Canada Day in K-Country

Yesterday was Canada Day, the annual celebration of Canada’s birthday, dating back to confederation in 1867, 152 years ago.

I spent a good part of my day in Kananaskis (K-Country). It’s located southeast of Canmore, accessible via the Trans-Canada Highway, about 20 km distant. Kananaskis Country is a park system in the foothills and front ranges of the Canadian Rockies. I traveled the full length (66km) of Highway 40, from one end to the other of K-Country and back home again. I was in search of interesting subjects and good light that I could photograph. Today, I’ll share a few of my pictures from the trip.

The first picture was taken soon after I began my return from Longview, a small town located at the junction of Highway 40 and Highway 22, “The Cowboy Trail”. This is cattle country as evidenced by this photo of some lush grass, with a “Texas Gate” in the foreground, used to keep livestock inside the pasture.

Not much further along, I took another similar photo, this time focusing more on the aspen grove and taking advantage of some picturesque cloud patterns, high cirrus above some cumulus clouds.

Traveling westward, I stopped at the Highwood Group Use area near the source of the Highwood River. This is a recreational area catering to campers, equestrians, hikers and fishermen. And, in my case a photographer. The Highwood River flows east and north through the town of High River before joining the Bow River, southwest of Calgary.

I soon re-entered the Rockies, where I encountered one of my favourite photo sites, Elpoca Mountain. The weather was changing, with heavy clouds moving in but not enough to keep some sunlight from shining through onto the mountainside.

It was in this area that I barely missed a family of grizzly bears crossing the highway. I slowed to navigate the fleet of cars parked on both sides of the road and was able to learn more about the attraction. It was no surprise that it was bears but interesting to learn that it was a sow with three cubs, all light brown in colour. Quite likely the same group I had seen further north, eight days ago. By the time I arrived yesterday, they had disappeared into a ravine by the highway.

My last stop was an another favourite photo scene, the view of King Canyon to Mount Blane. Mount Blane and Elpoca Mountain are part of the Opal Range bounding the valley of the Kananaskis River on its eastern side.

By this time, it was getting late in the day so I set a course for home. All in all, a good day just shy of greatness by virtue of not seeing those bears!

Boredom alert! Continue reading with caution.

The first three photographs were taken and developed as single images, one photograph each.

The last two photographs, Elpoca Mountain and Mount Blane are each composed of three exposures, identical in every respect but the luminosity (lightness/ darkness). The pictures are taken in rapid succession with the camera set to apply a different brightness to each (in this case 1-1/3 f-stops apart). The three exposures are then stacked in Photoshop and combined using a technique known as luminosity blending. Luminosity blending enables the photographer to expand the dynamic range of an image beyond what may be available in a single image. The dynamic range of a subject is a measure of the range of light intensities from the shadows to the highlights. In low light conditions the dynamic range (that is the difference between the darkest and the lightest part of the subject) is quite small. The dynamic range of an image taken in low light can be expanded by taking and combining multiple exposures and using the full range of lights and darks available from all the images. This technique also enables luminosity adjustment without affecting colour.