Meeting my quota

It's been a month since I've been able to get out to photograph anything, which has led to a disappointing stretch of inactivity on this site. While I'm hopeful that I might have time for photography next weekend, I'm less certain whether I'll be able to get anywhere worth photographing. As a result, for now, I'm left to put up a C+ image from our Canada trip.

I took this shot at Emerald Lake in British Columbia's Yoho National Park. It's actually the second shot I've posted from that hike, with the first coming back in July. If the canoe in the foreground had been about a quarter mile closer, it could've been a really nice shot.

Flowers revisisted

When this blog was still in its infancy, I posted what remains one of my favorite shots, a picture of a bee on a flower. About a week ago, as I was going through some old shots, I came across a similar shot, shown here. It's the same flowers, just without the bee. While the bee certainly added something to the shot, the flowers alone were fun to photograph.

Canadian Sky

I took this shot in Jasper, Alberta. The clouds there were beautifully backlit.

One Final Shot from Moraine Lake

I think that this shot concludes the slideshow of our trip to Canada. Because Moraine Lake was the most impressive spot we visited, I thought I'd conclude with this one- it's a little overexposure away from being my favorite shot of the trip. There are also handful of additional photographs that I didn't post here but that are available on our website.

I start medical school tomorrow, and as a result, I suspect that my entries on this blog are likely to become much more sporadic. I have a lot of hobbies, and it's about to become hard to find time for all of them. Even if it requires me to post old shots, I'll try to get something up at least on the 1st and the 15th of each month.

Cheers,

N

Wildlife in the Canadian Rockies II

I took this shot as Stephanie and I were driving down the Bow River Parkway on our way out of the Canadian Rockies. As you can see from the picture, the rack on this elk was incredible.

Ideally, I would've taken a shot in which the elk had it's head raised. However, in Banff and Jasper, park rangers are really trying to crack down on tourists stopping along the side of the road in order to photograph nearby wildlife. There are legitimate concerns about it being unsafe for the animal and the tourist alike.

Just prior to encountering this beautiful animal, Stephanie and I had stopped at a park office to get a reimbursement for an overcharge on our park entry. To get that reimbursement, we'd been required to turn in our pass, which meant that we could no longer drive on any park roads, meaning that we'd have to take the equivalent on the interstate highway immediately out of the park. Disregarding that regulation, we decided to take the Bow River Parkway (officially only open to pass-carrying tourists) out of the park. Midjourney, we encountered this elk, and I stopped to photograph it. Almost immediately, a park ranger arrived to encourage us to get along our way. Normally, I would've stayed long enough to get another shot or two, hopefully capturing an image with the elk's head raised. However, knowing that we weren't even supposed to be on that road any longer, I decided to get back into the car before she could realize I wasn't supposed to be there... and before I could get the shot that I really wanted.

Day Six: Lake Louise

On our last day in Banff, Stephanie and I spent a few years in and around scenic Lake Louise. We started the day by taking a gondola ride high above town before heading back to the lake itself for a few final shots.

The mountain behind the lake is called Mt. Victoria, and the glacier on its northern face is called Victoria Glacier. At the base of the mountain, there is some more snow and then gravely rock angling to the lake. To give you a sense of scale, the distance from the lake shore to the point where the base of Mt. Victoria meets the gravel and snow is an almost unbelievable six miles.

Day Five: Hike to Borgeau Lake

I'm back in Durham (and badly sunburned) after an enjoyable day-and-a-half on North Carolina's Topsail Island. Stephanie and I are trying to pack in as much as we can before our respective orientations begin next week- hence, the delay on a new shot from our recent vacation in the Canadian Rockies.

I took this picture on our last full day in Banff National Park. That day, Stephanie and I took our longest hike of the trip- a 10-mile roundtrip trek up a considerable climb to Borgeau Lake. It was a beautifully scenic hike, but unlike other regions of the parks we visited, this particular trail was infested with bugs. In fact, we had to reapply insect repellant twice on the hike. While those bugs certainly present a nuisance for human traffic, I suspect that the many song birds on the trail welcome their presence. As you can see, this particular bird was in the middle of lunch when I snapped this shot.