Autumn scenes before they’re gone
The snow fell hard enough to allow us to go sledding last weekend has melted away but it feels like winter will be here soon. It has been a good fall and I have looked for a few more intimate scenes to represent the season before it leaves.
A couple of these are from the Jasper National Park in the first few days of September. Banff is 350m higher elevation but, with her higher latitude, fall in Jasper seems to come at least a couple of weeks earlier. Kian was flanked by leaves starting to turn as he watched the water run down Tangle Falls along the Icefields Parkway .
By contrast, the cormorants on the Bow River in Calgary were photographed in an autumn season on the last day of September.
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Autumn animals… before the season is too long gone
In between the absurdly early snowstorm in September and the first winter cold snap that started last week, we had a great autumn here in the Foothills between Calgary and Banff. I spent a fair bit of time on the prairies and enjoyed some good encounters with their wild residents. The Great Horned Owl above was from a stand of trees west of High River during a great day where I had two separate encounters (one and two) with these beautiful owls. The one below is closer to home being a few miles south of Cochrane.
A beaver in the lake at Wild Rose, west of Bragg Creek, let me watch him swim on an overcast day where the ripples were soft and provided some nice opportunities. On another visit a pair of muskrat preened on the lake’s shoreline before returning to the water.
White-tailed deer are regularly seen in the fields as they stock up for winter. It was cool to see the young stag in the second image that was stag traversing the blackened earth in a much less recovered section of the Sawback prescribed burn that was done in 1993.
Another White-tail on the prairies stood on alert in a field south of Cochrane where I watched two stags rutting.
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Autumn is coming to a close soon
The white branches are starting to poke out as the leaves are falling to the ground.
Around Bragg Creek and on the prairies towards Calgary, there are still some nice autumn scenes but they are starting to go fast.
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Fall morning along the Elbow River
I was out for a walk with the hound this morning a little after the sun had crested the hill east of our home in Redwood Meadows. I just kept the long lens on the camera and looked for interesting details in the autumn landscape.
We went over to the banks of the Elbow River that run parallel to the road through Redwood Meadows. This yielded some interesting patterns and creative opportunities. We are nearing late fall here in Bragg Creek now. There are many trees with few leaves left to shed. Still a lot of beauty yet to be found before the season draws to a close.
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Kananaskis, First Snow
I got out on the Friday morning for an early shoot in Kananaskis and I was met by an inch of snow outside my front door. Rather excitedly, I carried on to the back country and the snow had raised up to two inches off the grass.
I went to the South end of Barrier Lake and walked along the beach looking for images that would convey an autumn snowfall. This was my favourite, taken just off the water across the lake.
It would have been great to get a bit of sunlight this morning but it was very beautiful and quiet. A really wonderful morning up in the mountains.
O’Shaughnessy Falls in Kananaskis along Highway 40 near Barrier Lake.
I’ve driven by this small set of rapids a number of times and this looked like a great morning to stop and look for some different looks to this waterfall.
A bit of a hike up along the stream into the forest, I liked this scene of a lone flower amid the dark trunks and patches of snow on the ground. It has been a strange year weather-wise and this first image in this post seemed to speak to that. Below is a couple of alternative compositions of that scene.
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Holding Winter Off
I’m not sure how long autumn will stave off its colder cousin. I’m finding snow on my mind a lot lately so I hope that isn’t imminent foreshadowing at work.
This image is from a field in Springbank the morning before the current stretch of rain settled over us.
I still need to get out to capture the fall colors which are really coming in now.
Christopher Martin Photography 