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Thunderstorm over Brazeau

A thunderhead cloud roils above the Brazeau Resevoir delivering high winds and a torrential downpour

Tur­bu­lent sum­mer storm over Brazeau Resevoir

We had a ter­rif­ic thun­der­storm this after­noon in Edmon­ton, and the past cou­ple nights as well—it’s eas­i­ly one of my favourite things about sum­mer in Alber­ta. So, I thought for my print today I would choose an image of a wicked sum­mer storm that I had the plea­sure of expe­ri­enc­ing (and pho­tograph­ing exten­sive­ly) last sum­mer. This storm rolled in rel­a­tive­ly slow­ly, or at least, I could see it com­ing for quite a while over the open sky of the Brazeau Resevoir (just south of Dray­ton Val­ley, Alber­ta). The tex­ture of the under­side of the cloud was amaz­ing, and each minute it was more beau­ti­ful and scary than the last… until the very last minute… I was pho­tograph­ing from the beach, and after the first few big drops I ran (RAN) back to my truck a few hun­dred meters away, and was thor­ough­ly soaked by the time I got there. But it was all worth it, of course. It rained so hard it wasn’t pos­si­ble to dri­ve away, but it didn’t last long and by the time it tapered off, I felt like tak­ing just a few more pho­tos…

Tech­ni­cal­ly speak­ing, my favourite thing about how this print turned out is that I man­aged to hold the detail in the high­lights in the upper-right cor­ner of the cloud (yay!) If your mon­i­tor is rea­son­ably accu­rate (most are not bad), and not set too bright (most are set way too high), you should be able to see faint wisps of cloud, even in the bright­est parts.

A folio print of this image is for sale for whatever price you think is fair. Enter amount: $

Summer evening at Jasper Lake

Fluffy cumulus clouds are reflected in Jasper Lake on a warm late summer day in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada

Fine sum­mer clouds over Jasper Lake

In August 2008 I was work­ing for the Cana­di­an For­est Ser­vice, doing research in pine stands west of Edmon­ton. I made this pho­to after leav­ing from work for the week­end and dri­ving through Jasper on the way to a friend’s wed­ding in north­ern BC. I could see the light get­ting good as I got clos­er to the park and, after a speed­ing tick­et in Edson (d-oh!), I had a ter­rif­ic evening mak­ing many images that I was real­ly hap­py with. This Dai­ly Print project that I’m try­ing out is a great excuse to look back into my archives to find these images that I’ve kind of for­got­ten about. Watch for more pho­tos from this August evening in the next few weeks…

A folio print of this image is for sale for whatever price you think is fair. Enter amount: $

Rain at sunrise at Beaverhill Lake

The rising sun adds colour to banks of rain clouds moving in over Beaverhill Lake, Alberta

Heavy clouds over Beaver­hill Lake

I made this pho­to­graph back in August of 2008 on a beau­ti­ful, calm morn­ing at Beaver­hill Lake but which didn’t last long—by mid-morn­ing the clouds had com­plete­ly rolled in, and I pro­ceed­ed with get­ting soaked (all part of the expe­ri­ence).

I print­ed this pho­to today, as the first two prints (here and here) in my Dai­ly Print project (explained here) were both high­ly-detailed, fine­ly tex­tured images with bold colours, so I thought I’d try some­thing dif­fer­ent, and a lit­tle out of the ordi­nary for me. It was inter­est­ing to see the fin­ished print—the colours turned out great, but let’s say I need to prac­tice print­ing more soft-tex­tured images… (that’s what this whole exer­cise is about though, I guess, and I’m hav­ing fun doing it too)

A folio print of this image is for sale for whatever price you think is fair. Enter amount: $

Spring rain over Devona Flats

A late evening spring rain falls onto the dry lakebed of Jasper Lake at Devona Flats in Jasper National Park

Spring storm over Devona Flats

I recent­ly had the chance to get away for a few days, and had the plea­sure of being able to do some pho­tog­ra­phy in Jasper Nation­al Park. The day that I took this pho­to­graph start­ed out clear and sun­ny, and as the day went along these large clouds spilled out of the Athabas­ca Riv­er Val­ley to the west, com­ing east towards Pocha­hon­tas where I was stay­ing. And while the clouds made it less appeal­ing to sit out on the deck in the after­noon, they sure made for much more dra­mat­ic pho­tographs lat­er in the evening—well worth the trade-off.

I real­ly like the con­trast in this image of the heavy, wet sky and the falling rain streak­ing down—contrasted with the dry riv­er flats still await­ing the melt of high­er ele­va­tion snow and the start of spring and sum­mer weath­er pat­terns.

A folio print of this image is for sale for whatever price you think is fair. Enter amount: $

Fiery cirrus clouds at sunset

The days last sunlight illuminates high icy clouds behind a clean horizon of fresh snow

Fiery sun­set over snowy hori­zon

I’ve been out con­duct­ing noc­tur­nal owl sur­veys in south-cen­tral Alber­ta for the past few weeks, which has giv­en me the chance to take some great sun­set pho­tographs, and to try out pho­tograph­ing at night—lots of fun (but lots to learn too!)

This pho­to came after a whole day of cloud that final­ly broke at just the right time to allow the set­ting sun to peek through. If they coop­er­ate, a sky full of clouds sure makes for more inter­est­ing pho­tog­ra­phy than a “per­fect­ly” clear sky.

A folio print of this image is for sale for whatever price you think is fair. Enter amount: $

More snow on spruce

Fresh snow covers the upper branches of two black spruce trees in the Wagner Natural Area

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.

A folio print of this image is for sale for whatever price you think is fair. Enter amount: $

& Water">Fog Ice & Water

Here’s anoth­er short video clip that I took dur­ing this recent peri­od of extreme­ly cold weath­er. Walk­ing over the foot­bridge between Strath­cona Sci­ence Park and Run­dle Park, I was mes­mer­ized by the com­bined, over­lap­ping move­ment of the fog ris­ing from the riv­er, the ice flow­ing down­stream, and the rip­ples in the water. The light breeze was mov­ing the mist around and the low sun was glint­ing off the thin ice­bergs, cre­at­ing a beau­ti­ful, swirling, shin­ing scene.