A goose and his territory
A couple of weekends ago it was a beautiful, sunny morning at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. Ducks were quacking and swimming around the open water in the ponds. Two Canada geese flew in and paddled towards the edge. The scene was hectic but peaceful… up until a nearby goose took exception to them coming into his territory. He flew over and then chased them away. This image is when the defender was attacking his perceived intruders with hissing, splashing and general malevolence.
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Dive motion
This image of a diver was abstracted by a long exposure (1/6th of a second) where I panned down as they arrowed towards the water. I was photographing our oldest son at a swim meet at the Repsol Sport Centre last month and took a few minutes to explore some creative images as people were practicing from the dive towers.
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Common loon cleaning
This loon had a small lake to himself a week ago. After swimming around a small island once, he decided to preen. I am used to this being a relatively short session that ends with the stretch out of the water as in the image above. This time was very different and saw the bird splash, skim, dunk and flap for 15 minutes. I’m guilty of thinking that he was having great fun during his bath time. While this is not unusual behavior for loons, it was new to me for the amount of time and the exuberance displayed.
I had a great time was watching and enjoyed looking for dynamic images that I have never had the opportunity to photograph before. The head emerging from the water, wings outstretched perpendicular to the water, surface skimming while beating droplets into a fury around him were among my favorite moments. Here are a few of the images that put a smile on my face when I reviewed them a couple of days after the encounter.
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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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Port Angeles – the ocean in motion
When I was on the west coast a couple of weeks ago, I spent one morning photographing along the Port Angeles shoreline. It had been a little while since I have been on the ocean and I was hypnotized by the ebb and flow of the waves along the beach. I always am.
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An icy sunset on the Elbow River
I walked down to the Elbow from my home this evening as the sun neared the western horizon. Dusk brought some lovely color the clouds stretching eastward. I found this sliver of open water and the interesting ice around it which anchored the scene nicely.
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A common loon swims in front of a low, rocky island on a calm, smoky morning on Upper Kananaskis Lake. Haze from the wildfires to the west was thick in the mountains and often hid the mountains that ring the lake.
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Mist in Mont-Tremblant
One morning while I was in Québec, I drove out early and found the mist evaporating off of the Rivière du Diable (Devil’s river) where it flows south of Lac Munroe in Mont-Tremblant National Park. I only explored a small corner of the park but was enchanted by its beauty.
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Morning at a bend in the Elbow River
A morning walk brought me to this scene along the Elbow River a little after sunrise. With snow falling outside as I write this, it feels like that may have been one of the last autumn landscape photographs for me for the year.
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Winter in Lake Louise: snow, ice and water
Last weekend I spent the morning looking for wildlife along the Bow Valley Parkway in Banff National Park. I drove along, stopping several times for short hikes to get a view over the river valley or along a creek into the forest. None of the animals graced me with their presence but the land made it a good morning nonetheless. In Banff, the lakes are frozen but there was very little snow on the ground. Halfway towards Lake Louise, the snow was more prevalent and when I got to the lake, the trees were heavy with snow, the ground was well-covered and winter was firmly set. It has been a couple of years since I wandered along the lake shore in winter with camera in hand. I enjoyed the time, working to create some images while listening to the multilingual hum from the other visitors as they came and went. It was a good time to be up there to photograph. The snow was falling gently, the river that drains out of the northeastern end of the lake was yet to freeze over and the clouds were moving fast so the peaks were in and out of view. Lot’s of dynamic elements to weave together into a variety of images. This was my favourite from a relaxed morning doing what I love.
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Mother’s Day Aurora
There was an intense auroral storm that started late on May 7th and rang in Mother’s Day with vibrant ripples and sheets until just before dawn. This session of the Aurora Borealis was the most vibrant I’ve watched over the past five years. For three hours I watched the sky being canvassed with impossibly bright streams of spray paint. I enjoyed watching them on the northern edge of my community along the banks of the Elbow River. I thought it was a great start to Mother’s Day and certainly worth losing most of a good night’s sleep to watch the sky.
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A storm over Upper Kananaskis Lake
Back in October, before the snow had decided to stick around, I spent a stormy morning along the shoreline of the Upper Kananaskis Lake. The valley couldn’t decide if it was fall and should therefore rain or winter with its snow. The compromise was a heavy sleet that came across the lake in sheets. Above, the clouds stretched apart and welded back together as the wind dictated.
Christopher Martin Photography 