light considerably. That allowed me to spend a lot of time exploring how the atmosphere, the sunlight and the landscape could be composed. All three changed in appearance and shape as the sun descended.
When the sun drew close to the mountains, the colors deepened and the silhouettes of the mountains were fantastic against the sky.
The fiery hues disappeared quickly once the sun fell behind the mountains. That left cooler tones to quietly take hold. At that point, I was alone on the shore and the tranquility held me there for a long while.
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A chaotic sunrise in Banff National Park
Before the sun rose over the Fairholme Range, the scattered clouds stacked up in layers over the mountains. They fought to catch the early splashes of pink and peach as the day approached. The chaos of these splashes of color across the broken sky were beautiful to watch.
