After seeing amazing photos of Abraham lake in winter, we wanted to see it for ourselves. These photographs are pretty common, as the area is beautiful, and Abraham lake, being man made, exhibits methane bubbles which get trapped in ice. These, and sunrise in the Rocky mountains is a recipe for beautiful images. This lake may be photographed by many, but not us. So having one eye on the weather, we got up quietly at 3am and started our 4h drive, to see if we can get lucky. When I say lucky I mean lucky. 2 years ago, we attempted the same, and arrived at the snow covered lake and -35C. So one could say it was a bust. This year we got partly lucky. The ice was clear, the trapped methane bubbles were there, but the sunrise wasn't.
Landscape photography is like a baking contest. You have a time limit, and unpredictable ingredients. Your cake will either be yummy, or it will fail miserably. The best of the landscape photographers, can bend the ingredients to their will, and still create something wonderful, even when given salt, when sugar is needed.
Kasia and me, try to create compelling images, even when the ingredients are not in our favour. Since Kasia started using Fuji cameras, instead of Sony, I decided to challenge myself, by taking an old medium format film camera with 2 lenses, one digital Fuji and only 1 lens. I guess one could say, trying to stay true to MiKSMedia roots of film and digital. There were odd times when I felt a pang of jealousy, watching Kasia with the super wide Fuji 10-24. I just have to be less selfish and know that this outing is a team effort. I know if she had the Sony cameras, we would end up with same images. Sharing Fuji gear, actually makes us closer.
Since we were in Alberta Rockies, we could not just stop at the bubbles, so we spend a day driving through, but that's for another post.
