West and Back Again — Jon's Photoblog

Warning, this is a long entry!

In early June I took a road trip from Winnipeg to the north end of Vancouver Island to attend a photography workshop at San Josef Bay. My hope was to see more of the country and stop at various places along the way and back. The trip certainly had its highlights, but two elements made it frustrating, and I might as well get them out of the way up front.

First was my own mistake: I vastly underestimated how much driving there was to do, and overestimated how much time I’d have to explore. It’s a good lesson for the future, and a better option would have been to fly to Vancouver Island, rent a car, and spend the two weeks just exploring the island. Still, it was a good learning experience, and I’m prepared to do it better next time.

The second issue was that before I left I had my camera sensor cleaned at my local photography shop, but the guy was new and didn’t realize the sensor had a couple of drops of grease on it. He ended up smearing this around, which meant every shot from the trip had dots and lines all over it. As luck would have it, I accidentally snapped a shot of a cloud, and with a bit of post-processing it nicely reveals what was on my sensor:

Most shots with fog or soft cloud or solid backgrounds ended up being unusable, often due the kind of post-processing choices I make which tends to emphasize the problem like the above shot.

Happily, not every image is compromised. On the camera side, much of it depends on a combination of lens, focal length, and f-stop, so my low-f-stop telephoto shots mostly work well. On the image side, if the background is busy much of the corruption disappears. Also, what saved some parts of the trip was my new iPhone, which has a pretty darn good camera.

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s get on with what can be salvaged.

The trip started great. It was cool and cloudy which makes driving easy, and this old barn I spotted on the way fit the mood:

I’d gotten a late start, but made it as far as Weyburn, SK, after taking a detour up to Moose Mountain park. No good shots from there, but I highly recommend a stop if you’re in the area. It’s an upland ecosystem very different from the surrounding prairie farmland. For one thing, there are no conifers, and there are a lot of species that are rare elsewhere.

The next day dawned the same, and I was on the road early, with a bit of rain and the occasional sun-shower:

This day was a gem. I made my way on highway 13 to Cyprus Hills. On the way, I saw more wildlife than the entire rest of the trip. Some was a bit too far away to do justice, but there were some standouts:

There was also a mother and baby pronghorn. The baby was cute as a button, with speedy little legs, but they were too far away and I couldn’t get them in focus.

Eventually I got to Cyprus Hills (central section) and was able to do a couple of hikes. Some of the lookout views are incredible. I had to wait quite a while for the hills in the middle distance to be illuminated, but it was worth the wait:

This bluebird also enjoyed the view:

At this point I heard a slapping sound coming from one of my tires, and discovered a bulge in one of the sidewalls. The slapping sound was due to a stone, because eventually the stone got dislodged and the sound went away. But it was fortuitous the stone made me look…who knows how long that bulge had been there? I had only a few options: go to the next little town and hope they had tires for my car; or go to Medicine Hat, the closest city; or push on to Lethbridge, the last city before the Rockies. Everything was already closed anyway, no matter where I stopped I’d have to wait until morning to deal with it. So with impetuous irritation I pushed on to Lethbridge. Given the risk it probably wasn’t the wisest choice, but it did get me closer to my destination. Half the next day was spent bouncing between Canadian Tire stores and sitting in waiting rooms. The guys there were great though, friendly and funny. They did a good job, and I was back on the road by 1pm.

This brought me to the Castle Mountains, where I did some hiking:

Later the clouds built up behind a mountain, and it was amazing how far the spray reached despite being out in a meadow far from the peak. I had to keep wiping the filter clean:

For those familiar with this route, you’ll know I took the Crowsnest Highway through southern British Columbia. I was amazed how varied it was, each section or valley has its own flavour, reminding me of other places I’ve been. The above picture could be somewhere in Montana, around Creston it looks like the Alps, and around Osoyoos it could be New Mexico or Arizona (though perhaps with a bit more water):

Some of the stark slopes near lakes provided some great contrast and patterns. Even though it was mid-day, I thought the harsh light was a feature instead of a detriment, and as such, more suited to black and white:

Eventually I ended up near the Cathedral Mountains, which are a different geology again: instead of a normal U-shaped valley leading up the slopes, the Cathedral Mountains are like several half bowling balls stuck in mud. The sides just loom over the valley and are … impressive, most impressive ;-)

