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 —

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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!

Sun, shadow, fresh snow, and thin cloud on Mount Geraldine along the Icefields Parkway in Alberta, Canada

Mountain Geraldine ridge

Along the Icefields Parkway [Click for more details]

A darkening sky on a cold winter day through the bare branches of aspen and poplar trees

Pale winter sky through poplar canopy

Ministik Lake (in the winter)

Delicate white flowers bloom in front of a background of fern

Chickweed blooms and fern

Waterton National Park

Low clouds loom at dusk over a glassy calm boreal lake

Brooding cloud over Ministik Lake

Ministik Lake (in the summer) (I know that’s cheating a little)

Athabasca River island at dusk

Jasper National Park

Several birch trees stand bare in front of subtle fall colour in the North Saskatchewan River valley

Birch stems and early autumn colour

Goldbar Park (North Saskatchewan River Valley)

Frost-covered willow thicket at dawn in the Whitemud Ravine in Edmonton, Alberta

Late autumn willow thicket

Whitemud Ravine [Click for more details]

Heavy frost coats young alders saplings during an extreme cold snap in Edmonton, Alberta

Ice fog frozen on alder saplings

Strathcona Science Park [Click for more details]

Related Entries:

— Sunrise on Mount Edith Cavell — Bright sun on Whirlpool Mountain — View from Sulphur Skyline trail —

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Flat light and high-key greys

Fresh snow covers the forest on a cloudy winter day

Ministik shoreline in white

To continue the line of thought from my last entry, another type of composition that I find can work on grey, overcast winter days when the light is perfectly flat and even is a “high-key” image like this one. If there’s fresh snow, the whole landscape can turn the same colour – light grey. I find the trick is to ensure that my exposure is bumped up a little bit to turn the greys to white, and to find a little bit of contrast (spruce are great for this) for visual interest. These very subtle, almost monotone, images really capture the feeling of these most-subtle of winter days.

Related Entries:

— Winter stratus — Early autumn sunrise at Ministik — Warm light on winter day —

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Winter stratus

Frost covers birch catkins at Ministik Lake Sanctuary near Edmonton, Alberta

Branches and catkins against a flat winter sky

In central Alberta the cold snap is over, and a prolonged case of the “winter-stratus” has set in — stratus clouds, that is. These are low, featureless clouds and in winter, when there isn’t much moisture, they are generally light grey to nearly white. Sometimes, like yesterday afternoon, they’ll lift a little to where you might call them altostratus, and you’re more likely to catch a little break for the sun to peak through. These are probably the most common clouds (stratus and altostratus) over Edmonton during the winter when there’s not enough solar energy to build a decent cumulus cloud. (I think I may be letting the cloud-watcher nerd in me show a little here).

Photographically speaking, stratus clouds make the light perfectly flat and even, which can be both a curse and a blessing. Generally, the contrast of side light and shadows makes for more dramatic images than the flat light under a stratus ceiling, but I find that sometimes detail-oriented compositions benefit from the “huge softbox in the sky” effect. I enjoy the challenge of finding these photographs on days that would normally be considered photographic busts.

Related Entries:

— Wintery details — Flat light and high-key greys — Warm light on winter day —

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Grouse tracks

Fresh Ruffed Grouse footprints in deep snow at Ministik Lake Game Bird Sanctuary

Grouse tracks in fresh snow

I was sent a photo recently of an unidentified bird out at Elk Island National Park that turned out to be a Ruffed Grouse. The same day I had been out taking photographs at Ministik Lake Game Bird Sanctuary, which is just south of Elk Island, and had come across a fair number of grouse tracks in the dusting of fresh snow that had fallen overnight (this photo was taken at Ministik, but a couple years ago). The tracks are quite distinctive with the wide snowshoe-like toes, and it’s interesting to see where the birds come and go. Keep an eye out for these next time you’re in the fresh snow.

Related Entries:

— Magpie tracks in fresh snow — Portrait of a Ruffed Grouse — Flat light and high-key greys —

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Singing ice at Islet Lake

Cold early winter evening at Islet Lake

Last week I took my camera (and my daughter) out to the Cooking Lake-Blackfoot Natural Area, about 30 min east of Edmonton, for an afternoon walk while the weather was still relatively mild. There has been just a dusting of snow so far this year, so the ice on the lake was bare and exposed to the quickly cooling air. As the sun moved lower in the sky and the temperature dropped the ice began to make terrific heaving, groaning and booming sounds. The frequency increased until there was nearly constant, resounding, echoing sound coming from the ice. Everything else was perfectly still, and the singing of the ice was the perfect background music while I took this quick photograph – just as the last sunlight made the bare aspen on the far shore glow a warm orange-red, in contrast to the cool blue of the shadowed lake ice in the foreground.

Related Entries:

— Waterfowl on a misty Minsitik lake — Trumpeter Swans at Ministik Lake — Early spring dogwood colour —

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