The trees in the Calgary area are at the peak of the fall colors right now and they are very beautiful. I’ve been spending lots of time at the park lately doing family and children’s portraits so I’ve had plenty of time to watch in awe as the colors have changed. The ponds at the park have been completely still every morning and I’ve wanted to capture it for awhile. I finally had a chance to create some beautiful landscape images this morning!
Spring on the prairies in the Calgary region is a world of monotones. Monotonous browns and yellows that is. The fields are dull and boring and as a photographer it can be very discouraging at times. By this time of the season every year I am absolutely dying for a little splash of color in my world! While new signs of spring are appearing every day (there are lots of Canada Geese and Mallard Ducks in the fields, so the spring migration must be almost here), the bright colors of fresh new spring growth are still a long way off…
Fortunately there are still many interesting subjects to capture and I still find the agricultural objects littering the fields to be fun to shoot. There always seems to be lots of texture in the farms and the fields and there are many images within the images. And there are still lots of bales out in the fields that never got piled in the spring, and on partially cloudy days they practically glow while sitting in the fields.
Here are a few more images from my trip to Kelowna last spring. The Okanagan Valley is an extremely hot and dry location, and only the most rugged vegetation survives without irrigation. So it was very fun to see these beautiful little yellow flowers poking up and reaching for the spring sun. The following images give a little better view of what the Kelowna area naturally looks like. If you’ve ever been there you’ve probably been amazed by the rustic orchards and vineyards. They are very beautiful, but they wouldn’t exist without a whole lot of irrigation. That doesn’t really mean anything on its own, but I think it helps to put my images below into proper perspective.
I’ve seen this field of hay bales many times recently and I was really looking for a good opportunity to make some nice images. It always seemed that I was in a rush as I passed by and never had time to stop. I finally made an opportunity to stop one morning just before sunrise. The soft morning light was amazing and I could have spent hours there if the lighting conditions had held up longer.
Round Bales in Morning Light
I often plan photoshoots to coincide with the moonset at sunrise, around the time of the full moon. This event only happens on one day (or very rarely two days) each month, and as often as not it is obscured by clouds or fog, or I simply can’t make it out at that time on that day of the month. It is a very beautiful thing to see the moon painted with the colors of the sunrise and it really is worth making an extra effort to get out to see it.
I have only rarely considered that the moonrise at sunset is equally beautiful and powerful to see, and I haven’t paid nearly as much attention to the timing of that event each month. It was a happy accident today when I just happened to look over my shoulder and noticed that the moon was rising behind me, and it appeared to be huge against the horizon! I quickly found a nice agricultural scene that would highlight the beauty of the dusky colored moon and made a few nice images.