Vermilion Sunrise Burn, Banff, Alberta (Kyle Jones)
I clearly need to post more – I hadn’t realized I’d only written one post this year (although I think it was a pretty good one). In an effort to rectify that, I plan to start a series of posts that each cover a 24-hour period. I’ll see how it goes, but my initial thought is that these will include planning, travel and technical stuff in addition to my normal sharing of photos. Let me know what you think in the comments and I’ll adjust based on feedback.
Today’s entry covers January 27, 2018. I was in Banff with a few friends for a winter photography trip. I’ve traveled with Alejandro many times and it always goes well. We have similar tastes in subjects and trust each other when we make a plan and decide where to shoot. We were joined on this trip by Aron and Matt. I was familiar with the work of each of them but we’d never shot together and I hadn’t even met Matt face-to-face before this trip. Fortunately we all got along really well and we were able to see some beautiful scenes.
We flew into the Calgary airport on January 26th and photographed sunset in Canmore. Well, three of us did… Matt’s flight was delayed and we had to drive back to Calgary to get him when we were done shooting. We stayed at the Lake Louise Inn near Lake Louise (go figure) which we picked because it was central to many of the areas we wanted to see. The hotel is essentially a ski resort and was fine, with a couple of restaurants that got the job done when we were around for food. We each checked our weather apps and other resources to get an idea where to go for sunrise and got some sleep.
Once nice thing about shooting winter in Canada is that sunrise is relatively late (8:25) so we didn’t have to get up too early. We bundled up and headed south, targeting either the Vermilion Lakes in Banff or somewhere in Canmore for sunrise. As we got closer, we agreed on Vermilion Lakes and drove to the end of the road by Third Vermilion Lake where I knew that nearby hot springs would give us some open water for reflections. The sky was already getting colorful as we arrived so I rushed to find a composition that took advantage of that color with reflections of the sky and the nearby mountains in the lake. The photograph at the top of this post was the result – the sky was just about the most intense red I’ve ever seen and I loved how the ice and snow picked up the color.
Vermilion Sunrise Portrait, Banff, Alberta (Kyle Jones)
I tried both landscape and portrait orientations. Overall I feel like the landscape version better emphasizes the intense color near the mountains. The portrait version does add some nice color variation in the sky as well as having more ice and snow in the foreground to reflect the color. In both images, the required depth of field was very large. The foreground snow was within a foot or two of my camera and the mountains are off in the distance. To keep everything sharp I took several shots that each focused on a different part of the image and then combined them in Photoshop. If you are interested, I’ve written a brief tutorial on focus stacking on FocalWorld. As the color started to fade I looked for another foreground and decided I liked the one below with some ice covered reeds. My goal here was to make sure that I could still see the full reflection of the mountains in the water.
Vermilion Reeds, Banff, Alberta (Kyle Jones)
When we were done with sunrise, we drove back to Lake Louise to swap out gear, grab some breakfast, and head out for the day. One of us took this opportunity to grab his camera, which he’d forgotten for sunrise. Good thing several of us had spares. We had breakfast at the Trailhead Cafe in Lake Louise Village. Breakfast burritos and coffee definitely hit the spot. Our plan was to drive up to Abraham Lake to do some scouting – and if conditions were nice we’d consider it for sunset.
Abraham Lake is about a 90 minute drive north of Lake Louise. The drive takes you up the Icefields Parkway to the Saskatchewan Crossing before branching off toward the lake. The scenery along the Icefields Parkway is beautiful anytime and the road is kept in reasonable shape throughout the winter. Abraham Lake is an artificial lake on North Saskatchewan River famous for bubbles that form in the ice from decaying vegetation. High winds common in the area tend to keep the lake clear of snow, allowing people to capture some beautiful images of ice, frozen bubbles, and mountains. We arrived at Preachers Point to find that the winds hadn’t been doing their job. The lake was covered! This is the value of scouting – I’d have been really disappointing to drive up before dawn to arrive in the dark to find nothing.
We continued driving along the lake looking for other options and eventually came to the Windy Point area which has a nice view of Mount Michener. This spot also had some snow on the lake, but we found some paths that the wind had cleared allowing us to see through the ice. The weather conditions weren’t great, but we spent some time exploring before deciding to leave and head somewhere else for sunset. We did drive back to Abraham Lake a few days later and the wind definitely did its work. But that is an image for a different post.
Abraham Lake, Alberta (Kyle Jones)
We decided to head to Emerald Lake in Yoho National Park, British Columbia. Driving to a different state sounds like an adventure, but it is actually pretty close to Lake Louise. There were two locations we wanted to explore at Emerald Lake. The first was Natural Bridge, and area where we could photograph a frozen waterfall inside a partial cave. The second was at Emerald Lake itself, where a picturesque building and the mountains reflect in some open water. Between these two locations, we figured we’d come up with something nice regardless of the weather.
Our first stop was Natural Bridge. It is a short walk from the parking area to a bridge overlooking the river and rock formations, and then we took a short trail down to the bottom. We were able to walk on the frozen river into the “natural bridge” area and look up at the textured rocks while surrounded by ice. The picture below shows the view looking into the falls.
Natural Bridge, Yoho National Park (Kyle Jones)
I took several shots while there, but a particularly fun composition was lying down on the ice and shooting almost straight up as shown below. This was another example where I used focus staking to keep everything sharp. I also blended in an extra shot with a faster exposure to keep color in the sky. The most disconcerting part of this shot was hearing the river running underneath me while on the ice.
Natural Bridge, Yoho National Park (Kyle Jones)
Our last stop of the day was Emerald Lake itself. The lake is covered with snow in winter, except for an open area near the outlet. The goal was to capture some shots of the lodge and mountains reflecting in the water in the blue of twilight. The biggest challenge we faced was two ducks swimming in the lake and breaking up the reflection. A few well placed snowballs encouraged them to take a break elsewhere…
Emerald Lake, Yoho National Park (Kyle Jones)
The above shot was the first composition I attempted. I liked being able to position the lodge off to the right with the bridge leading toward it and a nice mountain filling the bulk of the frame. In the scene below I found a gap in the foreground snow that I used to frame the reflection of the lodge.
Emerald Lake, Yoho National Park (Kyle Jones)
After those shots I moved further back and used a longer lens to fill the frame. I like the lines of mountains, trees and reflections converging on the lodge in this one, but it could be a little too centered as well.
Emerald Lake, Yoho National Park (Kyle Jones)
As I was headed back to the car, I had to capture one more scene that may show up as a Christmas post some time. The two trees in the foreground are nicely lit up and formed a nice frame for the lodge. I moved as far back as I could while still getting a clear view so I could use a longer lens and make the lodge look as big as possible.
Emerald Lake, Yoho National Park (Kyle Jones)
And that was about enough for a single winter day in Canada…