I got the name of this image from the wonderful Saskatchewan photographer, Courtney Milne. He describes the phenomena on this page. Of course his examples are really superb. My example only shows a couple of colours of the rainbow and as Mr. Milne explains the phenomena can be fleeting. I only managed to grab one quick image before the colours disappeared and the nice shape of the cloud was gone.
We have waited a very long time for our first significant storm this year. Everything is so dry!! Tonight we had this storm roll through at about 6pm and it just missed Red Deer by a mile or so following the highway around the city. We did get a short downpour which amounted to only 2mm. According to the radar the brunt of the storm which was just west of town had rain falling at the rate of 8 inches per hour!! That’s a lot of water, but the storm front moved through rather quickly so I don’t imagine there will be more than maybe an inch or so accumulated at any one spot. It sure looked great and a lot of lightning!! I made this image with a fisheye lens and de-fisheyed it which explains the wild distortion at the edges.
Update: June 16th – According to Environment Canada this morning, 45mm, close to 2 inches, of rain was recorded just south and west from Red Deer.
These clouds formed over Cockscomb Mountain in Banff National Park, very quickly. I managed three images and they were gone again. At least they were gone in the sense that they lost their beautiful forms and weren’t very photogenic any longer. I made this image at 6:00 am and the back-lighting was near ideal in order for the subtle red, magenta and green iridescence to show up.
Another image made from up at Bow Lake. Maybe a little tamer compositionally and a bit easier on the eyes than the previous post. I still like them both. The tiny ripples, made from melting water dripping off the ice, took a bit of effort timing the shutter just right. Let me know what you think of these two different images. Which one do you prefer and why?
Bow Lake sits at an elevation of 1920m (6300′) and so even though it’s June the ice is just beginning to melt. The wind was really howling down off the Bow Glacier, but thankfully wasn’t real cold. It was constantly re-arranging these small cakes of ice. I just had to wait for a pleasing balance of shapes and tones before I pressed the shutter. I also had to wait and shoot between gusts to make the image as I’m quite sure there would have been far too much vibration resulting in a blurred image.
“Why the question mark?” you ask. Well, I’m not convinced it fits in the series properly. This one is really low key and subdued. I tried processing it with a high contrast look and even as a B&W, but nothing felt right unless I left it almost completely as it was made. I love the complexity it has and on a large print would be fabulous just being able to explore the many tiny details it contains. The web presentation really can do no justice to it. So unless I print it and it hangs on a wall somewhere this will be the only way to see it – I’m sorry. This is, by the way, the Kicking Horse River in Yoho National Park, British Columbia. I have no idea what is with the gray bar along the bottom of the image. If you click the image it goes away. I’ve tried uploading this image ten times with only slightly different results each time. Every other image I’ve posted looks normal , just not this one. Gray bar is history.
On now to Natural Bridge in Yoho National Park which is just west of Field, British Columbia. I was quite surprised as to how high the water was. We were hoping it was still low to enable us to capture some images of the amazing rock formations just downstream from the viewing bridge. None the less, it was a very enjoyable time with endless opportunities for photography. One of my favourite things to photograph is water, and well – here’s a couple more. Both images made with a Canon 5dmkII and a Nikon 55mm Micro lens.
I had a great opportunity this past weekend to get into the mountains and do a bit of photography. Dwight Arthur and myself took a small group along and did a bit of instruction(more so Dwight, but I did help some). Anyway we started out Friday evening by photographing along the Vermilion Lakes from 9:30 pm until about 12:30 in the morning and I managed to get quite a nice 3 image stitch of Banff’s lights and Mount Rundle.
We then retired to our room in Banff for about 4 hours sleep and got up at 5 am to catch the sunrise. Unfortunately the day dawned with a bright blue sky and no clouds to speak of. We travelled up to Moraine Lake to witness what many people travel from the far corners of the world to see. I have never seen Moraine Lake this low. It was like someone pulled the plug and drained it. I suppose it will fill up again once the high-up snow melts and turns a gorgeous green colour. This is a 5 image stitch made with the Canon 5DmkII and the 16-35mm lens. Click the image to enlarge it a bit as this blog cuts off at 800 pixels in width and the image here is 1000.
There were many opportunities for making abstract images – well at least for me. I tend to see many images in even the everyday mundane. Here is a close-up view (3 image stitch) from the same vantage point, except made with a 70-200mm telephoto lens.
We even got to see a hoary marmot (Marmota caligata) right near the top of the rockpile. He turned his head nicely allowing me to capture a nice catchlight in his eye.
Collin J Örthner - Photographer 
