 Greytones in boreal lake I took this photograph at one of the five lakes in Emerson Lakes Provincial Park, northwest of Edson, Alberta—a great little place that was almost completely deserted the weekend I was there. If you don’t mind a little bit of gravel road, I would definitely recommend this spot for a quiet boreal retreat.
Although the middle of the afternoon is not normally the best time of day for making photographs of the landscape, great photographs are still out there—and (if you ask me) any photographer that tells you otherwise isn’t looking hard enough. In this image, made at just past 4pm on a nice sunny day, I just love how the lake holds nearly the full range of tones from the nearly black shadows along the shoreline to the bright white reflections of the high cirrus clouds and the midtones of the shallow lakebed itself—all mixed together by the slight breeze causing the ripples on the water’s surface.
Add in a couple Bonaparte’s Gulls, a pair of Belted Kingfishers, and a chorus of songbirds—and you’ve got yourself a pretty good spot to sit for a while, making photographs as the clouds shift by (which is exactly what I did…)
 View from Wilcox Pass I will be away from posting for a little while (although to be honest, I haven’t been posting a whole lot anyways—sorry), as I’m off to Banff National Park to go camping for a couple weeks. I’m pretty excited—I spend most of my time photographing in the Rocky Mountains in Jasper National Park, so it’ll be fun to explore some new areas (with my camera along the whole time, of course).
Hopefully, I’ll be able to share some new work with you once I get back, but in the meantime I thought I’d post this photo taken half-way between Jasper and Banff, along the Icefields Parkway (one of the most beautiful drives in the world). We parked near the Icefields Interpretive Centre, and climbed up along the Wilcox Pass trail on the other side of the valley as the glaciers. What I love about this photo is the scale of the view. If you click to enlarge the image, you can just see the trail running down to the right, and there’s even a couple of (very small) hikers on it.
 Tracks along drying channel Recently, Dan Jurak, one of my favourite Edmonton-area photographers and blogger, published an image on his photo blog that reminded me so strongly of this photograph of mine taken this past summer, that at first I thought they could have been taken at the same place. It turns out it’s not the same location, but similar compositions and similar subject matter—Alberta’s lakeshores are turning to mudflats (and our mudflats are turning to grasslands). I took this photo at the Ministik Game Bird Sanctuary, near the location of the photo in another recent entry of mine, it’s a different lake, but the same trend. I like the moodiness of this photo, with the somewhat threatening sky and the animal footprints receding towards the remnant lake.
 Oyster mushroom folds While sitting at the art sale this past weekend a good friend of mine dropped by and asked me to make her a print of this image. It has been a long time since I’d looked at this photograph, but I’m glad she asked because I’m really enjoying revisiting it. This was one of the largest Oyster mushroom clumps that I’ve ever come across. I was employed doing bird surveys near Calling Lake, AB in the summer of 2004, and it’s one of the best places I’ve been for photographing mushrooms (and black bears). I like how I was able to fill the frame with the folds and gills of this mushroom, emphasizing the organic shapes and colours. And it smelled absolutely terrific.
 Altocumulus sunrise and willow Here’s another photo that I’ve prepared for the Goldbar craft sale (see previous post for details). I made this exposure in the summer of 2008 while working banding birds at the Beaverhill Bird Observatory near Tofield, AB. I saw many beautiful sunrises that summer, although I didn’t always get the chance to capture them in a photograph.
 Colour and sun patches on mountain ridge This weekend I’m going through photos that I’ve taken in the last year or so as I prepare for this year’s Goldbar sale (see previous post for details). It’s great looking back at these photos, remembering the times I was out to capture them, and realizing that it’s been far too long since I’ve updated my website to share some of these with you. So, perhaps for the next few posts I’ll show you some of the images I have particularly enjoyed re-discovering as a teaser for the website updates I’m currently working on (shouldn’t be too long now…).
I took this photograph while hiking the Sulphur Skyline trail in Jasper National Park. It’s a shorter hike, with pretty steep (and constant) elevation gain, and the view from the top is incredible. This one is from the way back down (easier to think about making photographs once the pulse has slowed down a little), looking southeast I believe–which would make this either Utopia Mountain or Mount O’Hagan. Does anybody know for sure? Besides the view, the best thing about this hike is that the trailhead is a few hundred meters from the Miette hotsprings–definitely a great way to end a day of climbing, I would certainly recommend it next time you’re in Jasper.
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(Click photos to enlarge)
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