Jay Scott Photography

Jasper National Park – 12

When I got to Pyramid Lake all I could think was peace. The mist was still on the lake and the only sound was my shutter, another photog’s shutter and a bit of gravel under my tires when I sought a new angle.

Jasper National Park – 11

With the van behaving properly I decided to go to Patricia Lake and Pyramid Lake as I had planned all along.

This was shot from Patricia Lake. I took two versions simply to provide a choice for those purchasing prints. I am pretty certain that this is my favourite photo of the trip.

I found it so fascinating that the image of the mountain in the lake was clearer to the naked eye than the actual mountain.

More tomorrow…

Jasper National Park – 10

Monday evening I took some long exposure shots of the river near our cabin at Becker’s Chalets. This is the very fast moving Athabasca River.

Tuesday evening we ate at Evil Dave’s Grill. Very interesting restaurant but, like many in Jasper, it was pricey. Very good food, all with evil names. Angie had El Diablo. My evil mac & cheese with bison, bacon & baked breadcrumbs isn’t on their online menu, but the Malevolent Meatloaf I considered is. It had a very nice, contemporary atmosphere. The flatscreens on the walls had video of flames playing that I think were in time with the music. Angie’s supper was amazingly flavourful, but very spicy. We traded halfway through and I didn’t mind one bit. I enjoyed both dishes equally.

Unfortunately when we left, after strolling around Jasper, taking a few shots of the town with Angie’s camera (I may post a few shots when I get to them), we got back to my van to find that my pneumatic suspension was leaking a bit. Very slowly, but enough to put me in a high anxiety state. It has happened before, in winter, because of a frozen & cracked air dump valve. I understand the typical cause. None of those circumstances were met this time, we were in a place that I’m all but certain the problem could not be diagnosed nor a repair affected and over four hours from Edmonton and the cause was unknown with the potential to be something more serious that could get worse, quickly.

It seemed to behave properly the next day to get Angie to her rafting and me to Patricia Lake and Pyramid Lake.

Jasper National Park – 9

On the way back we stopped at a picnic area to eat. Once we were done I took time to do a longer exposure of the Maligne River which was visible from where we parked. The river was quite rough and fast, but a 1.5 second shutter speed turned it to silk.

Tuesday we headed down the Ice Fields Parkway to Athabasca Falls and the Sunwapta Falls. Both were disappointingly inaccessible despite indications in travel literature that they were. The Athabasca Falls were so close to accessible it was maddening. I could’ve made it right to the falls except for one flat slab of rock that made for a large, bumpy step in the middle of a path already paved over the natural features. Why not just pave that one spot? There was a steep descent to get to that slab that would’ve been unmanageable independently as well, but Angie was not afraid to help.

I could’ve had a decent view from that slab of rock except the design choice for the guard railing included a 10″ wide and a 6″ wide board right at my eye level. There was no way to see even a little, let alone take a few shots. Once I got out of my mood we went back to another viewing spot and, as I’ve learned from sunsets, I looked behind the subject of interest to see a nice view of the river.

Jasper National Park – 8

I really enjoyed the character of the lake and area with the clouds and drizzle. It was a nice end to a scenic drive.

Jasper National Park – 7

It was drizzling when we arrived at Maligne Lake, but we took a stroll a short distance along the shoreline. The paths were pretty decent for a wheelchair, but too steep for me to manage independently. Still glad to have had a chance to see things from closer than the parking lot.

Oops! Missed a Few

If you’ve been following my summer vacation series you may have noticed something about the photos. None are portrait oriented. Oh, I took a number in a vertical orientation, but I’ve been spoiled. You see, Lightroom 3, a photo processing program I’m still learning the new features of from the previous version, Lightroom 2, now allows you to add your watermark automatically. Previously I had to add it to each individual photo.

Certainly this saves time, and I appreciate it, but now in order to place the watermark horizontally across the bottom for some and vertically along the side for others I need to export the processed photos in two batches. When I export them in a series such as this they simply get spit out in order of selecting. That means all the vertical shots are at the end and out of chronological order. I can remedy this without issue, but it means there will be updates to some posts earlier than this.

So, I made a slight error that I’ll never make again and have learned to make a slight tweak to my workflow. The updated posts, with the added photos identified, are as follows:

Edmonton Zoo – 2

Jasper National Park – 1

Jasper National Park – 6

So, I guess it was only three, but I’m glad I caught it. Enjoy the three new photos.

Jasper National Park – 6

UPDATE:

The many rock faces beside the road, right beside us, as we drove by were the most amazing to me. I have no question of the magnitude of the mountains, but the rock faces, right there in reach, felt more real to me than unattainable peaks.

This particular rock face seemed longer than most so I stopped for a photo.

Beside it was such a great example of the layers of dirt to gravel, rocks, trees to solid stone.

Jasper National Park – 5

Jasper National Park – 4

The next day we headed down Maligne Lake Road and first stopped at a scenic viewpoint overlooking Maligne Canyon.

The entire drive was simply gorgeous. I am glad Angie was able to get some of the shots from places I was unable to get to.

Jasper National Park – 3

Jasper National Park – 2

More from our first stop at Pyramid Lake the day we arrived.

Though the mountains were big, the sky seemed even larger.

Jasper National Park – 1

After a night in Edmonton we carried on in the drizzle to Jasper. I am not complaining about the weather because it was very mostly cooperative. Aside from rain the cleared up after we arrived, rain that held off until we left, a bit of snow at the top of the tram and a funny downpour as we raced for the van at the bottom of the tram the weather was very good.

The drive in was spectacular, but knowing there would be plenty of photo ops, we didn’t stop to shoot on the way in. As we arrived in Jasper we say a coyote trotting across the road. Then shortly after turning onto the Ice Fields Parkway to get to our cabin, a group of cars were stopped at the side of the road watching some elk. Angie took these from the van.

After checking in at our cabin we headed to Patricia Lake and Pyramid Lake. This is one of the beautiful vistas waiting for us at Pyramid Lake.

UPDATE:

Edmonton Zoo – 2

According to the sign, this is the largest captive python in North America.

Funny looking haircut for this llama but I’m sure it’s cooler for it during the summer.

UPDATE:

Edmonton Zoo – 1

This begins my series of photos from our summer holidays in Edmonton and Jasper National Park. Not all shots are masterpieces, but they will hopefully give you a scenic tour of what we saw on our trip.

On the way to Edmonton we heard on the radio that it was family day at the zoo and that there demonstrators protesting animal cruelty. We reconsidered our first stop, but decided to check it out anyway since we didn’t have any better ideas.

Everything was fine. There were no signs of demonstrators and the zoo wasn’t nearly as busy as I expected it to be.

They definitely had more exotic animals than the Saskatoon zoo, but the admission was just slightly more. I understand how economies of scale work, but I was envious of their zoo wishing Saskatoon had a bit better paved paths and a few more interesting animals.

Though there was much to see, many of my shots had the zoo look. It wasn’t until we were asking ourselves where the elephant was that we stopped mid-sentence as we rounded a corner to see her being moved from one area to her environment. I began shooting, not realizing that her path would lead her less than four feet away from me.

This uncropped photo was taken with a 70mm focal length. For readers unaware of the meaning of focal lengths, the human eye sees very near a 50mm focal length perspective. This was approximately a 1.3x magnification factor. Just imagine how close you would need to be to this girl for her eye and face to fill you field of vision. That was my reaction, also.