Natural landscapes: Waterfalls & snow
WATERFALL & SNOW, KANANASKIS COUNTRY, ALBERTA
Elbow Falls is in Kananaskis Country, an area of the Canadian Rocky Mountains that’s little known outside the province of Alberta.
I visited here for 90 blustery minutes in iffy morning light, often making three or four exposures of each composition to ensure I got something tack sharp.
A tripod, polarizing filter and two darkening filters were used on this scene. I carefully composed this to keep the boring green-grey forests out of the photo.
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Natural landscapes: Winter in the Badlands
WINTER IN THE BADLANDS
One of my favourite photo locales in Alberta is Dinosaur Provincial Park, about 2 hours drive southeast of Calgary (where I call home). It’s a stunning area of badlands and one of the most important dinosaur fossil areas in the world. I especially love winter there, because few people have seen badlands covered in snow.
This photograph was made back in 2003, before I switched to digital. I used a Nikon FM2, tripod and polarizing filter. By then I was getting my Velvia slides automatically scanned onto CDs during processing, so I had a good digital file to work with.
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Natural landscapes: Elbow River
ELBOW RIVER, KANANASKIS COUNTRY, ALBERTA
Elbow Falls is in Kananaskis Country, an area of the Canadian Rocky Mountains that’s little known outside the province of Alberta.
I visited here for 90 blustery minutes in iffy morning light, often making three or four exposures of each composition to ensure I got something tack sharp.
A tripod, polarizing filter and two darkening filters were used on this scene, made just above the falls. Elbow Falls is a wonderful photography spot because there are at least a half-dozen unobstructed viewpoints, at varying heights, scattered around the area.
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Wildlife: Silhouetted Deer
SILHOUETTED DEER, NEAR LONGVIEW, ALBERTA
I was driving around the glorious Rocky Mountain foothills southwest of Calgary when I saw these deer on a ridge above the road. At the time I was driving a Ford Focus with a sunroof that turned out to be perfect for this picture. I put a telephoto zoom on my old Nikon D50, opened up the sunroof and made this picture. I’m now in a minivan with no sunroof. 😦
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Wildlife: Feuding Marmots
FEUDING MARMOTS, JASPER NATIONAL PARK, ALBERTA
One of the best attractions in this wonderful Rocky Mountain park is the Jasper Tram, which transports customers above the treeline to the top of Whistlers Mountain. During a visit there in 2009, this pair of marmots – probably mother & baby – were beautifully posed on some boulders just a few minutes’ walk from the top of the tram. Scrambling, I quickly slapped on a 35-70 mm. zoom lens and skipped the tripod, because I never knew how long I had before the marmots disappeared.
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Mountain Landscapes: Sunrise at Bow Lake
SUNRISE AT BOW LAKE, ALBERTA
I’m not sure there’s ever a bad time to visit Alberta’s glorious Banff National Park, especially in winter. Unlike other parts of the province, it’s always reliably *winter* in the Rocky Mountains. This photograph was made in late February on the Icefields Parkway, considered by many to be one of the most beautiful drives on this planet. I wish there was snow on the trees, but I think this scene still works well.
The peak, by the way, is Crowfoot Mountain. And if you’re wondering why the distant trees seem a bit hazy, it’s because ice fog was drifting through at the time (the temperature was -15C).
Nikon D90, tripod, polarizing filter.
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Natural landscapes: Morning frost
MORNING FROST, NEAR CALGARY, ALBERTA
I’m blessed to live very close to rolling prairies with mountain views, soap opera skies and fields of hayrolls. This picture was made a few winters ago when I ventured into this landscape and found incredible frost on roadside grasses. Made on my old Nikon D50 (since replaced by a D90) and tripod.
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Urban landscapes: Awaiting Sunrise
AWAITING SUNRISE, CALGARY, ALBERTA
I ventured into the downtown core right after a significant snowfall and was rewarded with endless satisfying compositions like this one. This was made about 45 minutes before a strong sunrise in windless conditions – perfect requirements for ‘blue hour’ photography. Nikon D90, tripod.
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Rural Landscapes: Farm & Frost
FARM & FROST, NEAR BROOKS, ALBERTA
How often does any photographer get conditions this good? I was on my way to experience winter in the badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park, in southeast Alberta when this scene simply FORCED me to stop and make pictures.
Nikon D90, tripod, polarizing filter.
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Urban landscapes: Shaw Conference Centre
SHAW CONFERENCE CENTRE, EDMONTON, ALBERTA
Getting inside amazing buildings to make photographs is often a challenge, with overzealous security guards on the prowl. However, that was not the case here. I found a quiet spot in the bustling conference centre with a great view of the startling architecture of this structure, which runs down into the North Saskatchewan River valley in Edmonton’s downtown core. I had space to set up the tripod and make some long exposures with no one bothering me.
