At the Beach

Yesterday, I went out to do some photography with friend and photographer, Stewart Hamilton in Banff National Park. After checking out a few places, we settled in at the Castle Mountain bridge on the Bow River to take some cool (literally) shots.

We ventured down to the “beach”, where we took advantage of the early morning light to get some nice pictures along the river bank. At -20 deg C (-4 deg F) it wasn’t a typical day at the beach but we enjoyed it nonetheless and did capture  some interesting images. The next two pictures were taken facing into the sun. The scenes were quite compelling with the sun illuminating the water, snow, ice and the mist rising off the water. And of course, the backlighting created some strong and dramatic shadows.

I then began to focus in on some the fascinating patterns in the snow and ice. The following picture is a close-up of an area where a small tributary was flowing into the Bow River. Most of the stream has frozen but you can see water movement in the upper left hand corner. The area is scattered with accumulations of ice crystals (bright white) created when mist from the river contacts the colder, ground surfaces.

Nearby, was another small stream working its way into the Bow. It was flowing beneath the ice on the shoreline, visible through a gap above above it. Again, you can see the formation of ice crystals along the edges of the gap.

This picture is a good example of ice crystals forming between some rocks in a quieter area of the river where the water isn’t flowing very rapidly. You can also see the rocky bottom of the river, quite shallow at this point.

This next shot is an interesting one. Crystals have formed on a very small patch of stone barely poking above the water’s surface. It caught my attention, looking very lonely amidst the surrounding, open water. I also like the clear view of the colourful stones on the bottom and the slight ripples in the moving water (directly above and below the crystals).

This next agglomeration of crystals formed on a rock protruding through the ice on a frozen area of the river. The rock is evidently colder than the surrounding ice which is covered with a finer glaze of frost. The crystals around the periphery of the rock and those covering a smaller stone near the top left of the picture are quite large, about 2.5 cm  (1″) across. Regrettably, I do not have a macro lens which would have enabled me to get a much better close-up of these amazing crystal shapes.

Broadening my view a little, I wanted to capture this scene across the breadth of the river, notably the long shadows cast by the early morning, winter sun. This picture displays the soft light we enjoyed for our frosty, morning shoot.

The choice of photo subjects was endless and we could have continued quite a bit longer, but for the temperature. After about an hour, we were satisfied with the pictures we had gotten and chose to call it a day.