 Fresh snow on two black spruce Here’s another photograph from the same outing to Wagner Natural Area as my last post. I like how the wispy-ness of the clouds contrasts the solid, high contrast forms of the snow-covered trees.
These are pretty classic Alberta winter clouds—high, thin, light diffusing layers without much definition (see this post that I wrote last winter). In this case though, I used a polarizing filter to darken the blue sky showing through these thin cirrus streaks, and that added enough contrast to show the delicate patterns of the cloud.
 Snow cap on thin black spruce After receiving huge amounts of new snow over the past few weeks, we finally got a day where the sun managed to peak—weakly—through the clouds for a few hours. Since I was already on the west side of town, I decided to head out to the Wagner Natural Area where, I hoped, the dense spruce trees covered in deep snow would provide an interesting photographic opportunity or two.
It was more challenging than I expected—the huge amount of snow often looked like just a big pile slumped over everything, rather than contrasting or complimenting the forms of the trees. But a challenge can be good fun, and I did get a couple images that I’m quite happy with—I’ll share some more over the next little while.
 Non-vignetted The processing in this one was inspired by an image by a local photographer who I’ve mentioned before, Joel Koop. He posted an image on his blog that was heavily vignetted (darkened in the corners) in post-processing—and it looked great. I had already processed this one with a little bit of vignetting, but his image inspired me to try pushing it a bit further, and I think I like it this way. What do you think? (I’ve included the non-vignetted version here for comparison—use your arrow keys to switch between versions.)
 Bright morning light on Whirlpool Mountain Here’s another photograph from my first photo-trip of the year in Jasper National Park. I made this image from along the Icefields Parkway, about 20 minutes south of the town of Jasper. I’m not sure about the name of this peak, but my best guess is that it’s Whirlpool Mountain, just south of Mount Edith Cavell and north of Mount Geraldine (if anybody can confirm/correct this, please leave me a comment).
The deep blue of the sky is due mostly to the use of a polarizing filter which really brought out the contrast between the sky, the shadows on the mountain, and the bright snow-covered faces.
 First light on south face of Mount Edith Cavell Happy New Year! After a great trip to the west coast for the holidays, I had the pleasure of spending my first photography trip of the new year in the heart of the Rocky Mountains—Jasper National Park. I could hardly have asked for a better way to start the year than to be out there watching the sun come up over freshly snow-blanketed peaks, and freezing my fingers on my camera. I have a bunch of new photos that I’m excited to share, so check back soon!
 Resting winter bison It’s been a wintry couple of days in the Edmonton area, but these bison don’t seem to mind it. I took this photograph out at Elk Island Park recently, and I love how the fresh snow is just lying on top of the large bison. I had the good fortune of being able to watch a small herd slowly moving along and grazing through the snow for about an hour before they moved further off into the trees.
I made a lot of images of the herd, but I was surprised when I got home and could look at the photos large on my computer, how many times there were stray pieces of grass in front their faces—not necessarily ruining the shot, but definitely distracting. I guess it makes sense—the bison spent almost the entire time grazing with their heads just above the ground, and the dried grass was often over half a meter high. It’s just interesting how, while I was there, my brain could ignore the visual distractions, but at home, the light yellow-brown slashes against the deep, dark brown really stood out. Something to watch for next time…
P.S. I hope you like the “new and improved” larger in-post images starting with this entry. As always, you can click an image to view it full-screen. Enjoy!
 Paper Birch along rocky Ministik shoreline It is unusual to find exposed rock along the shores of the lakes in this part of Alberta, but this beautiful shoreline along Oliver Lake in the Ministik Game Bird Sanctuary just east of Edmonton had several hundred meters of this gorgeous blue-grey stone typical of the Beaver Hills/Cooking Lake moraine landform. Tall reeds and grasses, all dried up by this time, grew from between the stones and above the high water mark there were aspen, birch, and spruce. And then there was this tree—growing near the water in a little clearing.
My timing was just right—all the tree’s leaves had turned to this reddish yellow, with a few fallen to the ground to contrast the colour of the rocks (the next few days were quite windy, stripping most of these leaves for the season). When I first arrived at this spot, the sun was reasonably low in the sky, but the white bark of the birch tree was still reflecting too much light and the contrast was more than my camera could capture. Sometimes, bracketing exposures and combining them to an HDR image for processing can reign in such high-contrast scenes, but in this case a slight breeze was rustling the leaves and grass stems, which makes it very difficult to blend multiple exposures successfully.
Looking to the west however, I noticed that a bank of high stratus clouds rose a few degrees above the horizon in the otherwise perfectly clear sky. Normally, this is bad news if you’re trying to photograph dramatic late-day sidelighting and sunset colours (which I was trying to do). In this case though, I waited until the sun had just dipped behind the thin leading edge of the clouds, causing the light to dim a little and to diffuse ever so slightly—reducing the contrast in the scene, but still lighting the brilliant fall colours. I hurried to capture a few compositions that I’d determined while waiting for the light, and far too quickly—the light was gone. I walked back to the truck as the lacklustre sky simply grew darker with the sun hidden behind the advancing clouds—but I couldn’t possibly have been any happier.
 Morning mist and early autumn birch I had the pleasure of spending a morning out at Ministik Lake, and what a morning it was. The forecast was for clear skies and the first good overnight frost of the year, with temperatures down to a few degrees above freezing. As the sun rose, light fog rose from the lakes and hung in the still air, frost hung lightly on the understory leaves, and the clear autumn light shone off the first of the birch trees just beginning to change colour—it was exquisite.
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(Click photos to enlarge)
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