Today, was a stunning one. Bright blue, clear and sunny skies; a day that shows the Rockies at their best.
I went out with Stewart Hamilton to capture some of the beauty of our surroundings. We visited two places, beginning with a new location at the south end of Two Jack Lake near the town of Banff. After an hour or so, we moved on an old favourite, the Vermilion Lakes. Today, I’ll post a couple of shots from Two Jack Lake, followed in a couple of days by some pictures and thoughts from Vermilion Lakes.
My first picture for today is a view looking up the lake with Mount Astley in the background. I tried this scene in both colour and black and white and concluded I prefer the latter.The foreground is the partly frozen lake, very interesting with a mix of ice, surface snow and some open water. I got many varieties of this shot, trying to best display the intriguing appearance of the lake’s surface. I think this one and the picture that follows best achieve that.
This next picture was taken facing 45 degrees to the right of where I shot the previous scene. I like it because it captures very well the mix of snow, open water and different forms of ice covering the lake’s surface. The brilliant, white spots on the ice’s surface are actually ice crystals formed by humid air coming into contact with the colder surface of the ice. The background to this scene is Mount Inglisbaldie. It’s not difficult to find a mountain in this area to complement what’s going on in the foreground.
My last photograph for today is a close-up taken on the lake’s edge. It features some strands of wild grass partly coated with ice crystals. It’s the same phenomenon; relatively warm, humid air coming into contact with a colder surface, in this case the grass. The crystals won’t last long, exposed to the direct sunlight they experienced today.
That’s it for today. I’ll return with pictures from the Vermilion Lakes shortly.