Smoke & Water

AKUK · Aug 31, 2015

This was taken at Lake Louise, Alberta. Not your stereotypical image from the area, with crystal clear waters, blue sky and glacier. The misty scene that morning was in fact smoke from forest fires blowing in from the US. The smoke followed us all through southern Alberta from Canmore, Banff and up into Jasper too. Unfortunately it got so dense that it did limit a lot of the landscape photography on my recent trip to the national park, which was a great shame. However there was just enough to create a mysterious feel to this shot and I rather like the uniqueness.

JacaRanda · Aug 31, 2015

Okay, I think this is great and it's making me want to cough.

SWEETNESS!

Stormchase · Aug 31, 2015

That's a crazy cool photo! How close were you to the moose? Looks kind of wide angle on the shot.

baturn · Aug 31, 2015

Beautiful! Happy you got this shot. Wish your holiday hadn't been spoiled by all the smoke.

Desi · Aug 31, 2015

Just wonderful....I hope this image makes it up to you for all the smoke.

DarkShadow · Aug 31, 2015

First thing came to mind is Deep Purple,Smoke on the Water.Great shot and uniqueness for sure.

John Hunt · Sep 1, 2015

Wonderful image!

Derrel · Sep 1, 2015

Cool photo. Is it a composite, or just an extraordinarily lucky situation? We had huge forest fire smoke here last weekend; there were 47 different fires burning in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho at that time.

DarkShadow · Sep 1, 2015

^^ wow thats Scary.

Msteelio91 · Sep 1, 2015

Derrel said:
Cool photo. Is it a composite, or just an extraordinarily lucky situation? We had huge forest fire smoke here last weekend; there were 47 different fires burning in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho at that time.

Looking closely at the water by the moose, it seems to be a composite. I do hope I'm wrong though because it looks awesome!

FITBMX · Sep 1, 2015

SSSSMMOKENNN..... :allteeth:

AKUK · Sep 1, 2015

Thanks for all the comments, folks and glad you like the image! Sorry to disappoint but, it is indeed a composite. The landscape was shot with an old Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 AF-D at Lake Louise with hundreds of highly annoying snap-happy tourists behind me - another thing that screwed up a lot of shots on my trip, as well as the smoke. It got to the point that by the end of the 5 days, I was tempted to start punching people in the back of the head for walking in front of my camera when they could clearly see I was shooting. I've never encountered so many utterly oblivious or discourteous people in my life.

I had such unfortunate timing in the National Park. For example, we went to the Athabasca Falls early one morning. I sat down to set up the tripod and camera on a rock next to a small viewing gantry that overlooked the falls. I wasn't in a hurry since there were only 3 other people there at the time and I wanted to frame the shot and select the best settings to capture the energy of the water, as well as introducing some motion too. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, hundreds of tourists appeared and I didn't manage to get the shot due to the extremely cramped conditions. I eventually gave up and had to force my way through the crowd of people. When we returned to the parking lot, 5 big coaches had pulled up that hadn't been there before.

After that, I elected to go to more obscure places in the mornings and head to the bigger named locations in the late afternoon/evening. If/when I go back to the National Park, I would like to spend significantly more time there in each location. I'd also opt to attach a variety of cooked meats to the irritating tourists, in order to attract bears and subsequently reduce their numbers and get some good action shots to boot. I was against the clock as it was a family trip with my girlfriend and her parents, driving from Winnipeg, Manitoba to a wedding in Edmonton, Alberta via the National Park, so I didn't get long at all at the various places we did visit.

The moose was safely shot with a 300mm f/4 + 1.4TC (420mm) at Maligne Lake, a few hundred kilometers away in Jasper, a couple of days later than the landscape image. Had this been all in the one shot, I'd have been potentially risking my life, as the moose would only have been about 5 meters away lol. This impressive looking bull had walked out of the forest and straight into the water and promptly began feeding on plants growing on the lake bed. It would submerge its entire head for 10-15 seconds at a time to grab the food. Initially, I stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds, as I thought it was just a statue - until I saw it moving across the footpath and out into the water. I was about 100m away at that point and after picking my jaw up off the floor, ran along the pathway until I was close enough to fill the frame. I was joined by about 50 people, all clicking away on their various cameras.

In an amazing (although not unbelievable) display of stupidity/ignorance, a small group of Chinese tourists in a kayak decided to paddled to within just a few meters of the moose to get iPhone photos!! This prompted a park employee to come hurtling across from the boat house where I had previously been stood, to our position on the shore and began yelling at them to back the hell up. A lot of people were also blocking the path the moose took out into the water and it frequently would turn its head back to look at the growing crowd. While these beasts are absolutely magnificent to behold, people REALLY should treat them with more respect with regard to their strength and killing potential. 1000lb+ of horn, bone and muscle will literally tear you a new one, if the animal feels threatened - and this bull was a big ol' boy, that's for sure.

DM Larson · Sep 1, 2015

AKUK said:
If/when I go back to the National Park, I would like to spend significantly more time there in each location. I'd also opt to attach a variety of cooked meats to the irritating tourists, in order to attract bears and subsequently reduce their numbers and get some good action shots to boot.

I can't tell you how often I've been tempted to leave an open can of kipper snacks on someone's axle when at Yellowstone.