K-Country Spring

Earlier this week, I made my first foray of the spring into Kananaskis Country, where I met up with my two longtime photography partners, Bob Bear and Stewart Hamilton. Although I had been in this area in February, it has been closed since the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic. As Alberta relaxes prior constraints in order to re-start the economy, Provincial Parks have been re-opened, subject of course to the rules of physical distancing. We traveled to the area in separate cars and had no difficulty maintaining a safe space between us once we got down to taking photographs.

Our first rendezvous was at Barrier Lake, still looking quite winter-like. The lake is ringed with ice which you can see is still quite thick. The lake’s water level has dropped as water is released from the dam to control the spring run-off. As the level goes down, the ice drops inward, creating cracks in the remaining ice, always interesting to photograph.

We moved on to a nearby locale, known as the Mount Lorette Ponds. Without the abundance of ice seen at Barrier Lake, it looks very spring-like. This picture features one of the ponds situated up against a cliff face at the foot of Mount McDougall. It’s a naturally good photo composition, eye-catching and difficult for a photographer to ignore.

I walked a little further along the trail to get this next shot looking back, facing more into the cliff-face. I like the contrast of the shadowed area and the brightly illuminated trees and grasses exposed to direct sunlight.

My last photograph for today’s post was taken on the western side of the ponds, facing the ponds’ namesake, Mount Lorette. Again, I was attracted to the contrasts between the shadows of the forest and the illuminated areas beyond. Of course, one can never go wrong with a mountain reflection and some up-rooted trees. The broad dynamic range of this scene introduces the challenge of capturing it all in one picture. I took three exposures of the same scene and blended them, using the darkest for the background, the lightest for the foreground and a balanced exposure for the centre part of the scene.

I think this day was the best weather so far this spring. We did very well in our choice of days to go out. Looking forward to many more.