Author: Vitali Prokopenko

Sunny

If you ask anyone “what’s your favorite whether” most people will likely respond sunny clear sky. It is indeed a pleasant weather. It cheers us up and lifts our moods. I bet you’ll see more happy faces on a sunny day than on a gloomy overcast day.

It is indeed most enjoyable weather for most activity. With a small exception of landscape photography. Clear sky is empty and boring in landscape photographs. How many landscape photographs have you seen that struck you with its beauty of clear sky? Not many, if any. The only image that comes to my mind is by Freeman Patterson with a wall by the right edge of an image, fence by the bottom edge and a person’s head in the right bottom corner, the rest of the image is blue clear sky. And it is not even a landscape.

So, when a photographer is met with such weather what is left to do? Right, turn to close-ups or abstracts or both. Such was the case on my trip to Alberta. On the third day by Abraham Lake I was greeted with sunny clear sky. It was warm too. Very pleasant weather for a little stroll somewhere in a park. I’ve enjoyed it and tried to make some images. But to my dismay nothing was working out. The air was so crisp and clear that even during sunrise there were now color in the sky. The sky was simply getting brighter and brighter.

Eventually, I had to accept that it was not a great day for landscape and started paying more attention to the things under my feet, which was mostly ice. And what a fascinated subject it turned out to be. There were so many different textures and shapes. Here look for yourself.

Backroads of Alberta

One of the reasons I travel a lot by car rather than plane is to see places around on the road to the destination. Unfortunately, in most cases once I’m behind the wheel I get a tunnel effect when I see nothing but the road with its final destination ahead. For some reason getting to the destination as fast as possible becomes the only goal.

On the trip to Alberta I actively fought an urge to drive from point A directly to point B. Instead I was taking some backroads, sometimes unpaved, moving slowly looking at things around. It was taking me much longer but it was a more satisfying study of Alberta outside its famous national parks and big cities. Here is a small selection of photographs of rural Alberta.

Being Spontaneous

The main destination of my recent trip to Alberta, Canada was Abraham Lake. The reason Abraham Lake is so attractive to photographer in winter is because of unique phenomenon of frozen bubbles. While the lake freezes up in winter plants at the bottom of the lake produce methane gasses that come up to the ice and stay there frozen in ice while ice keeps growing downward. This creates fantastic surreal tri-dimensional structures in the ice sheet that covers the lake. There is also a persistent strong wind running thru the valley where the lake is located keeping ice clean of any snow. And the last but not least feature of this lake is winter is that it is artificial lake as the water is slowly drained from the lake in winter the ice cracks under its own weight.

It was quite scary standing on the ice when it cracks. The sounds of it ranged from a pitch high as if a guitar string was torn to a loud boom. The ice was very clean making me feel sometimes as if I was standing on water. And while consciously I understood there is thick ice under me, the sound of cracking ice made my subconscious scream RUN. So far subconscious was on a losing side.

The end of January when I went there turned out unusually warm there with temperatures rising up to 15C making ice melt at the top and thin ice walls separating layers of bubbles were melting away the fastest. On the second day of being at Abraham Lake I witnessed one of the photographers falling thru the ice while standing one one of the spots with high concentration of frozen bubbles. Fortunately, he did not fall of the way thru and was able to get out before anyone of the people rushing to help him (including me) were able to get to him. The whole incident seemed to be forgotten rather quickly. Even the photographer who fell actually staying on the ice and continuing to take pictures even in partially wet clothes.

But it scared me enough that I decided not to go on ice anymore. So, I set off to explore areas around Abraham Lake and find some other interesting spots to photograph. It proven a hard task. The warm temperatures melted most of the snow leaving the ground bare and unappealing to me. Yet I was stopping my car at any parking spot or trailhead, walking out and looking for opportunities. One of such spots was near river bed. It had been probably quite wild river in spring and summer. In winter it was lots of crumbled ice sheets lying on the ground. I thought I might be able to find a line in the ice cracks that would lead to the mountains in the distance.

While searching for that composition I saw a moon rising above the mountains. On a whim took a picture of it. I took only one picture. It was unusual for me. Typically, I work thru composition taking lots of images until I feel like I cannot get it any better. This time I just felt the image was ok not no more than that. Only when I was editing images from the trip at home I saw that image and thought it was beautiful. There are so many elements that work together and yet there is simplicity in it which attracts me.

