Scotsman's Hill - November 24, 2020

After leaving the house I could see that the morning sky was going to be amazing.. There were no clouds out east which means the clouds to the west would catch some light. Driving into downtown the sun wasn't quite up yet, but it was coming.. the eastern horizon was starting to glow.  

I dropped Jen off and circled back around to 9th ave heading east.  I didn't have a lot of time because Clare had to be at work by 10 and I had to be home by 9 so I could get her to work on time. Also, I was almost out of gas so I needed to stop and fill up at some point or my morning of drop-offs might come to an unfortunate end. Driving down 9th, I thought of where I might stop and grab some shots and soon found myself driving up towards Scotsman's hill which has an overlook of the stampede grounds, the saddledome as well as downtown. I'm not sure what was going on, but there were a bunch of temporary no-parking signs all along the road.. I ended up parking in a residential zone thinking I was only going to be there for a few minutes to try and capture the sunrise.

The sky towards the west/north west was looking pretty good but the sun hadn't yet crested the horizon. In a rush I looked around for compositions of the skyline trying to place the tower in a nice position.

The next 15 minutes was a rush of trying out different compositions, swapping lenses, and hoping I wouldn't get a parking ticket. Above is a shot that includes my muse and a side view of the Saddledome. The sun was just starting to graze the tops of the building.

Grey - October 19, 2020

It was cold and grey out with low clouds. As I left downtown I wanted to capture some photos where the tops of the buildings would disappear into the gloom. 

I spied the tower peaking out from behind the buildings and took a photo as I made my way towards the center street bridge and Rotary park.

Pink Moon - April 7, 2020

On the morning of April 7th the mostly full moon would set in the west at or around sunrise before rising in the east at sunset.  The full moon is always at opposition to the sun otherwise the angles wouldn't work out and it wouldn't be a full moon. Another feature of the sunrise/sunset full moon is that there is ambient light from the setting or rising sun so that you can still see part of the landscape.

The trick to making the moon look bigger is to shoot it near the horizon with a long zoom lens. Usually there is just one day per moon cycle that everything lines up - a day earlier and the moon is out with too much sunlight and you can't see it. A day later the moon is out after dark and you can't see the landscape.

I woke up at 5:30am so I could drive downtown and try to capture the full(ish) moon setting against the downtown skyline. According to my app, the moon would be in place by 6:45am or so.

I'd lucked out last year and got some good photos on the way to work (link) and was willing to try again in spite of going to the same area. I was anxious that I'd just end up with the same set of photos and almost decided not to go because of it, but I hardened my resolve and was soon driving downtown in sparse traffic.

zoom

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.

Skyline - March 27, 2020

Left the house with about 30 minutes before sunset. There were clouds in the sky and I was hoping that they would catch fire today. I didn't have much time and I knew that after the sun fell any foreground light would be pretty dark so I decided to head towards Deerfoot and 17th ave for a view of the skyline. I was visualizing a horizon shot with colourful skies. I wasn't sure that once I got there if I'd head north towards MaxBell or south to the bluffs over the canal.

As I drove up 17th ave I figured heading north towards MaxBell would be the better option due to the positioning of the sun. I ended up sitting a streetlight waiting to turn left for waaaay too long. The intersection has been modified somewhat recently to include an express bus route lane, with that and the various advances it seemed to take forever before my light turned green. I was losing sun! From there it's sort of a convoluted path through residential housing to get to the MaxBell parking lot.

I drove past the middle school that I attended so many years ago. My memory banks were tweaked and I started remembering all kinds of random bits of my childhood. It's kind of cool how we can have inactive thoughts in our heads that are activated by visual stimulation. I attended that school for thee years in the early 80's during my formative years.

Just missed the sun.

As I finally pulled into the MaxBell parking lot the sun had just dropped out of view but the sky was still glowing.. I quickly stopped and took this photo out the car window just in case it suddenly became pitch black and I ended up with nothing for my trouble.

More skyline - March 11, 2020

I had a chance to get out around 6:45pm which was perfect given that that sun sets at 7:35 tonight. I had high hopes about the light because I was out so early. Trying to think of a place to shoot from I picked Scotsman's Hill. There's a nice lookout over Stampede park with the Saddledome and downtown buildings clustered around behind. After figuring out how to actually get there I found parking on the street in a 1 hour zone. A city parking authority car happened to be skulking around so to be safe I set a timer on my phone for when I'd have come back and move my car.

I made my way over to the lookout and mounted the camera on the tripod, picked my view and waited for the light to do something. It was kind of flat, with clouds hovering in the sky casting a shadow over the downtown core. My hopes for spectacular light were diminishing.

Throwing shade

Fall Sunset - October 16, 2012

Driving down 26th street the sun was low on the horizon and had just peeked out below some clouds. Looking towards downtown and the western sky I couldn't help but stop and take a few photo's of the sunset. Soon the leaves will all be off the trees and the snow will be flying. Luckily I had my camera with me (If you don't know me, I always have my camera with me ;-) There wasn't much time because I was on my way to pick up Conor from Grandma's house and take him to his piano lesson.

