Earlier this week I took an afternoon walk. I traveled some of the pathways through the woods near our home, one of them leading me along Canmore Creek. The creek remains largely open, despite the winter temperatures and I was able to get a few pleasing photographs. The first one I’ve included today is a wider angle of the creek taken near its end where it joins the Bow River. The terrain is pretty flat here, so the water flow is quite slow. At this point, the creek looks more like a pond.
I saw some interesting ice formations along the creek’s edge, including this one, portrayed in the next photograph. The ice formed around the rock is receding on what was a relatively mild day. The dark lines on the ice are water flowing across it. The white speckles are embedded snow flakes.
A little upstream of this part of the creek, the stream is narrower and a little steeper, causing some turbulence. In this picture, you see where splashing water has accumulated on a fallen tree branch, creating a cantilevered ice bridge in the middle of the stream. The combination of turbulence in the water and a relatively low shutter speed (1/10 sec.) has created interesting patterns in the photograph, notably in the lower right corner. Here, the shallow water was rippled and the long exposure created the effect of smoothing the ripples.
This last picture shows a branch which has become laden with ice from water splashing up from the stream. You can also see other areas (edge of a stone at the bottom of the frame and the grass along the creek’s edge) where ice has accumulated. The long exposure (1/15 sec) has again smoothed the turbulence in the photograph.
A nice day for a walk, with the added bonus of a few interesting photographs.