Moonrise over Canadian Rockies

Moonrise over Canadian Rockies

Never Give Up

I’ve just got back from a week long trip to Alberta, Canada. The trip was tiresome as it involved more driving that I wished for due to road closures.

My main destination was Abraham Lake. I was coming from Banff and was going to take Icefields Parkway to get to Abraham Lake. Unfortunately, when I got to Icefields Parkway I discovered that it was closed till at least noon of the next day due to unsafe driving conditions. The only way left to get to Abraham Lake was all the way around thru Calgary and thru the north route. That meant extra 5 hours of driving. It also meant I would unlikely make it there by sunset of that same day.

I had little choice but to drive that long way around. I got to a small ghost town called Nordegg where I had a hotel reservation just before sunset. I had a choice before me: to stay and relax for the night or to go to Abraham Lake (another half an hour driving). The sky was overcast with no breaks in the clouds.

I went to the lake anyway. I thought I at least check out ice conditions for the sunrise the next day.

I got to the Abraham Lake just after sunset. The sunset was purely theoretical as the sun was not visible thru the clouds. The wind was strong albeit warm. As I open a door a gust of wind almost knocked me over. The ice was covered with melted water. Everything seemed to tell me to get back to the hotel and be done for the day.

Nevertheless I put on spikes on my shoes, took my backpack with photo gear and tripod and went down to the ice. I always take photo gear with me, it has become part of me. Even if there was nothing happening I could take a few test shots to figure out what’s best lens, settings, filters to use and get sketches for ideas I might implement later.

I’m quite cautious person when it comes to water. I almost drowned when I was a teenager. The memory of that still makes me afraid of water. So, I carefully stepped on ice and was staying by the shore to gain some confidence. But then the last rays of the Sun broke thru somewhere beyond horizon and lit up the clouds from below. That was the kind of things I dream about as a photographer. The light was surreal violet. I forgot about my fears of water and ran in a search of bubbles frozen in ice to complete the image of surreal landscape.

Violet Sunset

Violet Sunset

Ghosts in the Clouds

There is some mystery in images in clouds to me when I can barely make out something in soft whiteness rolling over the mountains. Images like these leave a lot of room for imagination. That’s what I love them for.

Emotional Connection

There are good images. There are bad images. And then there are images with which I feel emotional connection.

Last fall I was photographing fall foliage in Tumwater Canyon near Leavenworth. I was out for two days, photographing in rain and wind, photographing water and leaves, clouds and rocks. On the last day before going back home I went on a hike up the wall of a canyon. That’s where I found scenes with which I felt emotional connection like with no other. It was a very special feeling that brought me inexplicable joy, the feeling of revelation.

. . .

It takes me long time to process images. It helps doing it a while after making them. Over time the feeling of being there wears off and I’m able to look at images more critically. I’ve just came by the images those images that brought me so much joy back there in the woods near Leavenworth. As soon as I saw them something inside me immediately clicked again.

I look at them and hear music, music of color, tone and form. One note transitions to another like one soft color transitions to another. I’d like glide this waves of color following tender curves of leaves over and over.

Inspiration

I have many photography. I like to dive into someone’s imagery and photo books is the most affordable way to do it. But looking at photo books is not where I get my inspiration from. What gets me inspired is paintings. I can spend endless hours studying one painting, how the light is captured, how the color is captured, how the feel of the scene is captured, the emotions in the brushstrokes. When I photograph I’m trying to achieve the same perfect light as in landscape paintings and I want to get my photographs to the same level of essence and feeling of color as impressionists’ paintings had.

Aspens in Pastel

Aspens in Pastel

Reflections of Colorado Autumn

I’ve finally completed editing photos from my trip to Colorado. Despite my misadventures that I’ve already described I’ve brought quite a few photos of intimate places I really liked. There are a few themes I can see thru the photos. One of the themes are reflections. Here a few photos with reflections. Enjoy!

Overskinned. Story 3

Black Canyon

(This is the last story in 3 story series on photographing popular destinations. This one is the happy one.)

In my travels around Colorado this fall I visited many different places. It was my first trip to Colorado and my first fall trip to Colorado and thus I spend most of the time exploring. In a few days after my arrival a sudden and unexpected snowstorm ran thru the mountains, taking off most of foliage and dusting them with snow.

