Sunshine over Spillway
In December while my son was in snowboarding lessons at Nakiska, I drove further into Kananaskis Country. At Spillway Lake, along the Smith-Dorrien Trail, I found the sun laying low above the silhouettes of the forest and the mountain ridge lines.
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A window of sunlight
As a storm cleared out of the Bow Valley, the clouds rose off the floor and climbed over the Massive Range. Here, the sun lit up one of the Brett Mountain’s ridges for a moment.
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Splashing sunlight on the Rockies
I spent the first half of the weekend in the Rocky Mountains of western Alberta and loved every minute. An amazing display of the Aurora Borealis over Lake Minnewanka and the first Grizzly bears that I’ve seen this year were among several highlights from the trip. In this image, clouds cleared out of the valleys just after sunrise in Kananaskis. I was continually reminded how beautiful this part of the world is.
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Palouse – through the day
I really enjoyed photographing from sun up until deep into the night when I visited the Palouse in April. The patterns in the fields, character in the sky and range of colors in both can blend wonderfully at anytime of the day. These are a few of the ones that stood out from a couple of days on the backroads.
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Shadows and light dancing in the Palouse
When I planned my Easter trip to the Palouse, I knew that I would make a couple of visits to Steptoe Butte. It rises roughly 300 meters above the countryside allowing for an unobstructed view of the entire area. That elevation gain provides a great perspective on the waves of farmland below.
The first morning that I drove up, when the butte came in sight I found it capped by a loose shroud of cloud. After stopping to photograph that I headed up and was soon inside the cloud looking out at the sun rising over the clouds that had stacked up low along the horizon.
When the sunlight gently skipped across the rolling hillsides you could almost watch the color warm. I enjoyed almost an hour of truly amazing light dancing with the shadows it created over the fields. Those fields adding significantly to the views owing to their flowing lines, gentle patterns and earthy tones.
It was so beautiful that I had little hesitation choosing to return the next day. The second visit had a subtly different feel but I enjoyed shooting that morning just as much as the day before.
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Clearing fog under a rising sun
On Monday morning fog rolled up from the rivers around Calgary and covered most of the city and surrounding areas. I was near the Springbank airport at sunrise and the visibility was not much more than a hundred metres. I photographed the sunrise from a hill above the fog and then returned to the airport. This photograph was taken about 20 minutes after daybreak as the line of fog was receding towards Calgary. I was surprised by the speed that it moved and even more so when it returned again a few minutes later. This ebb and flow reminded me of the tides and was amazing to be in the middle of. I will share more soon but wanted to start with this first view of the sun when the fog was rolling eastward.
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Dusk in the Crowsnest Pass
I had a wonderful getaway camping with my son in the Waterton National Park last weekend. Along the way down there, I travelled through the Crowsnest Pass just as the sunlight was slipping off the peaks and giving way to the night. I stopped for a few minutes to enjoy the transition and this photograph is the one I made from the many peaks stacked around the valley. A mountain unknown to me but beautiful in its isolation.
August 16th update – my Uncle Bill, Auntie Ann and cousins Chad and Darren, who lived in the Crowsnest Pass area for many years, discussed this peak and confirmed that it is Mount Tecumseh. Thank you family!
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A halo around the sun
Mist rising off the Elbow River near Bragg Creek catches the sun in its own halo of sunlight.
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A return to Elbow Falls
Since the floods, I have been eager to drive up Highway 66 which runs in and out of the valleys where the Elbow River unwinds out of the mountains. A few weeks ago, the road reopened and I have been back into this quieter side of Kananaskis Country a couple of times since. On the first trip I went straight to Elbow Falls to see what remained. Rumours through June and July ranged from the Elbow Falls being reduced to a set of rapids through to vast swathes of land disappearing, replaced by river rock spread over the lost forest area. The former is not true – the falls remain, as seen in the image here from that first visit after the floods, and are still beautiful. The latter is very true in many places – many favourite spots, including the winding river path above the falls, have been drastically reshaped.
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Electricity underwater
Being new to underwater photography there is a steep learning curve to realizing the images that I have in my mind. Along that journey, there has been some frustration but so many new things to enjoy. Probably the most fun I have had is exploring light underwater. Particularly the way it refracts and distorts at the surface and then strikes subjects below. When this Hawaiian Chub (Kyphosus hawaiiensis) swam through lines of distorted sunlight near the surface, these wonderful patterns rippled across its silvery body. It makes me think we should move ocean side somewhere in the world sooner than later…
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Summer Storm Breaking Up
I was in a great location to watch the storm that had rolled in Friday night and dropped many, many buckets of rain through Saturday afternoon start to break up.
The drama in the clouds west of Calgary was beautiful to watch build and fall away for a few minutes.
Certainly a different feel in black and white. In the version above I wanted to bring the weathered barn to greater prominence. I ended up shedding the color and adding a little grain to create a more historical, antique feel.
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Snowstorm: the sunshine breaks through
There was a blizzard that flew out of the mountains this evening. Huge snowflakes swirled around the trees off my deck and it was a really beautiful storm to watch. As the sun began to set, it fell below the storm clouds and sunlight backlit the trees and the snow. A surreal dreamscape that was great to photograph.
Christopher Martin Photography 