Urban landscapes: spanning the winter river

PRINCE’S ISLAND BRIDGE AND BOW RIVER, CALGARY, ALBERTA

I found a good viewpoint to make a long exposure photo of the last light of sunset and this pedestrian bridge. It connects Memorial Drive and Prince’s Island in the downtown core of this western Canadian city. Memorial Drive streetlights provided the illumination on the snow and tree branches.
Nikon D7100, tripod.

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Natural landscapes: where the creek wanders

LOUISE CREEK, BANFF NATIONAL PARK, ALBERTA

For some reason, the creek flowing out of Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies remains unfrozen even in the most frigid conditions. This is a wonderful bonus for photographers because at this altitude, the surrounding trees and vegetation are often snow and frost-covered, making glorious winter scenes like this almost commonplace.
I am truly blessed and thankful to our Creator for living just a few hours’ drive away from this kind of scenery.
Nikdon D7100, tripod, polarizing filter

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Urban landscapes: it’s easy being green

SHANE HOMES YMCA, CALGARY, ALBERTA

The gigantic recreation centre, which opened in early 2018, is a feast for the eyes. The wonderful curves, colours and shafts of light in the main entryway captured my attention for nearly an hour, despite the pre-dawn -20 degree temperature.
Nikon D7100, tripod.

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Natural landscapes: bands of winter beauty

MEADOW, FOREST & PEAKS, BANFF NATIONAL PARK, ALBERTA

My attention was grabbed by the horizontal bands in this scene. Do you see them? Sky-mountains in the light-shadow snow-forest-ground. I like this arrangement because after you check out the brightest part of the scene, you will subconsciously appreciate how the rest of the scene is arranged.
Nikon D7100, tripod, polarizing filter and probably a graduated density (darkening) filter on the sky & sunny mountain.

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Natural landscapes: over the edge!

RIDEAU FALLS, OTTAWA, ONTARIO

This waterfall always fascinates me because it flows in the middle of downtown Ottawa (Canada’s capital city). There’s an overpass with roaring traffic just a few metres to the right of this scene. Here’s a colour vertical view of the same waterfall: https://wp.me/p2ccTX-nU.
Nikon D90, tripod, polarizing filter.

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Urban landscapes: the city sunrise

DAYBREAK, EDMONTON, ALBERTA

I was in Alberta’s capital city for a conference and ventured out on my free time to make some photos. Believe it or not, this scene was captured from my hotel parking lot.  in the distant background is the frozen North Saskatchewan River.
Nikon D50, tripod.

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Rural landscapes: occupied by ghosts

ABANDONED HOMESTEAD NEAR STAVELY, ALBERTA

This is one of those completely out-of-the-way places on the Canadian prairies where you step out of your vehicle and are presented with endless silence and endless space. In the midst of that was this structure. I kept it in the colour and turned the rest of the scene into black-and-white to make it stand out under the cobalt winter sky.
I also kept the camera as low as possible so the background grain bins wouldn’t get lost in the tree branches. After 30-plus years of making pictures, I’ve come to learn that it’s little touches like this that make pictures just a bit more compelling.
Nikon D7100, tripod, polarizing filter.

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Natural landscapes: the view into glory

LAKE LOUISE & LOUISE CREEK, BANFF NATIONAL PARK, ALBERTA

This is one of the classic views of this stunning place in the Canadian Rockies, photographed from a charming footbridge over the creek. That creek takes water from the lake all the way down to the Bow River, many hundreds of feet below. I really like this black-and-white treatment, but you can check out the colour version here: http://bit.ly/LakeLouiseWinter.
Nikon D7100, tripod, polarizing filter.

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Urban landscapes: at the altar

BASILICA OF SAINTE-ANNE-DE-BEAUPRE, NEAR QUEBEC CITY, QUEBEC

One of the most stunning cathedrals in Canada, this basilica was built between 1926 and 1931 and receives about a half-million visitors annually. My wife & I were blessed to attend a mass here after I spent close to an hour wandering around with my tripod making long exposures like this. (Some other views: https://wp.me/p2ccTX-HF and http://wp.me/p2ccTX-cq.)
Nikon D50, tripod

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Natural landscapes: road through the badlands

WINTER AT DINOSAUR PROVINCIAL PARK, NEAR BROOKS, ALBERTA

This is, quite simply, an astonishing place. About two hours’ drive southeast of Calgary, the spectacular badlands in this park are one of the most important dinosaur fossil sources in the world. I was there on a winter day and saw not even one person. It was amazing.
Nikon D90, tripod, polarizing filter.

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Urban landscapes: the bitterly cold skyline

WINTER SKYLINE, CALGARY, ALBERTA

It was -20c when I set up my tripod in Rotary Park, overlooking the gorgeous downtown of this western Canadian city, and made a series of 30-second exposures. The trick was to time the exposures for when the maximum amount of traffic was crossing the Centre Street Bridge, which spans the Bow River
What appears to be the tallest structure in this scene, The Bow on the left side, is actually shorter than Brookfield building, the lower-profile rectangular skyscraper in the centre of the scene. The Brookfield building is the tallest structure in Canada, west of Toronto.
Nikon D7100, tripod.

