Gratitude - April 22, 2020

Earlier this morning I dropped Conor in the north west and was heading home along John Laurie past the southern edge of Nose hill park. Earlier we had looked up at the various paths rising from the trail heads and discussed riding a bike up the hill and whether or not I could do it. From where we were all the trails looked quite long and reasonably steep. Half jokingly I said I would. Now that I was alone I wasn't sure but decided to parking in the lot off of 14th street. Soon I was pulling my bike out of the back of the car.

A few weeks ago I'd parked at this spot for sunset and ended up taking some photos of a big cloud that was hanging over the downtown core. At the time I felt like there wasn't much for photo opportunities across the top of Nose hill because of the lack of features. Once on top it's really a vast expanse of flat prairie like conditions, perhaps once the grasses sprout and wild flowers bloom the mood will change. I pedaled up the hill and soon reached the top where I picked a path and rode off towards the middle somewhere.

What's cool is that you can completely lose sight of the city while you're up there and become lost in the natural setting. Being somewhat new to the area I wasn't sure where to go or how to get there. There seemed to be some main/paved paths and a bunch of boot worn paths that crisscross the landscape.

I pedaled across in kind of a north west direction and somewhere in the middle I stopped to take a photo of this lone hiker. The muted colours and light tones matched my mood. A kind of calm simplicity.

simplicity

I'd been riding quietly across the plains, just me and the whisper of the wind. After a while I started to feel a sense of gratitude and peacefulness for being in this place. I spent an hour or so just moving across the landscape and taking it all in.

Nose Hill - April 1, 2020

As I drove west on Mcknight I could see a heavy cloud hanging over the downtown core. The western end of the cloud was catching some sunlight but looked like it wasn't quite over top of the buildings. I didn't have a way of gauging how fast the cloud was moving and if the light was going to change a lot. By the time I reached Center street it looked like the big cloud hadn't moved at all. I didn't think that the angles would work out if I drove any closer to downtown so I decided to drive up to Nose hill off of 14th street.

I've lived in Calgary my whole life and I've probably been to Nose hill less than 5 times that I can remember and just once with photographic intent. I shot some crocus flowers a few springs ago for a 365 project that I was doing. I wondered if there might be some frozen crocus's covered with recent snow but honestly I don't think it's been warm enough this year for anything to have had popped out of the frozen ground yet.

I had seen an instagram post recently where someone had posted a photo of downtown from Nose hill so I had an idea of what the view would be like. Of course I was hoping for a brilliant sky and yada yada yada.. it's a common mantra that I'm sure you've heard already if you've been following along. lol.

After parking the car and hoofing it to the top of the hill I saw that there was a streak of light across the downtown core and the cloud that I was tracking was in a good position. I quickly setup the tripod and mounted the camera.

Light brushing the scene.