Nigel and I headed out to Colonel Sam Smith Park today. It was chilly out by the lake, but we hoped we could get a few good photos while we were here.
Yellow Bush on Rocks
I spotted this yellow bush all by itself on the shoreline. A pretty little pop of colour against the blue ake.
The View From Here
These two ladies were enjoying the view of the city skyline in the distance. Nothing much else was happening at the park. It was that kind of day.
Today I was feeling on the lazy side so I decided to take my camera out for a walk in my neighbourhood. There is a creek near my home that I like to explore when I don’t have the time or energy to drive somewhere else. Even in such a small area I can find many things to photograph if I take the time to look them.
Autumn Path
In the above photograph I wanted to only have a small area in focus – the yellow leaves of the tree. To get this effect I shot this at ƒ2.8 to get the shallow depth of field.
Crossing over to the other side of the creek I heard a very upset resident. Looking around I found a black squirrel high up in a tree scolding me for disturbing whatever it may have been up to.
Getting the Eye
It was not too impressed that I had entered its territory. I’m sure it was happy when I moved on. Just down from the squirrel I found a bush with these pretty pink buds. It’s late in the season but there is still life ready to burst open. I have no idea what kind of plant this is but its nice to find different colours than the normal fall colours one expects to see.
Pink Bud
As I reached the turn off to head home I spotted some red maple leaves. I liked that they were not the perfect specimens but rather had some character to them.
Red Leaves
Wandering around my neighbourhood reminds me that you can do photography just about anywhere if you open your mind to be creative. Sometimes focusing in on a small area that you can revisit over and over again allows you to find more things to photograph.
Today Nigel and I were headed over the Saskatchewan/Alberta border to check out a small town called Empress. With another day of chilly temps and cloudy skies it made for some great moody photographs.
Abandoned Home
This abandoned shack was on the way to the border and I had to get a photo with the stormy skies.
As we drove into Alberta the landscape changed from flat to slightly rolling to hilly. This must be the edges of the badlands. It was a pretty stunning sight to see.
Alberta’s Hills
After enjoying a full day exploring Alberta and enjoying some wonderful local company at lunch in Empress we headed back over the border to get a little more time in with the Great Sandhill Dunes.
Great Sandhill Dunes
Most of the snow had blown off the dunes since yesterday and I had a little fun with Nigel’s infrared converted camera. The photograph above is a colour corrected infrared out of that camera. It looks like night has fallen on the hills when actually it is still daylight.
We tried our best to stay for the sunset but the cold temperatures and clouds sent us packing.
Farmstead
As we drove back to the hotel we noticed a break in the clouds so we quickly found a farm to use as the foreground and voila the photo above was created.
It was a great day exploring both Alberta and Saskatchewan but tomorrow its time to head back to Regina to catch our late afternoon flight home. Tomorrow we will be taking a more scenic route to the airport as we search out some of the old grain mills.