Elbow Lake - October 13, 2013

Made a short family hike out to Elbow Lake on Sunday looking for some Fall colours. On the drive out we passed lots of yellow trees but as we made our way further south along Highway 40 and into higher elevations the scenery started to become snow covered. Around the Highwood Pass a lot of the leaves have fallen already as winter starts to settle in. For our trip the sky was cloudy and overcast which made it feel even more like winter. We walked around the lake and down the Elbow valley a ways towards Tombstone mountain. I was hoping to get to Edworthy falls but it was a bit further than I remembered and we ended up turning around. Elbow lake is just staring to freeze over and there was a light dusting of snow covering the ice, for a few minutes the sun was illuminating Tombstone mountain and I made this photo.

With the overcast light and the low contrast on the snow the image looked monochromatic already so I finished it in black and white.

Before we turned around we came across a few wind-swept larches.



Thanks for looking.
Brad

Elbow Lake - June 29th, 2012

After work on Friday I drove out to the Kananaskis for some photo time. It really feels like the month of June just whipped by and in a flash it was gone. I'm not really sure where it went. I remember lots of rain, heavy clouds flat light, I must not have been out much.

I`m a little disappointed as our spring and summer is fleeting. It feels like time was lost. We`ve already passed the first day of summer and the days are starting to getting shorter as we head straight into the darkness of winter!

As I drove down Highway 40 I figured I would go to Elbow lake and take a look around. I "discovered" the lake last year and I think there are still lots of photo opportunities to be realized. It's a pretty short walk far from the parking lot but you still get the feeling your deep in the mountains. There is a backcountry campground at the head of the lake I think I'd like to try staying there overnight. I'm sure Conor would come up with me.

The three times I've been here the clouds have always been moving past at a high rate of speed. It must get windy up there in the sky but in the valley where I was it was pretty calm. I wanted to smooth out the water so I used the dark filter to increase the shutter time to 30 seconds. This also caused the clouds to blur across the top of the frame. What I like about it is that the clouds were moving directly away and the motion helps highlight the center of the picture. This is a two shot panorama cropped to square dimensions.

There was a herd of mountain sheep on the highway and some glacier lilly's alongside the trail that I also took pictures of. As of this writing, I've not posted them to the portfolio yet, but when I do, you'll be able to find them and any other shots from today here.

Thanks for looking.
Brad