Random Images

I’ve been going through images taken over the summer and retrieved a few that did not really get my attention initially. In today’s post, I’m including a number of those, a collection of random pictures with no particular theme. They include some abstract pictures, some flowers, some mountain scenes and some with interesting light. As I said, no particular theme.

Today’s first picture features some pretty eye-catching light. It’s a sunrise catching the Fairholme Range, across the Bow Valley from our home. The sunlight is coming from the east (left) illuminating the clouds and striking the upper part of Mount Peechee with its first rays. The picture was taken just before 7:00 am in late August. I took the picture from our back porch using an 18-200 mm lens at a focal length of 200 mm.

Moving on, the next picture was taken in late July during my trip to Waterton Lakes NP. The flower is a Wild Bergamot (also known as “bee balm”). It’s a striking, pink flower that demanded to be photographed. Again, I used an 18-200 mm lens, this time with a focal length of 50 mm. At an aperture setting of f11, I was able to get good depth-of-field. I applied a measure of abstraction with photoshop, applying what is referred to as the Orton effect. This technique requires two images, one very sharp and over-exposed; the other under-exposed and slightly out of focus. The two images are overlaid and blended together to produce this softer, glowing image. It works well on floral shots and as you can see, it really makes the bloom colour “pop”.

We recently visited Edmonton where I got the next two photos from our hotel room window. Both pictures are sunrise scenes looking eastward over the North Saskatchewan River. The weather was great that day and there was not a cloud to be seen in the sky but for those contrails, courtesy of some early morning flights. Some photographers dislike contrails, viewing them as not natural. I accept them as strong visual elements of a photograph and I had no temptation whatsoever to remove them. My preference.

I took the same picture again, this time with the sheer curtains drawn. It was an experiment and I liked the result so here it is. The filmy nature of the sheers creates a soft blur overall and with a moderately large aperture (f7.1) and the camera focused on the bridge beyond the window, the sheers are outside the field of focus. Note that the bridge is comparatively sharp.

My last two pictures in today’s random collection feature one of my favourite peaks in the area, Mount Ishbel, part of the Sawback Range just west of Banff. Both pictures were taken from the Bow Valley Parkway, about two months apart. The first picture was taken in mid-July with the mountain surrounded by mid-summer greenery.

The next and final picture for today shows Mount Ishbel at the onset of autumn. The leaves are just beginning to change colour. I was a little bit early to catch the more vibrant colours to come. I’ll go back soon.