On the fourth day I drove south in a search for fall foliage. That’s how I ended up staying overnight in Montrose. I arrive late at night. It was already too dark to see anything around. At a hotel I saw a tourist guide mentioning Black Canyon National Park. I was not even aware of it. I thought that since I was so close to it I might as well visit it. The brochure did not have impressive photos of it. I searched online and did not see anything impressive either. One thing for sure was that there was no fall foliage there. Thus I abandoned that idea.

In the morning I could see my surroundings. Everything was green. No fall foliage in Montrose yet. I decided east and then north to Crested Butte. Just a few miles out of Montrose travelling east I saw a sign turn to Black Canyon National Park with only a few miles to the entrance. I thought it was a sign that I should go.

I did not regret I went there. I did not find fall foliage their or amazing well-recognized photo opportunities but I found something way more important. Solitude being one-on-one with the Nature. I was almost the only visitor there. I was sitting on rocks by an edge of the canyon listening to quite singing of birds, facing warm sun and cool breeze. I would look at the deep walls of the canyon dropping down with edges lit up by the Sun. Or I would close my eyes and let the other sense sharpen and form their own world. It was so relaxing and peaceful. That reminded me what photography was too me, filled my mind and soul with creativity again.

Overskinned. Story 2

Crystal Creek Mill

(This is the second story out of series of stories about photographing iconic places. This is the scary one which I appropriately post on Halloween.)

After Maroon Bells my next stop was Crystal Creek Mill. There are a lot of photos of this place on the internet. It is very picturesque and I wanted to see and photograph it for myself. The place is kind of remote. The road to it goes thru a small town Marble. As you get closer to the town the road becomes narrower and forces slower driving. The pavement completely ends after Marble. There are still 4-5 miles to the ghost town Crystal where the mill is located. Once the pavement ends road becomes rough. 4×4 with high clearance is recommended. I still managed to get thru the first mile on compact SUV. The road was bad but it was manageable with careful driving. Eventually I had to abandon the car and walk the rest of the distance on foot. The ditches were getting too deep and the rocks were sticking out too high.

It was a sunny day – mildly warm or mildly cool whichever way you want to look at it – the perfect day for hiking. Not too hot that I’d be sweating and not too cold that I’d need to wear something more than T-shirt. I took on a brisk pace ready to meet the place I’ve dreamed of. On the way there I met a couple from France. Their English was not fluent but we still talked a little bit. They were traveling around American southwest. Before the trip they discovered this place on the internet and wanted to visit and photograph it too.

After about a mile I saw that my decision to abandon the car was the right one. There was a rock slide and the cars would literally need to ride over it. There was no room to turn around. I saw some scraping on the rocks – even high clearance vehicle were catching on them. From time to time I stopped and photographed on the way to the mill. Getting closer to Crystal Creek Mill the road was gaining elevation and dusting of snow started showing up on the sides of the road from the previous night’s snow storm.

Finally, after couple hours of hiking I got to the mill. I was so happy! There were about 10 more photographers already there and maybe as many tourists. Many got there on high clearance vehicles or ATVs that can be rented in Marble. I was a bit a bit disappointed at how many people were there and that I needed to wait to get to a spot from which I can photograph the mill. Yet it was just a minor nuance. I was too high on positive emotions from hiking and getting to this place.

The enjoyment lasted for about 5 minutes. Here is an image I got in those 5 minutes:

Apparently the mill as well as the land around it (as well as all the buildings in ghost town Crystal and all the land along the road to the town for that matter) is private property and owner(s) did not want to have anyone there anymore. There were several men of different age (looked like a family) building a fence around. The oldest one was very agitated. He started screaming to people to get back to the road which was the only public land. The funny part was when he screamed “Don’t you understand English!” the couple from France truthfully said that they don’t understand.

I noticed that he also carried a handgun on his belt and his hand was going to the gun and back as he was working over the moral block not to shoot at people. I did not want to wait until he gets “trigger happy” and moved back to the road. Others were ignoring him. Those by the river may not have even heard him over the noise from a waterfall by the mill.

As I reached the road (took me about 10 steps to give you the sense of the size of the place) with my back to the guy I heard shooting. I turned around and to some relief saw that he was shooting into water and not targeting people (hopefully). He emptied the clip and inserted a new one. Those by the river reluctantly started working back up to the road. Strangely enough I was not scared. The best way to describe my mental state would probably be incomprehension. I had never been in a situation where a gun would be fired outside a shooting range and with intent to scare people off.

This incident was followed by arguments and blaming between some visitors and the man with the gun. I did not want to stay any longer there. I was not in the mood to photograph anymore…