Pele’s Visit to Hanalei
Pele is one of the Hawaiian deities and is often associated with the volcanic activities on the islands. She also holds dominion over lightning, wind and fire. One evening, I watched her play with lightning, throwing it over the ridges that rise up from the Hanalei Valley on Kaua’i’s north shore. For almost three hours, beginning at dusk, the clouds lit up with strikes that branched across the sky.
I watched the storm from the Hanalei outlook in Princeville. That put me at almost the same elevation as the strikes which hammered the far side of the valley. With each flash, the taro field ponds lit up as well. The deep blue sky early in the evening tempered the color in the sky. When the valley was totally dark, each flash illuminated the scene in wild shades of purple. It was incredible to see the changes in the color, the clouds and the storm through the night.
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Pele became more ferocious as the night deepened. Gradual at first, with the wind picking up slowly but steadily and the lightning coming every couple of minutes. Then increasing quickly along with drops of rain that turned into a downpour after just a few minutes. I retreated to shelter with the rain drenching me and the lightning tracing arcs directly above me. It was raw power and I enjoyed watching the goddess at work – by the end there was a determined nature to the storm that made it feel like play had been joined by purpose.
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Fantastic creatures in sunrise
The winter morning was beautiful earlier this week. I watched the sky brighten and start to illuminate the sparse clouds scattered along the horizon and further off to the west. With the color running into the day, I saw a dragon stretch its wings out as it reached towards the rising sun. Surely a victim of my exuberant imagination, I was little surprised when I saw a phoenix flying low along the eastern horizon when I turned in that direction. Switching from one fantastic creature to the other during the short time that the best light of the day held, I enjoyed this sunrise tremendously. A childhood spent reading legends and myths revisited for a few minutes out on the cold prairie. A warm thank you to my elementary teacher, Alanda, who introduced our class to these stories and kindled the fire of my imagination.
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Autumn Aurora
I woke up this morning at 4:30, not for any particular reason I can recall. I went down for some water and saw there was an Aurora Watch Alert. The live update showed that there was a lot of Auroral activity so, at my wife’s prompting, I headed out.
In Bragg Creek we still get a fair bit of Calgary’s night city glow, so I drove northwest to a dark area of the prairie. Some clouds cleared out along the horizon as I set up and then the show picked up and kept going strong until dawn.
This was a special time under the stars for me. I have been visualizing photographing the Northern Lights and planning to get out for a couple of years. I had a fantastic time watching the streams of light streak across the sky. It was great to be able to realize what had been a little bit elusive.
So now, with this first Aurora shoot, in the rearview mirror, I’m looking forward to finding some new locations and compositions to photograph (and probably a faster f/2.8 or f/1.4 lens to shorten exposures).
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Hide and seek with a blue moon
(please click on an image to open a higher resolution version)
Last night as the setting sun was painting the broken clouds above Lake Okanagan, the waxing moon was using them to hide as it rose. The colours in the evening sky were beautiful pastels and the bright lunar surface stood in sharp contrast.
This blue moon will be full on August 31st so these images are of the moon in its gibbous waxing phase.
I’ll be watching again tonight to see if our earth’s satellite has any more tricks planned.
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Moraine Lake – a night and a day in the Valley of the Ten Peaks
Moraine Lake is one of the Canadian Rockies most iconic landscapes. I have been there many times and it continues to share new magic with each visit. I was up on top of the rock pile with a couple of good friends for a quiet evening and we returned a few hours later for a cloudy sunrise. Both times presented views of the Valley of the Ten Peaks and the lake that I had not seen previously. I enjoyed them all immensely.
The evening watched as the clouds ran towards the horizon leaving open sky above the peaks that loom above the lake and curl west down the valley. The soft light near sunset looked beautiful where it touched the peaks and provided a very subtle contrast to the deepening blues and greens that ushered in the night.
When I was crossing the stream where the lake most visibly drains out, the bright colors in the landscape’s palette had been wrung out so I was drawn to the speck of orange upstream. I liked how this small information shelter’s log frame stood defiantly against the gloom. At this point, some great clouds had stretched out above the water and they provided an abstract mirror of the river’s folds as revealed in this 13 second exposure.
