This morning I went out with friends and fellow photographers, Howie Dingle and Joanne Young in search of some winter scenery. It turned out to be quite overcast, not at all like the forecast, so that changed our plans in terms of what we would photograph. I turned my attention to close-up shots, eschewing the grand landscapes we had anticipated. I switched to a telephoto lens (70-200m) and affixed a flash to work on some more intimate shots of snow, ice and trees.
I begin with this picture of mounds of snow atop some rocks along the shore of the Bow River at Castle Junction. I refer to the mounds as globules; that’s what they look like! With an aperture of f8 and a focal length of 185 mm, the depth of field is quite shallow and as you can see, the sharpness of the image declines very quickly after the second row of mounds. It is a pleasing effect and lends a feeling of softness to the entire image. You can see the effect of the flash. It brings out shading which helps to define the shape of the mounds and of course, it highlights individual crystals in the snow. Fresh, untouched snow is indeed a beautiful sight!
Joanne directed me toward a small stream flowing into the river a little further downstream. Here I found some very interesting ice patterns, beginning with Ice Nodules, below. At this point, water velocity was not enough to prevent some freezing along the edges of the stream. You can see that the flow of water over the ice shapes and polishes the edges, creating some pretty patterns in the ice bordering the stream. The water is very shallow, allowing a glimpse of its rocky bottom . The shutter speed at 1/25 sec has also picked up movement in the flowing water as it accelerates over the rocky obstacles in its path.
Before moving on, I captured this last picture, Stony Bottom showing icy, shallow water moving over the colourful stones in the riverbed. I like the distortion created by the moving water and the highlights from the flash, reflected by small wavelets on the surface.
Our next stop was Hillsdale Meadow, where we often go for some excellent mountain scenes. Today however, I found some interesting trees and shrubs to photograph, beginning with this close-up shot of some aspen branches. It’s title What a Tangled Web We Weave seemed like an obvious choice.
In summer, bushes in the meadow are a vibrant green; in autumn, brilliant red and orange. At this time of the year they look pretty barren and lonely without their leaves, surrounded with snow. This photo is not about colour. There is a little bit visible in the stems of the bush but you have to look closely. What appealed to me is the texture and shading of the fresh snow. Again, I used a flash to help bring out the detail.
My last picture was taken at the Sawback Burn and features an old log lying amidst the deadfall from a prescribed burn in 1993.
A good day, with many more pictures to enjoy. I’m on a bit of roll now and look forward to another outing tomorrow.
Very nice photos of snow. We have none in the east, may have to cut the lawn later today.
All beautiful images! My favourites are, ice nodules and tangled web. Some of these may lok wonderful as black and white images.