Taken on the Hayburger trail in Elk Island National Park while standing in snow above my waist. It was powdery snow, but still – hard to move. Makes me wonder how the animals survive the winter. It must take an incredible amount of energy to move anywhere at all, and food looks like it would be pretty scarce.
(For full effect, please read in the voice of David Attenborough)
In the plains and woodlands of central Alberta, a most curious animal dwells. This animal swims through frozen water, easily powering its impressive bulk forward. At over 1 metric ton, it is ironically scared of most other animals, preferring either to be alone or to be in groups of its own kind. Behold the bisonshark. While almost impossible to detect when submerged, the bisonshark rises from the snow to move more quickly.
Taken yesterday in Elk Island National Park. The bison were only sometimes completely submerged, usually showing most of their top half. But yes, we do have a LOT of snow.
Snow on the North Saskatchewan River. Taken a few years ago while on a hike with my Dad and brothers near our old house in Saskatchewan.
Dinosaur Provincial Park is a great place to check out, especially in winter. I went there in the middle of December a couple years ago. After a cold night sleeping in my car, a friendly snowplow driver cleared the way for me. I got there before sunrise and the whole area had just been covered in a fresh dusting of snow the night before. I was the only person there, although there were new cat tracks everywhere. It was a great day! Then on the way home my transmission blew. There’s always something…
Normally I’m not a fan of weird crops and panos. Too often the composition becomes more about the crop than the contents interacting with the frame. Sometimes it’s just that too wide of a lens was used and a boring foreground and sky have to be cropped out. But every once in a while an image benefits from a different crop.
Yeah, this is supposed to be pic of the day, but sometimes I just can’t resist the allure of multiple pictures.
A couple days ago I was cleaning up my library of photos and came across a couple photos that I haven’t seen in a long time. For some reason I had originally rated them quite low and they were lost in the depths of my computer until I stumbled on them again today.
The first is from my Yellowstone trip of 2007. There seems to be some sort of interesting complimentary / reflective thing going on here. The yellow reeds are almost exactly mirroring the trees and mountain, and the water contrasts the sky – the tones are almost reversed while the colors are complimentary. Anyway, it caught my eye, and after staring at it for a while I do believe I like it.
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The second is just from last year in Jasper, but it got lost in the shuffle of more bold and colorful pictures (or maybe dark and brooding, I occasionally gravitate towards that). This one has a more quiet feel but still has a lot going on.
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Last week we had our first thunderstorm of the season! Despite my aversion to being struck by lightning I can’t resist a good storm. So I headed out to Hasse Lake to take a few photos:
I’m working on a new series from my last few hikes. These are all pictures of snow melting and refreezing into beautiful structures.
