A peek of the Trans-Canada Highway 1 · Glacier National Park
This is a side view from the hike to Marion Lake, Glacier National Park where you could overlook a valley and the famous Trans-Canada Highway 1 just lying down below. If you look carefully on both sides of this panoramic image, you will see there is a thin bright line on both sides and that is the Trans-Canada
Hamilton Lake – Yoho NP · Canada
Honestly, I didn’t plan to go up to Hamilton Lake when I started the hike. All I planned was to see Hamilton Falls after visiting the Emerald Lake. One lake and one waterfalls and that will be enough for a day. Hamilton Falls is only a short 1 mile and flat walk. However, the view of Hamilton Falls was not very exciting. At the waterfalls, I ran into a senior couple from Germany and we talked about how disappointed about the waterfalls is. Then they mentioned that they are going to hike all the way up to Hamilton Lake. I hesitated. I know it’s a 6.84, close to 7, miles hike and that isn’t the most difficult part. The elevation gain is 850 meters, about 2,800 ft, and that is the most grueling part. Since I didn’t plan to go all the way up to the Hamilton Lake, I carried only a half litter water bottle and one food bar. I was debating with myself. At this moment, the guy from Germany said “Why not? Just take it easy and walk slowly. I have time, do you?” Yeah, I started early that day and it’s not even noon yet. Why not? Little did I know it took me almost 6 hours to finish the entire trip. I was totally exhausted when it ended. Because I didn’t carry enough drinking water with me so I must consume conservatively, very conservatively, like a couple of sips of the water for each hour. Then I didn’t have enough food with me either so I separated the food bar into 4 pieces and ate them through out the entire trip. So, even though I am not 100% happy with the result, it’s not easy to obtain this image.
Twin Falls · Yoho National Park
Twin Falls is the most magnificent and majestic view at Yoho National Park from my point of view. However, there are a couple of pain points to photograph it. First, it’s a long hike. Though the elevation gain is only close to 1,000 ft, 300 meters, but the round trip is a stretching 10.5 miles. Second, even if you hike all the way there, it’s almost impossible to get an advantage view point because of the position of the falls. If you’re too far away from it to get the grand view, the falls itself becomes too small. If you are too close to it then first you can’t express the grandness of the falls itself and second, the splash water droplets from the falls will cover the camera lens in no time and totally spoil and destroy the image. Frankly I wasn’t very happy with the results from my first trip and attempt and this is an image I took on my second trip and attempt.
Sunset at Yoho National Park Kicking Horse campground · Canada
I spent totally 16 nights at this campground and explored the Yoho National Park and its surroundings. There are wonderful rangers to assist travelers’ needs and problems and very nice facilities to make travelers comfortable. This is the best campground I have ever stayed and, honestly, I misses the time I spent there.
One in A Million Shot · Jasper National Park
Why would this be one in a million shot? Visual art is a kind of art to stimulate audiences and to cause resonance via vision. In the art of photography, there are many elements could stimulate the vision sense of audiences, for example, color, light, subject, angles and so on so forth. In this particular image, contrast, which is also my favorite element, is the main element to dominate its content. Let me point them out here so you could enjoy them more:
mother moose vs. child moose, mother moose in water vs. child moose on land, water vs. land, mother moose looking toward left vs. child moose looking toward right, clear mother moose vs. silhouette of child moose, mother moose in action, treading water, vs. child moose in still post, water ripple in the foreground vs. water flat like a mirror in the middle-ground, shadow vs. clarity, mountain peak vs. lake water.
Only when there is “contrast”, there is “conflict”. And only when there is conflict, there is progress and that is why “contrast” is one of my favorite elements.
Other than “contrast” in this image, this image also includes foreground, middle-ground and background. Usually, if we could obtain a foreground and background in an image, it’s very good already but this one has all three. The foreground is the mother moose treading water. The middle-ground is the child moose standing still in silhouette. Finally, the background is the piercing mountain top. Frankly speaking photography is a flat and two-dimensional visual art. These foreground, middle-ground and background could provide audiences a sense of layers and perspective and intending to break the flat and two-dimensional fault.
And YES, I saw all the above elements while taking the shot. As the matter of fact, I patiently wait till all elements falling into places then pull the trigger. Luckily enough that they do actually fall into places as I hoped.
