The snow is mostly gone, here on the prairies, but it will be some weeks before we see greenery and flowers blooming. I can’t wait! It has been a long winter and I sure could use a bit of color. Late spring or early summer images are great for it because all is fresh and green is bright and not dimmed by dust of late summer days.
We are lucky here in Alberta, because some nights are full of light show. We had a couple of gorgeous Aurora showing last fall and I have managed to capture some shots without leaving the city.
I know, I know it is winter and everybody posts winter photography, but I am not ready for it yet. I see it outside my window every day, so I want to see something warm, colorful and pretty. Hope you are in need of this as well.
It has been a while since I’ve posted anything about Elk Island National Park. So, I think, it is time for some lovely sunset from the beginning of summer, when all was green, flowers were blooming and days were warm and long.
Those who follow our blog know that I am rarely in the habit of processing my pictures in monochrome. I love colors, all colors. I use photography as a medium to brighten my world, especially in winter months, when we are stack to see the blacks, browns, whites and blues, most of the time bleached out, lacking saturation. Having said that, I believe that some pictures just have to be processed in black and white.
Over the years we have travelled a few times to Alberta badlands. It is always an interesting trip. The landscape is so different there, comparing to the standard prairies / Rockies and there is always an abundance of photographic subjects. From out-of-this-world rock formations to interesting flora, patterns on the ground, carved by water flowing down after the rains, people, animals... If you are lucky, the sky cooperates
End of March on the prairies.. Depending on the year, it may be that there is still a lot of snow outside the city, or, it might be mostly gone. It maybe sunny or it may be snowing or raining.. Sometimes the days are warm, sometimes it can get into -20oC for a few days.. You never know what you can find traveling the prairies.
One of the most wonderful things about Alberta, to me anyway, is the sky. It's huge and always changing and I love watching it and photographing it. The sunsets, sunrises, middle-of-the-days and, of course the storm clouds have been fascinating me for a very long time. At night, you can see million stars, different phases of the moon, Milky Way and, if you're lucky, amazing aurora. Over the last several years I must have taken more than a thousand pictures of the clouds which, to me, are a huge part of the landscape, sometimes, the most interesting one (I do live surrounded by flat prairies after all ;D).
Sunsets are not that easy to photograph in early spring. During the week there is simply not enough time to get sufficiently far away from the city to catch it, during weekends - the weather does not often cooperate. Last year we took several trips to try and get nice shots and even managed to visit Spaca Moskalyk
y decision to shoot everything with old film cameras this year, still makes my wife shake her head. I've been asked by friends, why do I want to create images strictly on film. The interesting thing is, I don't know. Is it because I'm tired of perfect images coming out of digital cameras? Or maybe it's the need to slow down, learn patience and enjoy the whole manual process of creating an image.
Photographing flat prairies presents a challenge. It's easy to take a good photo of mountains, since all you need is good light and the pictures take themselves. Rockies are just too beautiful and full of interesting views. Prairies, though, require a bit more of an effort, since one has to find something to catch one's eye, to create an interesting composition.
Couple of weeks ago we have driven to a spot we've found about a year ago to see how is the spring progressing out in the country. The distant silos on the horizon reminded me very much of castles in Europe and if you don't look too close you can actually pretend that that's what they are. Works for me ;D. It was a bit of a chilly evening, and mosquitos were out in quite a force, but being armed with a big old can of bug spray we were not afraid of them at all (one must be quite brave to venture out this year, for there is literally millions of them, considering how wet everywhere is..). The world was full of frog and bird calls and it was so wonderfully relaxing to just sit and watch the spectacle unfold. What can I say, I'm a complete sucker for a nice sunset.. And if you can witness such, pretending you are traveling in Europe, with a wonderful accompaniment of natural music of nature... Let just say, it doesn't get much better than that.. I hope you will enjoy a few shots from that trip, considering how gloomy it is outside today. It is such a pleasure to ignore the wet, cold, cloudy outdoors and concentrate on the sunlight, sunset colors and a beauty of surrounding world.. With a touch of imagination, the magic is on! Kasia
I am sure, you remember me mentioning a few times over the winter (Missing Summer Skies.. Part 1 and Missing Summer Skies.. Part 2) the fact that I have been missing the beauty of summer skies. It's been such a long time, since we have had something interesting to look at during daytime hours as well as mornings and evening that when I saw what was happening outside yesterday I was up and about with the camera enjoying myself immensely. The warm temperatures brought with it fluffy clouds yesterday afternoon and I took our puppy for a walk in a neighborhood off leash park hoping to capture some of them. Oh, what a gorgeous walk it was!! I was hoping that the sky would cooperate during sunset as well and guess what! It did!! We didn't have much time to go in search of a location and decided to use "our" field close to the city. The melted snow left a huge puddle at the edge of this field and it happen to beautifully capture reflections of the sky, of which we took a great advantage ;D. Here is a few shots of yesterday's beauty. Hope you guys find it as enjoyable as did I! Kasia
I was recently going through some of my pictures from last year - March, to be exact and was dismayed to see how much more snow we have still on the ground in comparison with last year. The skies are also not cooperating nicely with us and it seems there is way less things to photograph... But, at least, I have my store of lovely colorful pictures I can feast my eyes on, when I get color starved and I have no problem with sharing them with you. So, here they are, shots from one lovely sunset from the end of March, from last year. Hope you enjoy! Kasia