No shots of these mountains survived, but while exploring there I sat by a rushing stream and enjoyed the antics of a water ouzel diving in and out of the rapids. I have no idea how they see their prey under the moving water, but they’re pretty good at it. It was getting dark, so I needed a high ISO to maintain a shutter speed of 1/800th second:

The next day I went through Manning Provincial Park, which is gorgeous and has so many places to explore it’s worth a trip of its own. One of the stops was at Sumallo Grove, which has a trail leading down the Skagit River. The grove is silent and beautiful, the old cedars are huge and remind me of some of the redwood forests in California. The Skagit trail itself was very pretty as well. I hiked a few kilometres out, and came across a mystery: an old truck, cabin, and mine on the side of the mountain. I couldn’t figure out how the truck ended up in that spot, there was nowhere to come down from, and the slope seemed too rugged to drive up…but there it is:

The mine is blocked off with old lumber, but looks out over a waterfall. I’m a bit torn about this shot: I like the stillness of the moss next to the chaos of the water, but I think what’s missing is something for the eye to rest on in the midst of the waterfall:

Eventually I had to leave the mountains for the high-traffic chaos of the Vancouver region. After a few days of relatively easy and open roads, hitting the freeway was jarring, not helped by the unusually hot temperatures.

I had a quick but enjoyable visit with some friends I’ve known since high school. As always, I’m amazed how easy it is to just pick up our relationships again. I was treated to some great Thai food, and have a new favourite dish: char kway teow.

Next day was my first experience with the ferry system. I had intended to go to Horseshoe Bay, but seeing a sign for the ferry early on I took a wrong turn and ended up at Tsawwassen. Oh well, they both go to Nanaimo. I know for many people the ferry is a mundane experience, but honestly it was great to just walk around and enjoy the view, and I’ve always loved being on the sea: there’s something about the sights and sounds and smells that makes me think I must have been a fisherman in a former life.

I got a couple of telephoto shots of the Vancouver skyline and another boat. With the haze and harsh light, again I felt black and white was the better option:

Finally, after a long day of driving, I ended up at Port Hardy, on the north end of Vancouver Island, just in time for the last light of day to poke through the clouds at high tide:

I had booked an extra day here, partly to explore the workshop area at San Josef Bay ahead of time. I wasn’t able to get to the bay that day due to bridge construction, but was able to explore some other areas. I did part of the Tex Lyon trail. This is one of the flat sections, pretty enough:

Most of the rest was up and down slopes steep enough that ropes had been placed in strategic spots. Eventually part of the trail led down to the coast. The light was quite harsh, so again I went with the B&W treatment:

Adding a polarizer helped reveal some of the submerged textures:

The next day I drove again to San Josef Bay. It’s about 70km or so down a gravel logging road, and my little car wasn’t that happy, but managed it anyway. The bridge construction was completed and I was able to get through to meet up with the workshop organizers and the group. I found the organizers on youtube, and have been a regular watcher of their videos for quite a while now. I’ll include their channel links for those interested:

Adam Gibbs: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDyKBQGE7OOsWeQIPWqVSzw

Gavin Hardcastle: https://www.youtube.com/user/fototripper/featured

The group was great, a very interesting, diverse, thoughtful, and funny group of people. It was refreshing to be able to “talk photography” with people who share the same interest, I haven’t had much opportunity to do that yet. I’ve also found it valuable to see what others have done via the Facebook group that was set up. Everybody has a different take, either on similar scenes, or other scenes that never occurred to me.

The hike to San Josef Bay is through a grove of old cedar and fur, very cool and peaceful, with fascinating growth structures. These trees are clearly caught in a passionate embrace:

San Josef Bay itself is a beautiful location. This was my first time on the Pacific coast of the island, and I expect the weather was “typical”: cloudy, threat of rain, lots of mist and fog with the occasional sunbeam lighting everything up. We camped on the beach for two nights while the workshop crew kept us comfortable and fed and loaded with coffee at 4:30AM. There were four main highlights, or “targets”, on the workshop: sand patterns left by the receding tides and the little creatures that roamed the beach; the sea stacks with their caps of dwarfed pines; the starfish, crabs, and anemones revealed by the tide; and a gorgeous waterfall almost glowing with green.

