I was wandering around downtown Ottawa waiting to photograph the lunar eclipse. It was a very cloudy night and it gradually became more and more obvious that the eclipse was not in the cards for me. On the way out of town I stopped by Parliament Hill to create a few images of the Hill with all the Christmas Lights in full display. It’s a beautiful scene and obviously very photogenic!!
The entire region surrounding Calgary has been blanketed by a heavy ice fog for a couple of weeks now and I really wanted to make some images to capture the look and feel. It has been very surreal and haunting, and downright scary at times with the fog being so thick. I had visions in my head of images that show off the thick snow and ice that was coating everything. I’m not entirely sure I succeeded in that goal with these images, but I am really happy about them anyway.
These are Long Exposure night shots from Centenary Park, which is just East of Downtown Calgary. This is the GC King Pedestrian Bridge that connects St. Patrick’s Island to Fort Calgary and downtown. I’ve wanted to shoot the bridge for a long time, but I never quite got around to doing it. It’s a beautiful old bridge and the glow of the city lights against the clouds and the frosty trees really made it pop. This bridge is due to be replaced by a new and fancy designer bridge at some point in the next couple of years, so I’m really glad that I was able to make these images.
I went downtown the other night to try to make an image of the cityscape while the Olympic Torch on top of the Calgary Tower was burning. The flame was lit in honour of the Olympic Torch relay run passing through Calgary while enroute to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.
Unfortunately I only had time to make a couple of close-up images of the Tower itself before the flame went out. Since I was already there I took the opportunity to make a new panoramic image of the skyline.
I’ve made quite a few images from the same spot over the last couple of years. I really love the look of the city lights reflecting on the ice covering the Bow River, so I really prefer to make these images in the winter.
There’s something about a cityscape that draws me in. I’ve got lots of pictures of the Calgary Skyline, including others from this exact spot, but I still enjoy making them. This particular image is the latest in a series of high resolution panoramas that I’ve been making recently. I was actually out trying to capture a shot of the setting full moon looming large against the Rocky Mountains in the background. Unfortunately I arrived a little late and the moon practically evaporated against the horizon. I made a similar image back in the fall, but it was more of a pastoral scene than the one I was trying for this time. Oh well, there’s always next month…
It seems odd but this is one of the few images of the city that I’ve done in daylight. Most of my previous attempts were made late at night, and usually on extremely cold days. In fact some of my favorites show the ice and snow along the Bow river, and they often feature the reflected lights of the city glowing in the river.
These are all images that I’ve made in the City of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada. These are mostly long exposures taken at night to showcase the city lights.
Places – Calgary Skyline – Images by Sean Phillips