Super Harvest Moon at Ministik Lake

A full moon rises in a clear sky on the night of the autumnal equinox.

Harvest moon rising behind aspen

I went out to the Ministik Lake this evening with the family (& my camera, of course) to celebrate the autumnal equinox, and to witness the “Super Harvest Moon” that occurred tonight for the first time in 20 years (click here for more info on that). For those of you who missed it — (it wasn’t much different than any other nice full moon-rise) — I thought I’d quick post this photograph that I made of the moon tonight. It was a lovely evening — geese & ducks whistling by overhead, a few quiet birdsongs (White-throated– & Lincoln’s Sparrows), beavers on the lake, and coyotes & bats as the moon came up. Welcome autumn.

Related Entries:

— Trumpeter Swans at Ministik Lake — Flock of waterfowl at Ministik — Singing ice at Islet Lake —

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Autumn foliage triptych

Here are three photographs of autumn colour in the plants out at Ministik Lake. While processing these images, I played around with de-saturating all the colours except for those of the main subject. This kind of manipulation of the image is outside of the regular “darkroom-style” processing that I usually restrict myself to — but in this case, I really like how it looks. I also added a fairly heavy vignetting effect (the darkening of the corners) to further accentuate the main subject of each image.

With their similarities in colour, subject matter, and processing technique, I found that these three photographs complemented each other when viewed side-by-side. I don’t know the “theory” behind why some images work together as a group, but I do know that sometimes a triptych is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. (Click here to see a couple more of my favourite triptychs). As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts — just leave a comment below.

Click these thumbnails to see a larger vesion of each image individually (use your arrow keys to move between them).

Related Entries:

— Early autumn sunrise at Ministik — Boreal colours at their autumn finest — Frost on dried Goldenrod —

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Waterfowl on a misty Minsitik lake

A pair of Canada Geese and a small flock of ducks rest on a calm lake on a foggy morning at Ministik Lake Game Bird Sanctuary

Waterfowl on misty morning lake

Here’s another photograph that I made the same morning as the one in my previous post. Although I took it less than ten minutes later than the previous photo, from nearly the same spot on the lake shore, and rotated only about 90 degrees, this photograph has a completely different feel to it — and that’s one of the things that I love most about photographing the landscape.

Related Entries:

— Flock of waterfowl at Ministik — Trumpeter Swans at Ministik Lake — Early autumn sunrise at Ministik —

— Please click here to share your thoughts on this image —

Early autumn sunrise at Ministik

A light fog hangs at sunrise in the yellow foliage of birch leaves just starting to turn to their fall colours

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.

Related Entries:

— Boreal colours at their autumn finest — Birch tree along rocky shore — Autumn foliage triptych —

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Mushrooms at Ministik

I took a great walk through Ministik Lake Game Bird Sanctuary yesterday afternoon — always one of my favourite places to photograph (click here to see why). The weather we’ve had this year has been just right for growing mushrooms (warm days, lots of afternoon showers), and there was a fantastic selection of beautiful species on show. I’ll not write too much, just post a bunch of photos to inspire those of you who — like myself — have both photographic and mycological tendencies, to go out and find some fungi.

: Shaggy Mane

: Bolete

: White Anise-scented Clitocybe

: Bracket mushroom

: Scaly Hedgehog

: Northern Roughstem

: Green Russula

: Puffball

: Tinder Conk

: Bracket fungus

: Small unidentified mushroom

: Amanita mushroom

: Branched Hericium

: Northern Russula

P.S. My mushroom ID skills are not terrible, but do not take my word that these are what I say they are. Instead, I’d recommend taking the word of Helene M.E. Schalkwijk-Barendsen in her gorgeous book Mushrooms of Northwest North America by local Edmonton publishing company, Lone Pine.

And, on that note, if you think I’ve gotten the ID wrong on any of these or you can be more specific (latin names would be great!) I would really appreciate a note left in the comments.

Related Entries:

— Oyster mushroom folds — Early autumn sunrise at Ministik — Trumpeter Swans at Ministik Lake —

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Dried fireweed detail

Even lighting, a close crop, and shallow depth-of-field accentuate the curves of a dried fireweed seedhead

Curves in dried fireweed

I know it’s odd to call this post “Dried fireweed detail” when 95% of the photograph is out of focus. For me however, this image captures the essence of the detail — and the depth — of the dried seed pods. The title’s also a bit if a play on words — using “detail” in the sense of a close-up of a portion of a larger work, like when a small section of a painting is enlarged in a book to show a painter’s technique, for example. I really enjoy getting in close to a photographic subject to look for an angle that can capture the greater “whole” of the subject while showing only a small portion.

Related Entries:

— Frost on dried Goldenrod — Frost, depth of field, and details — Dried grass calligraphy —

— Please click here to share your thoughts on this image —

A selection of my favourite landscape photographs from 2009

Several of my favourite Alberta landscape photographers have been posting small galleries of their past year’s best landscape photographs, so I decided to do the same. It was fun to look back through a year’s worth of photos, and impossible to decide which were my “favourite”. I decided to pick one favourite photo from each of the locations in Alberta that I regularly make photographs including: Jasper National Park, Waterton National Park, and the Icefields Parkway in the Rocky Mountains; and Ministik Lake Game Bird Sanctuary, Whitemud Ravine, Gold Bar Park, and the Strathcona Science Park closer to my home in Edmonton.

I’ve posted all of the photos below as a group (in chronological order) but I will also create a separate entry for each photo to provide extra details about the image like I usually do — just click on the link below each photo to go to it’s detail page. (It will take me a little while to get them all up)

I hope you enjoy this small collection, and I do always appreciate it if you leave a comment with your thoughts or reaction. Happy New Year, and I wish you many fine photographs in 2010!