I have posted many of my works here but I rarely talking about them because my philosophy is that I shall not to “lead” my audiences. Instead, I would prefer my audiences to enjoy an image on their own interpretation and feeling with their experiences and knowledge. However, this is just a very rare and hard to come by one in a million image and I can’t help but to say something. I hope everyone would enjoy it.
Moose Footprints
There are uneven lakebed surfaces in this image to the lower left hand side and these were the footprints from moose feeding in the Moose Lake according to a local guide. It’s not common knowledge for people like me just got in there and took pictures so I share it here.
Bull Moose
In a very chilly early morning I headed out at 7:15am and the temperature was only 27, 28°F (-2°C) outside of my car. My planned destination was Moose Lake and, of course, to capture some moose. Right about 4 miles away from the trailhead at Maligne Lake, I saw a bunch of cars parked on the side of the Maligne Canyon Road and, most of the time, it means there is something interesting, very interesting. I turned my head and sure enough I saw moose. And, there was not only just moose, but bull moose with big antlers. Despite I was on the wrong direction of the traffic, I immediately pulled over, parked my car, grabbed my camera and long lens and jumped out of my car regardless I was still in my slipper. I was in shooting mode right away. The mother and child moose were in a very difficult position and angle so I couldn’t get one single good enough image out of them. However, the bull moose was like putting up a show on purpose for at least 30 of us lining up on the side of the Maligne Canyon road. All I could heard was the shutter releases from other photographers cameras and all I could see was the movement of the bull moose. The entire moose show last about 30 minutes and finally the bull moose strolled into the deep woods and disappeared. I was shivering and trembling from the coldness by the time I headed back to my car. As the matter of fact, I didn’t realize it was so cold till the entire shooting event was over and heading toward the car. You could even see the frost from the vegetation in this image and that’s how cold it was.
Mother and Child Moose
After the very exciting and freezing cold early morning in running into a bull moose, I was late to the Moose Lake. It was quiet, deadly quiet at the lake side when I arrived. Something is up. I looked around and found there was a moos feeding along the lake side and everyone there was very intense and quiet. Everything seems in slow motion because no one wanted to disturb the moose. As usual, I pulled out my camera and started shooting. Not long after I saw the moose, it walked into the lake, swam across it and disappeared into the dense forest on the other side of the lake. It’s less than half an hour I believe.
What now? I wonder.
We wait. So, I would say more than 50 people scattering around Moose Lake and wait. We were whispering to each other all along even though there was no moose in sight. 20, 30, 40 minutes later, the number of people were getting thinner and thinner but, of course, there were more people came in to join us. It’s just that more people left than came in at that rate. I was thinking about leaving also because I had no idea if there would be any more moose to come. Moreover, moose came to Moose Lake to feed and for some reason I thought animals only feed in dawn and dusk. It’s noon at that time. I kept telling myself “10 more minutes” and after that I leave. Then another 10 more minutes, yet another and another. Just as I was finally ready to give up and packed all my camera and lenses, I heard a loud, very loud voice coming from the other side of the trail. It’s a guy with booming voice and kept talking to a group of people. It took me a few minutes to understand that the big booming voice guy is a local tour guide and the group was his customers. From what I heard in this guy, there was a chance that more moose would be coming in even at this hour. I decided to stay and see. Another 20 minutes gone by and because the tour had schedule to keep so the guide was about to lead the group to leave. I couldn’t help but snap a few more shots, stayed at the tail of the group and ready to leave also. As I moved my step reluctantly toward the leaving trail, suddenly I heard the guide spoke even more loudly than usual: “Now everybody backoff a little, backoff a little………. Now everybody behind the tree just in case……”. Since I was at the end of the people train, I spoke out “What’s going on? What’s wro…..?” Before I could even finish my question, I saw two moose, mother and child, walking down the hiking trail used by all of us to walk in. The mother was in front, of course, and she was huge. More importantly, she was less than 10 feet away from me and instantly I understood why the guide was asking everyone behind the trees. It was too late for me. I froze. Then I saw them walking casually passed me by and straight into the lake starting to feed. The next thing I know before I could even put myself together again from the shocking moment, I was in shooting mode once more. Both the image in this section and the image in the “One in A Million Shot” are the results from this waiting game. What a day! What a surprise!! What a story to tell!!!