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Urban landscapes encountering the crossing

PEDESTRIAN CROSSING, CALGARY, ALBERTA

I saw news media photos of this $13 million project, which safely ushers pedestrians across Macleod Trail to Chinook Centre shopping mall, shortly after it was unveiled in December, 2017 and decided to check it out for potential photos. I was quite unprepared for the stunning main entry on the east side of Macleod Trail. I spent more time photographing here than the rest of the crossing combined.
The entry is mostly monotone, so I decided to add me (and my red Calgary Stampeders coat) to the scene, then keep me in colour and convert the rest of the scene to black-and-white. I’ve used this processing technique before (see https://wp.me/p2ccTX-10P and https://wp.me/p2ccTX-10Y) and like the results.
Nikon D7100, tripod.

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Rural landscapes: the symbolic sunset

GRAIN ELEVATORS, NANTON, ALBERTA

Like so many landscape photographers, I gravitate to the colour and design of grain elevators whenever I find them. I came up with the title for this post because it really is sunset for these iconic symbols of the Canadian prairies. Hundreds have been torn down in the past three decades and replaced with towering metallic grain collection operations at strategic locales. They’re undoubtedly more economical, but not nearly as pleasing to the eye.
Nikon D7100, tripod, polarizing filter.

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Natural landscapes: the Great Lakes sunrise

WINTER DAWN ON LAKE ONTARIO, WHITBY, ONTARIO

I dipped into the archives to find this beauty from nearly a decade ago. Almost ten more years of experience with Photoshop enabled me to do another round of processing and bring out the best in this glorious scene, captured east of Toronto.
Nikon D50, tripod.

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Urban landscapes: the silence of prayer

ST. DUNSTAN’S BASILICA, CHARLOTTETOWN, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

I was gobsmacked to find a stunning cathedral like this in a town of just 35,000. Thankfully, no one stopped me from making all the long exposure photos I wanted. I especially like the green ‘spine’ along the ceiling. (Here’s another view of the basilica, highlighting the altar area: https://wp.me/p2ccTX-10b).
Nikon D7100, tripod

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Rural landscapes: the winter fenceline

WINTER AT GLENBOW RANCH PROVINCIAL PARK, NEAR COCHRANE, ALBERTA

This 3,300-acre park opened in 2011, making it one of the newest parks in this western Canadian province. It has more than 25 kilometres of trails that lead to outstanding views of the Bow River Valley.
There’s lots of iconic Canadian stuff here, from a railway to distant views of the Rocky Mountains to roaming deer. Parts of the park continue to function as a working ranch. The long-abandoned building you see here is known as the Glenbow Store; it dates back to when a brick plant operated in the area.
Nikon D7100, tripod, graduated density (darkening) filter on the sky.

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Natural landscapes: when the ice cometh

ICE-ENCASED WEEDS, GREENWOOD CONSERVATION AREA, AJAX, ONTARIO

Freezing rain is a common winter occurence in southern Ontario. It creates havoc for people who have to chip the ice off their windshields, but look what it does to simple weeds! I think the one on the right is shriveled Queen Anne’s Lace. I went for a shallow depth of field, which made the background — and its subtle shades of beige and off-white — quite complementary.
Nikon D50, tripod.

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Natural landscapes: where the creek flows

DUFFINS CREEK, GREENWOOD CONSERVATION AREA, AJAX, ONTARIO

A high vantage point enabled me to capture the creek as it flowed south out of Greenwood Conservation Area east of Toronto, Canada’s largest city. I did a lot of manoeuvring to keep the distracting grey sky out of the photo.
Nikon D50, tripod, polarizing filter

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Natural landscapes: beneath the glorious peaks

BOW RIVER, NEAR LAKE LOUISE, ALBERTA

I was on my way home from a full day of making pictures in the Canadian Rocky Mountains when I crossed a bridge and glimpsed this scene out the side window. Stopped the van, backed up and clambered up on a snowbank on the bridge to capture this glorious vista. I was fortunate to make a half-dozen exposures, since passing vehicles caused just enough vibrations to render several versions useless.
Nikon D7100, tripod, polarizing filter, graduated density (darkening) filter on the peaks and sky.

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Natural landscapes: the pooling creek

WINTER CREEK, PETER LOUGHEED PROVINCIAL PARK, ALBERTA

I fished way back into the archives to resurrect this scene, photographed in the 1990s with a tripod, Pentax 6×7 medium format camera and Velvia slide film. Water pooling on top of the icy mountain creek created an amazing blue. Combine that with ideal winter conditions (i.e. snow on the trees) and you have an iconic Canadian Rockies scene.

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