Bow River Sunrise

Joined by my friend and fellow photographer, Stu Hamilton I returned to a favourite location for some early morning picture taking. This site is in the town of Canmore, on the north bank of the Bow River. It offers in my opinion, the best view of Canmore’s iconic Three Sisters. I’ll begin today’s post with that photo, one that I have posted before but perhaps with a slightly different perspective.

It was a cloudless morning with very clear skies, consequently we didn’t get the brilliant red colours on the mountains we might hope to see. This shot was taken at the peak of the morning’s colour, a brownish red; not overly dramatic but nice nonetheless. This back channel  of the Bow has very little water flow, so in the absence of any wind the water is very placid, resulting in very clear reflections. That’s the big attraction of this location.

This next picture also takes advantage of the calm water to capture the reflection of a wider angle view, taking in the mountains to the west of the Three Sisters; Ship’s Prow, the Canmore Wall, Miner’s Peak and Ha Ling Peak. This panoramic scene was composed from nine images, stitched together to create the final picture.

We moved around a little to get different angles on this very photo rich location. Here are a few of the views that emerged.

If there was any doubt that his waterway is moving, you can see where the flow becomes evident just beyond where I took the previous two shots.  The shallow water moving over the stony riverbed creates some nice patterns, highlighted by the glowing reflections of the mountains further down the valley.

Stepping back and using a wider angle, I took this picture looking upstream in the direction of the townsite. Prominent peaks in the background are Ha Ling Peak and the East End of Rundle.

As we left for our next destination, I espied this next scene and paused to take the picture before moving on.

What caught my eye was the line of bending trees along the shoreline and the variety of reflections in the still water. The little peninsula has been the location for many pictures taken across the river, including the first two in today’s post. I guess it was time to feature it in a portrait of its own.

Today, I’ve included a bonus shot from our second stop of the morning. We visited the nearby site of an osprey nest. Mrs. Osprey was on the nest when we arrived and took to the air to give us a demonstration of her flying. This shot was taken from a considerable distance, using a telephoto lens at maximum focal length (400 mm). This magnificent bird is large with a wingspan of up to 6 ft (180 cm).

I didn’t have a lot of success on this particular day, that pleasure went to Stu who captured some excellent shots of the osprey. I’ll try again and hopefully have more to share with you on a future occasion.