Category: Canadian Rockies

Sometimes I go to some length to avoid a human artifact in my nature landscapes. Other times, humans themselves provide scale to the photo. Here, it was hard to get any photos of the lake without canoes, but I like the composition with the two of them. What do you think?

In order to show the transparency of the water and the texture of its surface, I used a low camera angle. In order to include the tops of the mountains, I used a vertical composition.

We saw this giant elk cow with her new baby munching some leaves in the woods. The elk was on Cindi’s side of the car, so I handed my camera over to her. I love this shot. The baby’s head is in the lower right hand corner.

This photo was taken from the Lake Louise ski area, high up the mountain. The Lake is literally miles away, but you can see canoes on the lake if you click on the image for the large version. I used a 300mm lens and some Photoshop Camera Raw tweaks to reduce the haze and control the contrast.

IF you go to Lake Moraine, you will get good photos. All I did was put my 18-35 zoom on my D800, stop down a little for depth of field, and shoot. I composed the shot with the little tree (which is probably about 8 feet tall) in the corner, but any composition would work. If you carry a bid DSLR around, people will approach to take a photo of them. I usually enjoy doing that, but I was a little baffled when a lady handed me a Blackberry. I didn’t know anyone still used those. The display looked kind of square (like a Hasselblad, I guess.)

The Canadian Pacific Railroad is a big deal in Canada. In this photo, it is following the Bow River Valley through the Canadian Rockies.

I went for a walk in the woods. At first I didn’t see anything that would make a good photo. After I got in tune with the woods, I saw possibilities everywhere. Here, the trees are not special, but the interplay of the light in the trees in what interested me. For this kind of a shot to work, the light needs to be diffused a bit so that the shadows are not too deep.

Alpenglow Tips:

• Alpenglow is the last light on the top of a mountain appearing after the sun has set.
• The color of the last sunlight is spectacularly yellow, orange and finally red.
• Watch for it when you are in the mountains in the evening.
• Here, I saw it out my hotel window.  I put the camera lens up against the glass to eliminate reflections.
• The camera’s meter wants to make the shot look like daylight, so I used a lot of negative exposure compensation.

Each tiny green tree in the photo is a giant lodgepole pine towering above the mountainside.

This is the classic view often see on the web of this landmark hotel. I am shooting from a road on the other side of the Bow River. I chose not to include the river because I did not like that composition. You can see the Mont Sulphur gondola faintly in the background if you click on the image to make it bigger. I would like to return in the Winter someday because I think this shot would be great with fresh snow on the trees and the hotel.