When we returned around 5am, the clouds had staked out all four corners of the sky. We watched breaks in the sky expectantly for more than an hour, taking us through sunrise without any light painting the peaks or the clouds curling around them. We were joined by a hopeful couple from Japan and two Chinese ladies on top of the moraine. Quiet chattering among the separate groups along with the occasional shutter click marking the time shuffling by. It was nice, not the dramatic alpen glow or early light that I have seen before but another interesting side of this valley.
Around 6:30 a large break in the clouds developed in the east and 15 minutes later the first shafts of sunlight hit the mountains. The light was still pretty warm and the drama I had been looking for unfolded for the next 45 minutes before the sun had risen too high for my landscape photography tastes. I enjoyed watching the color in the lake swirl and change as the house lights of the day came up. With stray clouds still wrapping peaks occasionally and the sunlight marching down the forest side of the lake, there was a lot to watch and to photograph.
Packing up, I retraced my steps down the path back towards the lodge. Crossing the river once more, I was drawn in again. This time the wet rocks were sparkling in the sunshine and I found the light on Yamnee (Mount Bowlen), Tonsa and Sapta (Mount Perren) particularly attractive. Breakfast was calling my friends (and me too – if I had been listening) and it was a good final image to complete this time with the lake, the valley and these wonderful peaks.
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A broken cloud sunrise on the Canadian prairies
The clouds make or break sunrises in many landscape scenes. On Sunday, they broke apart just before sunrise leaving a nice gauzy patchwork above the glow on the horizon. A good start to the day just west of Calgary in Alberta, Canada on May 27th.
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Into an eclipse
The moon gave it a great try but from our vantage point just west of Calgary, it just missed blocking out the sun this evening. This was in no way a failure on the moon’s part, just our position in the universe relative to it and the sun. As it was, the crescent created by the moon swinging in front of the sun was very impressive.
There was haze in the sky which worked well with the dark glass I had piled on to drop the bright sunlight as much as possible. When a thick cloud pulled above the horizon, I thought it might be too heavy but the colors and textures were amazing.
At this point I thought the moon may move into position in the ring of fire. I hadn’t looked into this solar eclipse much so I did not know if we were in the right location. It was exciting to watch the sun and moon approach. When the moon swung away, it was still great to watch.
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Prairie Skies – Sunset, Storms and a Lightning Strike
On the drive across the prairies to Medicine Hat last weekend, Bobbi and I drove through an early spring storm near sunset. The trailing edge of the storm clouds were to the west and the sunlight slipped in along with some amazing color.
To the east, the strongest part of the storm was still releasing wind, rain and a bit of lightning. With a few 30 second exposures I got lucky and caught this bolt as it shot out of the darkness.
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Prairie Storm: Dark Clouds, Heavy Rain and a Lightning Strike
This location, just west of Calgary, is one of my favourite places to photograph during the winter months when the sun sets behind the southern edge of the Canadian Rockies. Last night, a massive storm broke free of the mountains and stretched across the prairie. There were some great holes in the clouds that allowed sunlight to streak through here and there. A very dramatic scene to work with and create images of.
Behind the ominous forerunning clouds came the heavy rain. Here the rain is hammering Bragg Creek and moving quickly onto the fields.
As the storm’s intensity built, lightning seemed inevitable and I was lucky to catch this strike hitting along the Elbow River behind a hill in Redwood Meadows.
When the rain did arrive where I was photographing, cover in the car was the prudent option. It was no exaggeration to say this was a torrential downpour.
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Midnight Sun – Cochrane, Alberta
Sunset was 10pm last night but the sky was still quite bright in the northwest after midnight.
These clouds were incredible and worth pulling off to the side of the road in the middle of the night.
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The Spring Storms Come
Now spring seems to have asserted control and with that comes the storm clouds that roll out of the mountains through the summer. Here then are a couple of image from the start of the storm season from this afternoon.
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Clearing Skies at Sunset
Sunset along the Rocky Mountains when looking west is often worthy of enjoying when possible. I was able to watch this interesting sky develop a few days ago as the daylight slipped away.
Here the sun just slipped behind the ridges of the mountains of eastern Kananaskis. I underexposed this scene to avoid burnt out highights near the sun. I like the resulting detail in the clouds and the golden hue of the image. Eight minutes later, I captured a larger scene of the sunset. The cotton candy texture and beautiful colour in the upper clouds steal the scene in the image below.
One of the last photographs I made was well above the mountains. Here I did not underexpose yielding a brighter scene. This has a heavenly feel to it that I find interesting.