I wasn't stopped for too long and still got Conor to his lesson on time. Phew!

Thanks for looking.
Brad.

Thirty below - January 17, 2012

On the way into work this morning I grabbed my coffee from the Center street Starbucks and then drove over to the hill in Crescent heights that overlooks the city. The hill overlooks Memorial drive, the Bow river and Princes Island park in addition to the downtown core. I stopped because it was very cold outside and I thought the exhaust from all the buildings would make a cool picture (literally :-). I took three shots and stitched them together to make a panorama of the skyline. Each shot was a 15 second exposure, while the camera was exposing, I was jumping up and down to get my blood circulating to try and get some warmth back into my fingers. Needless to day I wasn't out there too long. I hope you like it.

Thanks for looking.
Brad

Calgary Skyline sunset - October 3, 2011

I was driving home from work, the sky was overcast with high thin clouds but the sun was low and there was some muted colour. I was heading north on Deerfoot from Memorial drive and it looked like the sun was directly behind the buildings downtown. When I saw what was happening I imagined shooting the skyline silhouetted against the colourful sky with the sun directly behind the buildings. I often get the impulse to stop and take a photo but more often than not I just keep on driving. Tonight I circled back to a spot that overlooks Bridgeland and has a pretty good view of downtown.

When I first got there I could see light spilling around the Bow. I quickly took a couple shots because I didn`t want to lose the opportunity before it went away. It did not last long before the sun moved and the light changed. This shot wasn't quite what I originally had in mind but the sunlight spilling around the building is quite nice. Sometimes you get more than you asked for. The little black specs are birds that were flying across the scene. I waited a little while for them to pass but they just kept on coming.

Beaver Flats - March 29, 2911

I was out at Beaver Flats last night and had a good time walking along the ponds and taking pictures of the running water. When I was looking at the shots that I got I felt that they were missing something. Then I realized that they were lacking definition and depth that direct sunlight would help provide. So, I thought if the weather held up that I`d try to go out again tonight.

With that in mind, on the way into work driving across the Center street bridge I was struck by the nice morning light so I opened up the sunroof and stuck the camera out and was able to get this shot.

That evening at Beaver Flats I walked along the river and there was lots of beautiful light. I took a variety of shots using different tools to try and create some nice effects. On this shot, I used the tilt-shift lens to vari the focal plane. I hope you like it.

To see other shots from today, click here.

Thanks for looking.
Brad.

Cold again - March 1st 2011

It's cold again.

I had an urge to make a picture so I walked down near the river looking for something interesting after wolfing down my lunch.. for the most part it wasn't interesting. Cold, grey, blah, flat, featureless white on white. I walked closer to the rivers edge where there was a small ribbon of open water. Steam rising up into the cold air. I could hear the chunks of ice bumping into the frozen edges as the water raced past. The steam might have been interesting, the sun was in the wrong spot I couldn`t get any reflections to bring out the texture of the water.

I kept walking, ears starting to burn, hands tucked into my jacket sleave, the skin on my face feeling heavy and numb. Then I came across this tree. At first I noticed all the holes in it from where the birds pecked away to get at the bugs. I took a few shots looking for some composition. Then I noticed the huge branch lying on the ground, I took a few more. I thought I had it, my fingers were stiff from the cold, it was difficult to work the controls.

I was walking away, trying to look through the moisture on the LCD in the bright light. Trying to see what I captured, see if I got anything. I didn't think that I had. I wanted to tilt the lens and make parts of the image out of focus, put emphasis on the tree, but for some reason I didn't do that. I went back and took a few more pictures, trying again. Fingers starting to go numb from holding the camera in the cold. I wanted to get it, so I'd shoot, review the shot - the tree's to high in the frame, adjust the composition, another shot, tweaking the focus this time. Couldn't feel my fingertips anymore. Think I got it. fingers hurt now.. time to go. I head back to the car, trotting along the frozen bike path.

Later, processing the image, I like it. Trying to come up with a name. I looked up synonyms for separate, broken and apart.. Disjoined is what I came up with. The branch is disjoined from the tree.

Later in the day, I tried to make a shot of the downtown skyline. This time I had gloves on, but I had to poke my fingers out to work the controls and they got pretty cold again. I think I've got to figure out a way to get circulation into my hands so they don't get so cold. Perhaps it's a sign of getting old. I'm not old though.

I wanted this image to make you feel how cold it was but I'm not sure if it does. Maybe it's because the colours are too saturated. Perhaps cold shouldn't be so vibrant and colourful.

There was another view that I thought would be interesting, but there was a fence in the way and some other obstacles that I couldn't overcome so I'll have to remember to try it out next time.

Thanks for looking.
brad