Oldman - Feburary 5, 2010

I was flying home from a trip to the US and had brought my camera and a small collection of lenses with me as carry-on. I spent the entire four hour flight with my head glued to the window searching for and taking photos of the interesting shapes and textures of our earth. When picking a seat for the flight I wanted two things - a window on the left side of the plane and a seat that was forward of the wing. I wanted to be on the left side so I’d see the mountains when we flew close to home and I wanted to be ahead of the wing because exhaust from the airplane engine will distort details in the photos.

As the plane approached Calgary I got pretty excited at seeing the river with the textures created by the light and shadow, it was exactly the kind of scene I was hoping for. The challenge to shooting out of the plane window is that it moves pretty quickly and you don’t have a lot of time to make the composition, and if you miss - it’s gone. I zoomed out to 22mm to capture as much of the river as I could and also was able to frame in the mountains. What I like about this photograph is the different textures that appear across the frame, from the deep bold cuts in the foreground to the soft, almost ethereal, mountains in the distance.

Later, I was able to locate the same view on Google Earth and discovered that the river in question is the Oldman river that flows through southern Alberta just south west of Fort Mcleod.

Thanks for looking,
Brad.