Unfortunately this is where a lot of my shots fell apart, as anything with fog had spots and lines in it from the sensor. Still, there were a few shots I liked in the end, first some patterns:

This foggy shot I managed to clean up a bit, though you can still see artifacts if you look closely:

The sea stacks were very pretty, but hard to separate. I like the B&W shot, just for the shapes:

Finally, the waterfall was very rewarding, made better by a suggestion from Gavin. This is probably my favourite shot from the trip:

I could have spent more time there, but the workshop was over and I had to head back. After saying my goodbyes to the group I headed back out down the gravel road. About 5 minutes later I saw a hitchhiker, so picked him up. His name was Julian, travelling from France, he’d been camping on the beach all weekend and had seen our group wandering around. It was an interesting conversation ranging from politics to cell phone rates…kind of funny how that works. My French sucks, but his English was pretty good, so we managed to keep the conversation going pretty well. I dropped him off at the hostel in Port Hardy, and hope the rest of his trip goes well.

I had a room booked at the same hotel I’d stayed in before the workshop, and after checking back into the hotel (and joking with the hotel staff about whether and how much I stank), I was greeted at the balcony with the best wildlife photography opportunity I’d had all trip: a great blue heron, hunting in the outgoing tide. I can rarely get close to a heron, but this one just ignored me completely. I’ll caption the shots to tell the story:

I spent quite a bit of time watching this play out over and over again, but these were the best I could get out of the Pentax.

Meanwhile there was another little drama playing out. A juvenile bald eagle found the perfect ground-perch while the tide was out. But as the tide came in it slowly soaked his tail feathers. I was sure he would fly off, but he hunkered down like a sullen teen, grumpily wishing the tide would stop, even as it kept rising. Finally he had enough, and flew over to steal a better perch from his sibling.

You had a better spot than me, it’s not fair!

Unfortunately the Pentax couldn’t keep up with the autofocus, so the last shot is poor, but it was amusing to watch.

The next morning, since I was used to waking at 4:30AM, I managed to drag myself to the balcony for a blue-hour shot of Port Hardy:

The trip back has far fewer photos. After this gorgeous morning I had a long drive ahead of me. I had intended to go through Jasper and Edmonton, but they got 10cm of snow and sub-freezing temperatures, and with my summer tires I wasn't sure going that way was a good idea. Plus I felt pressed for time. So I decided instead to take the #1 back through Banff. I’ll just include a few highlights from the return trip.

A white-crowned sparrow posed for me in a bush in full sunlight. It’s one of the few times I’ve had a small bird fill the frame, and you can see every detail:

Then he flew a bit further off and sang at me to get lost:

Somewhere between Hope and Kamloops I pulled off at a rest area, and I don’t quite know why, but I liked this scene of the train coming down the mountain:

Kamloops itself was very pretty, and I spent some time hiking in Peterson Creek park. It was stormy in one direction, and classic summer in the other, and the iPhone managed to capture both:

I made it to Revelstoke for the night. The next morning I wanted to get to the top of Mount Revelstoke. There is a 26km winding road that takes you to the top, but it was closed at the 20km mark due to snow, so I got out and hiked, up the road for some parts, and along the Summit trail for others, until I reach the top. At the 20km line it was only misty, but eventually it was snowing and by the time I reached the top it was thick enough to cover tracks I’d made only moments before:

Anybody who knows me knows I like winter, it was great to be able to take advantage of this last taste before November.

After Revelstoke I drove about an hour past Calgary to spend the night. The next day it rained all the way to Winnipeg, and ironically I had the worst rain about 15 minutes from home, so bad and sudden that the SUV next to me swerved and we nearly collided. That would have been quite a capper on the trip, but luckily enough no harm was done.

And that sums it up. Overall a very enjoyable trip, with some great highlights, a few minor frustrations, one massive disappointment, and a lot of good times. I’m grateful I got to meet up with old friends again, and make some new ones. Now it’s time to get out there again!

Cheers!

Jul 5 West and Back Again

Aug 16 Storm chasin'

May 23 Tamarack Rose

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