I have no idea what I photographed here. I will go back when it’s a bit warmer and find out what hatches from the ice globs.

All I know is that it appealed to me and that it made a pretty composition.

The weight of the accumulating ice caused branches to bend (or break) and this explains why the icicles seem to be defying gravity laws…

This image was taken with 100 Canon Macro lens. A careful compromise had to be made regarding lens aperture (ie depth of field) as the background was relatively busy. The camera was on the tripod and there was no wind. Therefore shutter speed choice did not need to be a consideration.

PS: from very reliable source: Sara Heinonen: “Pretty sure this is Euonymus Americanus, Peter. A native species related to burning bush.” Thank you Sara! (Sara is a landscape artist and a writer.)

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Another image from the recent ice storm in Toronto, Canada

Looking at this image it’s hard to believe this pretty weather event ruined the holidays for thousands of Toronto residents who were left without power for more than a week in frigid temperatures.

How will we ever explain global warming to these folks?

I used a 100 macro lens, and applied the Redfield Fractalius filter.

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Another image, just a few days old, taken during Toronto’s ice storm just around the winter solstice.

Oddly, many of the icicles on the trees were positioned horizontally suggesting either a significant wind during the storm or the weight of the ice altered the position of the leaves during the ice build-up.

With heavy rain and flooding and this ice storm, Toronto has seen some very unusual weather this year.

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This year Mother Earth decided to give us an inspiring refresher course on how to decorate the Christmas tree.

These courses are really “cool” but are given maybe once every 20 years. After the course, we received some homework.

I never enjoyed doing homework – but this was extraordinary.

One challenge with this image was the height of the subject. The tripod was fully extended and marginally stable.

The other challenge was finding the proper compromise between minimum required sharpness and a soft and pleasing background, ie. which f-stop to use?

To figure this out, I had to estimate as well as possible the plane in which the main subject matter was located and arrange the direction of the lens perpendicular to that plane. That would give the best image sharpness with the most acceptable softness of the background.

The full extension of the tripod barely allowed this.

The camera date embedded in the image shows that I ended up with the following settings: 1/4 second at f-10 (F-100mm Macro.)

At this slow shutter speed with an unsteady tripod, mirror lock-up is a good idea. It reduces the chance that mirror shake will cause any vibration of the camera.

Before spending your money, make sure your camera has this feature. Most of the better SLR’s do. The alternative would be to jack up the ISO setting which would give a faster shutter speed, but reduce image quality.

The ice storm had knocked out the power in my house. But it sure felt like the Force was with me!

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It had rained hard for a good 24 hours and the Bow Valley (Alberta) was soaked. High pressure was trying to take over and the sky turned more dramatic. The wind picked up. Swirling fog and patches of blue sky alternated. Castle Mountain was emerging from the clouds, looking refreshed.

See also my blog post from November 7th.

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Another shot along the icy road to Mt. Edith Cavell, Jasper National Park, Alberta.

With heavy snow squalls still active in the valley, this little still life is nicely separated from the background just like it would have been in fog.

Snow in autumn is what I call lucky.

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This image was taken along the old Bow Valley Parkway in Banff-Jasper National Park, Alberta.

It was cloudy, but on that day it seemed my destiny that the stars aligned wherever I pointed my camera.

Here they aligned along the diagonal.

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At the Sunshine ski area, just north of Banff, in summer a shuttle bus takes hikers up to the alpine meadows.

To hike up the steep road is quite a noble (and healthy) concept but not wise if you’re here to make some photographic masterpieces. Which is what we all want to save our energy for, I presume?

Once in the open meadows, the bus unloads and you’re on your own. After about a kilometer hiking, there are three small lakes: Rock Lake, Grizzly Lake and Larch Lake.

I believe these pretty lakes are technically in British Columbia. We’re right on the Continental Divide and by hiking along the divide for a few hours, one can be at Mt. Assiniboine.

We were very lucky. The alpine larch was at peak colour: a deep vibrant gold. This doesn’t usually last very long, one or two weeks depending on the weather.

Alpine larch is a sub-species which prefers alpine meadows. Like other larch/tamarack species, it is a deciduous tree which loses its needles in the late fall. What makes them so attractive is the scenic setting in which they typically have their moment of glory.

This image was taken with the 17-40 zoom and the lens was stopped way down to achieve the required depth of field. Shutter speed was slow so my tripod was put to work.

It was windy so it took some patience to get the right moment.

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