A wide-angle lens was vital here, to capture everything from the waterfall on the right to the expanse of plunging glass ceiling.
Nikon D90, tripod, 17-55 mm lens, polarizing filter.
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Urban landscapes: Bay-Adelaide Centre
BAY-ADELAIDE CENTRE, TORONTO, ONTARIO
This downtown skyscraper provided excellent compositions on three sides! You can see it was a wet morning and at times, that was a challenge to overcome. But notice how it improved this picture by casting light reflections on the stone tiles? I also like the three blurred people in the doorway. Adds a mildly spooky edge… Nikon D90, tripod, polarizer.
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Urban landscapes: Blue hour lights
THE LIGHTS OF BAY-ADELAIDE CENTRE, TORONTO, ONTARIO
Blue hour – that time before/after sunrise, when the sky isn’t black but artificial light is needed for illumination – is usually a wonderful time for photographers. This picture of the Bay-Adelaide Centre in downtown Toronto was only possible during blue hour. I tried it a little later and the interior lights simply didn’t resonate as they do here.
Nikon D90, tripod, polarizer, 18-55-mm. lens.
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Urban landscapes: Blue hour at the gift shop
GIFT SHOP, EDMONTON, ALBERTA
This is part of the downtown city hall complex, which includes a pool/skating rink and public square. The ‘blue hour’ light – about a half-hour before daybreak – was perfect to show you details of the building, yet allow the lights to make a significant visual impact. Nikon D90, tripod.
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Urban landscapes: Staring up at the Plaza
ROYAL BANK PLAZA, TORONTO, ONTARIO
This skyscraper (on the left) has long intrigued me, but it’s a surprisingly difficult subject to photograph well. I finally found this composition, teaming it up with the top of Commerce Court and (on the right) the Canada Trust tower. All this is in the heart of Canada’s financial district. All the big Canadian banks have their headquarters here and the Toronto Stock Exchange is just a few blocks away. Nikon D90, tripod, polarizing filter.
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Urban landscapes: Art in the snow
ARTISTIC INSTALLATION, EDMONTON, ALBERTA
This is an amazing artistic creation. I suspect the bottom snow is a water pool during the summer, but this was still a glorious photo subject. The lights changed colour frequently, and rotating colours also pulsed along the rods.
The key to making this work is to photograph in very subdued light, which I did – a half-hour or so before sunrise. Nikon D90, tripod.
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Urban landscapes: Angles of light
INTACT INSURANCE BUILDING, CALGARY, ALBERTA
This picture came at the end of two mostly frustrating hours of wandering around Calgary’s downtown. This was around Christmas, so there were holiday decorations all over the place and they were unexpected visual problems that eliminated some photo opportunities. But at the end, I photographed this building from across the street, then crossed over and walked past it until looking up at this atrium and seeing the striking array of converging lines. This was easily the most satisfying composition of the evening. Nikon D90, tripod.
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Urban landscapes: the illuminated bridge
LANGEVIN/RECONCILIATION BRIDGE, CALGARY, ALBERTA
The city started lighting up this old bridge a few years ago and the results, as you can see, are nirvana for architectural photographers. This is a 30-second exposure made about an 45 minutes before sunrise.
The neat thing is, the lights on this bridge (over the Bow River, which flows out of the Rocky Mountains) change colour so if you don’t especially care for the picture you’ve just made, wait a few minutes and try again.
Nikon D90, tripod.
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Urban landscapes: Cathedral of light
BROOKFIELD PLACE, TORONTO, ONTARIO
This is one of the most photographed architectural designs in Toronto and, as you can tell, it’s easy to see why. I had my own shot at it and managed to make several compositions with a tripod (definitely useful, given I was doing exposures of at least a full second) before a security nazi made me put the tripod away. I left the building then and found some good compositions outside. Nikon D90, tripod.
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Lines & Light: the lure of modern architecture 10
CITY HALL, EDMONTON, ALBERTA
This is a fabulous building with potential photographs on three sides. The low angle I took on this served to block the cars in the background. But I also made sure to get just high enough so the top of the sculpture didn’t intersect with the top of the cutaway walls behind. I also used Photoshop to remove tree branches along the left border. Nikon D90, tripod.
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Urban landscapes: Union Station
MORNING AT UNION STATION, TORONTO, ONTARIO
Found these massive columns and wonderful light while wandering around downtown Toronto last November. Did I wait for a person to come out of those doors before clicking the shutter? You bet I did. Fortunately, several people emerged over a 10-minute period and I captured them all. But with a relatively slow shutter speed, only this person was unblurred. Nikon D90, tripod.
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