Sunset at the Luminous Lagoon
We spent a wonderful week in Jamaica earlier this month. One of the highlights was our night swim in the Luminous Lagoon along the north shore. It was an amazing experience being surrounded by the bioluminescence in that bay. We got there as dusk fell. The sunset was amazing and I took a couple of minutes to enjoy it before we headed out on the water.
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Aurora Abstract
The Northern Lights were soft on April Fool’s night. There were a number of photographers lined up waiting for the show but the joke was on us with a subtle display. I didn’t mind, it gave me pause to think about the scene differently and try out a few things. This longer exposure, 8 seconds, with a little movement of both the camera and the grass in the foreground had an interesting look.
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Aurora Prairialis
The Northern Lights have been increasing their activity into the southern Canadian latitudes lately. After what seems like close to a year of quiet night skies, it is wonderful to enjoy them again.
We found these dancing lights on the prairies south of Cochrane near the end of September. It was a calm display but hopefully a harbinger of things to come.
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Evening night morning in the Valley of the Ten Peaks
A good friend and I went up to Moraine Lake at the beginning of June. We photographed from dusk into dark, crashed out for a couple of hours and then shot the sunrise. These are a few of the photographs as the time rolled by.
Into the night…
Rising with the sun…
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A sunrise in the East Village
I stumbled upon the beginning of this sunrise as I was heading to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary last weekend. Driving through downtown, the clouds in the sky looked interesting as dawn approached. I parked in the East Village near the Bow River and grabbed my gear.
A long exposure, 6 seconds at f/16, made the dim glow to the east much brighter than it appeared to me then. I saw this image on the back of my camera and raced to the water’s edge between the Reconciliation Bridge and the George C. King Bridge.
As the sun rose into the clouds, warm light filtered through the clouds spreading up from the horizon and across the sky.
A few minutes later, I framed a lone pedestrian crossing the bridge against this fiery backdrop.
The color faded to pastels just before the sun cleared the horizon. A soft end to a beautiful daybreak in Calgary.
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A surprising beauty
There is a book project that I’ve been invited to contribute some images for which saw me working through images from the Khutzeymateen and her wonderful grizzly bears this weekend. Towards the end of the 2014 set, I found this one of a pigeon that had landed outside of the day room I rented between docking in Prince Rupert and flying out later that afternoon. I had long forgotten about this image but I was struck by the beauty of this bird on today’s perusal. Pigeon’s can be somewhat funny looking but I find this one to be rather charismatic. The iridescence in the neck feathers grabs my attention first, but the pattern in the wing feathers holds it.
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Early winter at the Upper Kananaskis Lake
A touch of winter froze blades of a partially submerged mound of grass and laid down several sheets of snow on the peaks ringing the lake before autumn returned. Photographed in Kananaskis Country’s Peter Lougheed Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada on October 7th.
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Inglewood reflection
I’m heading down to the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary to see which migrating as well as resident birds are around on a wet, cool afternoon. Kezia and I were down there together last weekend and found some wood ducks, a variety of gulls, one heron and a good number of Canada geese. This one was paddling on one of the ponds near the river. Kez and I both like the serene aspects of this scene.
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Northern Lights… softly
On the weekend there was a minor geomagnetic storm which enveloped the Earth for a couple of days. Around midnight on Sunday I could see a green glow along the northern horizon so I walked down to the Elbow River. It runs near my backyard and I was quickly down at the water. A couple of hours saw a few sprites stretch away from thick Aurora band which stayed low in the sky. However the Northern Lights were comfortable doing a slow waltz on this night. Next time I’ll hope for a more energetic dance but I certainly enjoyed the quiet beauty that was shared.
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Vermilion Lakes – Winter Dawn
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Flashback Friday – a circle of light at the Vermilion Lakes
In August I photographed through the night along the Vermilion Lakes. The air was heavy with smoke from nearby wildfires. This long exposure caught the glow from the town of Banff as it pushed through thick haze and got caught in clouds hanging low in the Bow Valley. A timer and a flashlight allowed me to run out onto this dock on the third Vermilion Lake and trace out the circle in this image.
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Autumn Aurora
I walked my dog early this morning and when I looked to the north could see the Northern Lights rippling and snapping above the horizon. The hound was returned home and replaced by my camera. I walked down to the Elbow River which runs nearby and spent a couple of hours photographing the Aurora Borealis before it faded out against the approaching dawn. I’m feeling very lucky to be able to enjoy such a show in my backyard!
Christopher Martin Photography 