The Search For Light

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to return to one of the most beautiful areas of the Canadian Rockies: Mount Robson. Or more precisely: Berg Lake at the foot of Mount Robson. This mountain is just a hair under 13,000 ft tall and is the tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies. It is often referred to as the ‘Monarch of the Rockies’ and as you can see, this mountain deserves its regal nickname. Camping next to Berg Lake, many times throughout the day and night you can hear the thunderous rumblings of Berg Glacier across the lake calving huge chunks of ice into the icy, cold water.
For much of this trip, the weather was less than desirable. A landscape photographer is always in search of great skies and amazing light to surround their subject. This quite often is the key to dramatic landscape imagery, but unfortunately these things are very unpredictable. Sometimes you only have a very small window of opportunity to find what you are looking for. Fortunately, I had one evening where there were snippets of great light during a mostly grey sky.
The two images below were taken in the evening and help to illustrate the type of light that most landscape photographers are in search of.

The first one was taken, during what photographers call the ‘golden hour’. Just after sunrise or just before sunset the light is very soft and has a very golden look, and can really enhance an image. The second one was taken during what is known as the ‘blue hour’. This is the time just before sunrise or just after sunset where the dominant color surrounding us is blue and sometimes clouds will catch some residual purples and reds from the rising or descending sun. These two ‘hours’ at both ends of the day usually provide the best light for landscape photographs and with the unpredictable nature of weather, patience and adaptability is very important. Thanks for looking!