Desirée along the Inner Harbour
We spent a couple of days in Victoria recently and walked along the water more days than not. Here we were walking between the waterfront downtown and Fisherman’s Wharf. A beautiful red bridge that connected a wonderfully green garden drew our eyes. I had a great time photographing this beautiful lady over the water before we went out for dinner.
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Sunrise at Ghost Lake
After an incredible Northern Lights display in the early hours of March 20th, I drove west of Cochrane to watch the morning arrive. Ice still covers the lake though large cracks and variety in the surface color and texture indicate spring is loosening the frozen grip.
I arrived in darkness with a dim glow on on the eastern horizon. The glow brightened steadily and soon I was watching the fiery clouds catching the earliest light and waiting for the sun to jump into the sky.
The long night fled as the sun rose and I used the time to think about the cycles of the seasons, life and family. Good thoughts, I believe, for the Spring Equinox.
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Tobogganing in Kananaskis (again)
A couple of weeks after sledding on our tiny hill across the street, we went to the best toboggan location in our neck of the woods last weekend. The slope is somewhat dramatically called Suicide Hill by locals. We have gone there since all of the kids were really young and it is always a lot of fun. I titled a post in 2017 the same and it was fun to compare then and now.
We went late in the day which meant fewer people but came at the expense of the sun falling behind the trees shortly after we got started. It was still a beautiful day and we had a great time.
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Christmas sledding in Redwood
I hope you have enjoyed a nice holiday and are able to close out a hard year on a good note. We have had a lot of time with our children which has been great. We had a massive snowstorm just before Christmas and we went out tobogganing as it was building.
Five kids makes for an instant party and we had a blast slipping and sliding around the little hill across the road from our house. We stayed out into the night before going back inside for hot chocolate. I came back out to photograph the falling snow for a while. It was too beautiful to pass up taking the opportunity to capture the wintry landscape in the dark.
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Who knew deer don’t fancy fashion
Desirée and I were doing an autumn fashion shoot in Redwood Meadows for a local jewelry designer – Nicole at Stone Willow Jewellery – last night.
This young buck came by to see what was going on but wasn’t interested for long. Not much of a fashionista as it turned out. Silly deer – my lady was far more intriguing. He did enjoy the greens he found nearby though.
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A walk under the Trans-Canada
After taking back to school photographs of our kids in the countryside, we went to an underpass along the Trans-Canada Highway west of Calgary. It is covered in graffiti and offers an interesting juxtaposition with the rolling prairie. This picture of the three oldest children walking out of the shadows was a favorite from this scene.
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Halloween!
Redwood Meadows was a madhouse on Halloween night! Packs of ghouls, Fortnite characters, Minions, animals and even a puffer fish roamed the community and many houses greeted them with wonderfully elaborate decorations.
My kids are growing up and this was the first time I didn’t go out with both of them. My son and two of his friends preferred to strike out on their own which is great fun of course (and a little – tiny – bit sad for me).
Kezia, playing Ginny Weasley from the Potter-verse, canvassed the neighborhood with three friends. Luckily for me they are a little younger and were happy to let me tag along. We had a blast!
I managed to catch up with Kian at the end and grabbed a couple of shots with him dancing to the spooky scary skeleton song (an absolute favorite of ours!) before he separated from his steampunk skeleton alter ego.
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Winter is coming…
Thanks to Game of Thrones, this phrase is often heard. Yesterday Mother Nature provided her own reminder that far too soon winter will be here. I still hope we have a couple of months before it does but the snow is still on the trees this morning and does not yet look interested in melting away. I can’t say that I’m a fan of snow in September.
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Snowshoeing on the Elbow River
Last weekend there was a break in the storms where blue sky appeared for an hour or two in the afternoon. It was cold but the sunshine was inviting so I strapped on snowshoes and headed outside. The Elbow River is still largely frozen over so a walk along the plain at the north end of Redwood Meadows seemed a good call. The clouds left with snow trailing just behind their departure.
I ended up playing around more than covering any real distance. The slope from the berm to the river was a fun distraction as I jumped down into the snow and clambered up again a few times.
I ended with a short trek onto the plain and then back along the forest. A few photographs of some wintering berries close to the berm coincided with the clouds closing in again. The snow began to fly and I made my way home.
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Flashback Friday – A park lane to Neues Palais
Last year when visiting Berlin, I took a day trip to Potsdam. From the train station, Potsdam Hauptbahnhof, I walked to the Neues Palais. I love wandering in unfamiliar places for the surprising things I find along the way. At one point, I turned away from the busy street at a park gate. When I came through, this quiet scene was waiting. It was an entrance to the extensive grounds of the palace. I walked through these grounds and the surrounding parks for the Sanssouci Palace for several hours, including a long nap beside a pond. The palaces weren’t my cup of tea but these parks had a manicured charm that I enjoyed immensely that day.
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Olympic Plaza contemplations
A morning scene from the edge of the Olympic Plaza in Calgary’s downtown. It’s a small park with a million stories. This was a sunny morning earlier this week where the moment suggested the light and the dark sides of many of these stories.
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Flashback Friday – kids in motion
This image is from 2011 and was taken along the Elbow River. Kezia was 2 1/2 years old and running with Kian who was 4 1/2. I used a shutter speed of 1/6th of a second for a relatively long shutter and panned with the kids as they raced by. I love playing with motion and creating, or capturing, movement in these types of images. The blurred lines that layer to create the scene remind me of an Impressionist painting.
Christopher Martin Photography 