 Leah peak in bright winter light Yesterday I printed a very dark, night-time image, so I thought today I’d go the other direction, and print a very bright, winter daylight image. Leah Peak is on the east shore of Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park, and in my opinion, one of the most subtle yet striking mountain in the area.
I took this photo on a very bright day and it was a bright image straight out-of-camera. In Lightroom I did my best to make the print as bright as possible while retaining good contrast and detail in the highlights. I also tried converting it to black-and-white, but I found that I missed the very slight blue in the shadows and warmer sun light on the shoulders of the ridge.
And, just for the interest of the real photo geeks—here are the histograms from yesterday’s photo and from today’s:
 low-key  high-key
After my previous post “Athabasca Falls in black and white” with the motion of the water captured with a slow shutter speed to give a streaked effect, I remembered that I had also captured some video on that morning. So—for your interest’s sake—here is: a short video clip of Athabasca Falls shot at 30 fps with a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second at f/16; a still photo of the same composition captured at 1/5th of a second at f/8 and iso400 (the same settings as the image in my previous post); and a photo captured at 1/125th of a second (which I’ve been told best captures how our eyes/brains see motion) at f/9 and iso800.
 Athabasca Falls II (1/5th sec)  Athabasca Falls III (1/125th sec)
 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…
 Athabasca Falls I’ve noticed that I make a greater proportion of black-and-white images than I tend to print—so I’m going to try to correct that. I took this photograph the same weekend as this photo (it was a great weekend).
And, although it’s not an uncommon technique in landscape photography (especially of waterfalls), I also haven’t experimented much with slow shutter speeds and flowing water, although a fellow Edmonton photographer, Joel Koop (see an example of his work here), has inspired me to try more.
 Sunset under heavy clouds If you’ve signed up for my newsletter you’ll recognize these past few images that I’ve shared—this one is from a trip to Jasper National Park that I took this spring. I was lucky enough to drive into the mountains just as the sun dipped below the clouds for a few minutes before sinking behind the mountain peaks. I don’t recall my camera settings for this particular image, but I was definitely thinking of the golden rule for landscape photography—“f/8 and be there”.
 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.
 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.
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(Click photos to enlarge)
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