Winter’s return
Snow fell hard last night across southern Alberta and we had several inches blanketing the landscape by morning. Here, my hound and I went out for a walk late.
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Canmore – clouds racing the moonlight
A couple of weeks ago I spent a night under the stars on the shore of Lake Minnewanka. On the way there, as I passed through Canmore, the full moon was lighting up the mountains that connect the town with the sky. Here the tip of Ha Ling and the East End of Rundle (EEOR) were lit up during the long exposure I made looking across the Trans-Canada Highway and over the town.
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Nightlines and the Brandenburg Tor
The Brandenburg Gate is a beautiful monument that has been at the centre of pivotal moments in history since its construction completed in 1791. The Tor was commissioned by King Friedrich William II as a sign of peace; Napoleon marched through it in triumph; it was closed to all through the cold war, dividing Berlin – and the world, and divided Berlin and the world; and then it was where the wall first fell and was where the city and Germany reunified. Coming full circle, it has now come to represent peace as well as unity in the country and in Europe.
I was excited to photograph this icon and visited there several times through my week in Berlin. One visit was after midnight and I set up on the west side of the where three streets meet. I wanted to create some long exposures to let the lights from the vehicles create streaks in front of the gate. It is a stunning structure and I enjoyed spending time there and making these images.
When night fell, I had been hanging around the Spree River near Berliner Dom so it was not a very long walk to the Tor. Coming from the east, I photographed the front of the gate first. The Quadriga of Victory looks like it about to leap off the top and carry forward.
It is a stunning structure and I enjoyed spending time there and making these images. With recent events within Germany and other parts of Europe, a visit seemed timely and it would serve many well to consider what the Brandenburg Gate has come to represent from many years of hard learned lessons about peace and unity.
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Images of the Aurora over the Elbow River
When the Northern Lights brightly lit up the sky on May 8th, I went out to a favourite spot along the Elbow River on the edge of Redwood Meadows. The river there is dotted with sets of rocks near the shore which provide interesting elements and break up the reflection in an attractive way. The landscape is beautiful and supported the main show in the sky above well. The Aurora streamed across the sky from the northern horizon to well past the zenith. The image below was taken with the camera pointing almost straight up.
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Mother’s Day Aurora
There was an intense auroral storm that started late on May 7th and rang in Mother’s Day with vibrant ripples and sheets until just before dawn. This session of the Aurora Borealis was the most vibrant I’ve watched over the past five years. For three hours I watched the sky being canvassed with impossibly bright streams of spray paint. I enjoyed watching them on the northern edge of my community along the banks of the Elbow River. I thought it was a great start to Mother’s Day and certainly worth losing most of a good night’s sleep to watch the sky.
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Night Flight
I found an owl hunting after dusk had settled over Bragg Creek. It was getting dark quickly and I had go back to my car for a flash at one point. I started to photograph this Great Gray around a stand of trees on the edge of a field. After a while she moved out onto the yellow grass and then went to perch on a fencepost.
Retrieving the light, I mounted it in the hotshoe and it didn’t take long to relocate her. We then spent an hour together as she hunted on either side of the fence line while I watched from 40′ away. She was very comfortable with me there and flew to a post closer to me on a couple of occasions. It was challenging to shoot the owl in flight but a lot of fun.
At one point we traveled along the fence with her stopping every 100′ until I caught up. When we had returned to the edge of the trees, the owl flew back out towards the field. It was a very powerful encounter for me.
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The Northern Lights over Southern Alberta
The Aurora Borealis has been very strong for a few nights in a row, reaching southern Alberta regularly which comes after what has seemed like a very long absence. Perhaps it has just been me that was absent for shows since last year but being out for this one on the night of March 18-19. When I went out at 11pm, there was a dull green bow low in the sky towards Calgary. After a while, the arch began to glow brighter and stretch higher. Columns then started to separate from the green band and the arch itself dissolved. For the next couple of hours the lights shifted their shapes, colors and intensity.
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I was out on the berm that sits between Redwood Meadows and the Elbow River. The height of the berm, the rocky shoreline and the snow remnants allowed for a variety of perspectives. The three and half hours that the Northern Lights performed allowed me the time to explore these. It was an amazing night.
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Aurora over the Elbow River
Canon 5DIII – 24mm lens: 6 seconds on f/1.8 at ISO 3200
In the middle of the active Aurora that reached southern Alberta the lights were reflecting brightly over the waters of the Elbow River in Redwood Meadows.
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Under the stars with Kian
My son and I spent a couple of hours down on the beach watching the stars and playing around with some longer exposures. It was a beautiful night made infinitely better with him there.
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Happy Hallowe’en!
I hope everyone who is out and about this evening has a fun, and appropriately scary, time.
This scene was waiting for me as a drove along the prairies towards Calgary this morning.
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Moonrise over Mount Rundle
My son and I were in Banff for the weekend and went out for a drive along the Vermilion Lakes just before sunset on Saturday night. We stopped at the first lake to watch the colors deepen on the face of Mount Rundle as the sun was going down. Another photographer, Grace Chen visiting from Calgary, asked me where the moon would be rising. I had to admit that I didn’t know – I hadn’t done any planning as Kian and I were water sliding all afternoon and the drive was a last-minute decision. I was quite surprised when I next looked in the viewfinder and saw a sliver of white rising behind the mountain! It was fun to point at the peak as a response to her question.
I had been a bit disappointed that there were no clouds but that proved to be very fortunate. I loved the clean elements of the blue sky, white moon and reddish rocks.
The moon climbed quickly, becoming steadily brighter and I finished shooting less than half an hour after first seeing it. The sunlight on the mountain moved from deep yellow to a beautiful red while the sky steadily darkened. It was not quite a full moon, being at 98%, but was still bright and wonderful.
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Dark snow
A blizzard swept out of the mountains on the weekend. The ground had been almost bare but winter felt everyone’s enthusiasm for spring was premature. The snow fell through the night and in the morning there was almost a foot blanketing the grass, the trees and almost anything else that doesn’t move. In the middle of the storm, I went outside to watch the snow and enjoy the sound of the huge flakes touching down and watching them tumble through the darkness.
Christopher Martin Photography 