Go Wide

On our recent trip to the mountains, we stopped at the old McDougall Church on the way out and coming back. So, this is the first of a few pictures you will see in the next while of the old church. I promise they will all be different and I hope you will like them.

I wanted to include the sign in the picture with the building. We both like the verse at the bottom of the sign: “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set” Proverbs 22.28. My wife Sherri has another image if you would like a closer view of the sign. I went with the wide angle lens to get the church and the steeple in view under the sign. I figured that centering the sign would create leading lines from the fence lines. By keeping the land forms in the lowest third of the image, I included the interesting clouds in the “heavens”.

In the best light…

Darwin’s Special Places

Darwin Wiggett and Samantha Chrysanthou have brought us another great eBook via their website oopoomoo.com. This time they are out to the Kootenay Plains and Abraham Lake.

Icebow

An Icebow is similar to a rainbow, except the diffraction of the light is caused by ice crystals instead of water droplets. More often, I have seen sundogs (light points on either side of the sun), which are similar to an icebow. As with many things, I don’t think that these optical phenomenon can be predicted, and you have to photograph them when you see them.

In the best light…

Inertia

Definition of INERTIA \i-ˈnər-shə, -shē-ə\

1. a : a property of matter by which it remains at rest or in uniform motion in the same straight line unless acted upon by some external force
   b : an analogous property of other physical quantities (as electricity)
2. : indisposition to motion, exertion, or change

Sometimes we get stuck. After telling Darwin Wiggett in December that I wouldn’t be able to go with him to Iceland in June, I stopped going out and taking pictures. The run up to Christmas was chaotic, my day job was more stressful, my wife had some health problems; maybe I was in a bit of a funk, they were all excuses. Well, no more excuses. This past Sunday we went on a short drive out to Canmore to get into the mountains with our DSLRs. Just as the bird in the above image is taking off, I feel like I’m lifting off again. By getting out and moving around, it changes your mindset and removes your butt from the sofa.

The bird is a Magpie (pica pica) and it’s taking off from a fence post near Morley, Alberta

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 70-200mm @200, f/2.8, 1/1600 sec, ISO 200

Some Magenta Evening

In my travels, I see many different colors of sky. Just after sunset the sky will often change from blue to various shades of purple.