Here are a few photos from our trip to Perú! We had a great time, hiked over a 15,000ft pass, explored Machu Picchu, and met a lot of great people!
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Perú 2011
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Category Archives: Photography
Sunrise at Wedge Pond
One of the best things about Fall is that you can wake up at a reasonable hour, drive to the mountains, and still catch the sunrise! This morning we took a drive out to Kananaskis Country past Nakiska to Wedge Pond.
The sunrise appeared very suddenly, and ended just as quickly as the clouds moved in and covered up the sky. There’s very little post-production work on these, just some exposure adjustment and desaturation.
Check out some more photos on Christine’s blog and Simon’s blog as well!
Fall in Larch Valley
It’s peak season in Banff National Park to see the larch trees as their needles change from bright green to a brilliant yellow, before the needles fall off for the winter.
We headed out to Moraine Lake, near Lake Louise where we began our hike in the rain. On a sunny day, the view from Larch Valley & Sentinal Pass overlooks the valley of the ten peaks and Moraine Lake on one side, with Paradise Valley visible through the pass.
The trail was surprisingly busy given the weather, but the fall colours make the trail very popular. Larch Valley requires a group of four or more by law, due to the fact that it falls in the middle of Grizzly Habitat. Parks Canada recently thinned some trees on either side of the trail to reduce the risk of surprising bears, thus reducing the chance of a negative encounter.
Here are a few photos in the rain:
Fall in the Kananaskis
We took a short drive out Highway 66 and into Kananaskis country to take a few shots of the fall colours for the brief period of time between when the leaves turn yellow, and when a blustery day leaves the branches barren, ready to be blanketed with fresh snow.
The sun went behind some thin clouds just as we got into K-Country, leaving a dull glow… Here are a few shots:
Lillian Lake
This past weekend, we hiked into Lillian Lake in Kananaskis Country, Alberta. It’s a short hike, just over 5km in, making it a relaxing backpacking trip. We set-up camp early afternoon at Lillian Lake before continuing up the trail to Galatea Lake & Upper Galatea Lake. It’s a gorgeous place at the top of the trail, and very accessible as a day hike.
I haven’t had time to go through most of the pictures yet, but here’s what I have so far:
You can check out Simon’s photos here (part I) and here (part II) as well.
One thing I certainly learned this trip: if you’re carrying your camera in a dry-bag where buttons can get pushed without you knowing, check your settings before you shoot! (I always check things like: ISO, shutter speed, aperture, whether autofocus is on or off, but there are some more obscure settings that can make a big difference, that you might not check frequently.)
My camera setting for file type / quality decided to adjust itself in my pack – this left me shooting JPEG images instead of RAW (NEF) images in places where I really needed the increased dynamic range in the RAW file to capture the image without gradient filters… Lesson Learned – unfortunately, I didn’t catch it early enough in this trip.
Spray Lake in Evening Light
There is quite a bit of haze in the mountains at the moment due to forest fires burning in British Columbia. Yesterday evening, we took a drive up to Spray Lake and found the lake to be quite calm, with just some small ripples. It was mostly cloudy with some light passing through, making for some fun lighting for photos.
These photos may look slightly more processed than most of my other images, as I was playing around with a new filter for my wide-angle lens – enjoy!
You can also check out Simon’s photos from yesterday as well!
Helen Lake on the Icefields Parkway
This Saturday we drove around 30km north on the Icefields Parkway (Hwy. 93) toward Jasper to the Helen Lake trailhead. The trail heads around the mountain up into an alpine meadow to Helen Lake. We continued on up over the ridge to get a view of Katherine Lake & Dolomite Pass; however, as we made it to the top of the ridge a storm blew in causing us to turn back earlier than planned.
Before I put away my camera, we saw several Marmots, some of whom were doing what looked to be wrestling: They stood up on their hind legs, did some sparring, then they would pull some form of shoulder throw before rolling around some more. They were very entertaining.
Here are some photos from the hike:
Backpacking to Mount Assiniboine
For the August long weekend, our family and the Kent’s embarked on a five day hike to explore the area surrounding Mount Assiniboine. Our route started at Sunshine in Banff National Park, led us through into Assiniboine Provincial Park to Lake Magog, then we trekked through Wonder Pass down into the Kananaskis & Spray Lakes Provincial Park. We finished at Mount Shark, covering a distance of approximately 55km.
More details to follow; however here are the photos:
Burstall Pass Trailhead
A few weeks ago we got up well before the break of dawn and drove down the Smith-Dorrien highway about 40 minutes to the Burstall Pass trailhead. We waited there to see if the sunrise would light up the sky. Alas, the clouds blocked most of the morning light, but there were a few OK photos that resulted:
Post-processing was done using Lightroom 2 & Photoshop CS5.
Check out Simon’s photos for a few more!
Enjoy!
