if you've been watching our landscape photography adventures here in Banff
National Park you'll already know that we have faced some frigid temperatures
this morning the temperature dropped to minus 25 Celsius in Lake Louise and
while we might be willing to brave those conditions our camera gear might not be
up to the task as I was just about to learn the hard
way now as most of you probably know I shoot with Sony cameras so that means
you should probably get used to seeing battery exhausted on a regular basis we
arrived just in the nick of time so I ran straight to this spot and captured a
few shots of this extremely juicy morning light
I've been waiting for this shot for years I've driven all the way out here
to Mt Chephren if you pronounced it Chepren or Kef Ren but this is this
is a joy for me because I've tried so many times to get this shot and I've
failed and I'm here with Thomas Heaton Nick Paige Adam Gibbs it's their first
time ever in this place and we checked the forecast and for once everything
lined up and we got perfect conditions it's minus 24 Celsius and we gotta hit
just in time we had to run through knee-deep snow just to get here and I
mean look at this scene I've got my favorite kind of frost this hoar frost
where you get these lovely flowers but cracks and shapes in the ice and of
course the absolutely essential alpenglow that we've been chasing all
week oh man I am so ecstatically happy right now what about you
and now we've got walk at water leaking in through a crack
oh really thank you maybe I should move but regardless let's just keep shooting
while we get these these perfect conditions well that was like all my
Christmases and birthdays came at once but as Tom pointed out my considerable
girth was making the ice crack and shift and what is that popping up you know
it's not good mate this was open water yesterday yeah so sometimes I have to be
sensible to some degree so in a rare moment of sensibleness I moved higher up
to the meadow just above the lake well I've moved on from that first location
because it was a whole health pit sketchy I don't know you can see the the
ice in my whiskers there but it's very very cold and that's a problem with
these first masses when you breathe into them the moisture sticks in the mask
and then forms on your whiskers so yeah not entirely comfortable
but I'm sure it looks really cool well yeah I've come up to this meadow over here
where it's in the summer believe it or not if I get further back you can
actually shoot the Milky Way just over the top of the mountain there and I've
even seen leeches in this swamp somehow they find something around here to leech
off but I'm sure they're all either dead or do leeches hibernate? I have no clue
but no leeches today but yeah I'm going to see non compose a shot with this
beautiful little tree and get a little bit more of the the other mountains of
the distance well after being spoiled by those amazingly beautiful hoar frost
formations and ice shapes back on the ice of the lake I just wasn't feeling it on
this meadow with these trees all I could think about was getting back down onto
the ice and putting those beautiful shapes in the foreground of that
mountain well I couldn't resist it I have to go back after the whole mountain
little I had to go back to that beautiful patch of hoar frost and I
composed this vertical shot where there's this little notch this kind of
arrow shaped notch just there and that patch of ice which kind of mirrors the shape
of the mountain there so I'll show you that shot now
in the Canadian Rockies it's not all that often that you get conditions like
these I mean we got perfect light, beautiful hoar frost, simply TREZMENDOUS and what
I'm finding really challenging it at minus 20
I think is minus 26 now nothing works my tripod is completely seized up so I
can't extend my tripod legs to get it at full height so I'm shooting everything
lower to the ground the camera shutter is really seizing up all the controls
are not working properly and everything is covered in ice so it's it's so
challenging and of course because I shoot Sony I see battery exhausted every
five minutes thanks Sony yeah I don't think I'm gonna have enough batteries to
last the day what I usually do is open my lens bag put all my batteries in
there put a couple of hand warmers it keeps them toasty but even then because
they're Sony batteries they're just like you popping them like tic tacs they're
useless anyway I think I'll head further down the end of the lake where it turns
into a river see what Thomas and Adam have found
there's this lovely bit of mist that's rising off that little bit of open water
there so maybe they found something quite tasty. So let's go and have a look
well I did catch up with Tom and Adam but by the time I got there, I'd burned
through seven batteries and I was down to my last 11 percent
I'd also been fighting this persistent cold for the last few days and I was
losing patience with my failing photography equipment I'm feeling a bit
beaten down because batteries have failed tripod legs won't open ball head
fails LCD screen doesn't work everything is failing in these temperatures and not
just camera equipment I'll tell you so I'm feeling pretty beaten and done
ready to get back to the car heat up maybe have some coffee and recharge
these pathetic batteries!
Well I'm going through this strange mix of emotions right now because on the one hand I'm absolutely ecstatic because I
got that shot that I've been chasing for years and I'm very very happy with it
but on the other side of the coin I'm really annoyed and frustrated with my
equipment and it wasn't in the best of condition before I got here and when I
used to live in Calgary I would spend between 20 and 30 hours a week out here
doing this and I was quite well practiced at dealing with the cold but
clearly I am out of practice and out of shape because this has been a
struggle this has been an exercise in frustration so it was so difficult
because I crept out there on the ice and it was really precarious Tom could hear
it cracking all around me it was very sketchy not very wise so you kind of
want to be quick you want to get your shot and get out but I'd line up the
shot and then the battery would die battery exhausted so then I'd have to go
back to my camera bag which was off the ice because I don't want the extra
weight on the ice yeah the battery put the battery in well then the the EVF is
fucked up and now I can't see anything and the LCD wasn't working at all and
then the ball head starts to seize up none of the tripod legs will extend
everything becomes an absolute pain and it's very very difficult to achieve the
simplest of goals the things that you can do easily on a day-to-day basis
almost impossible and at the same time you've got ice forming on your eyelashes
and your whiskers and your nose hairs and you could feel frostbite starting to
nip at your ears so it's that was frustrating but it was also absolute
Redemption it was you know absolute joy it was everything that we do in one
skate photography it's it's that abject misery interspersed with complete
ecstasy so it's you know as a landscape photographer you'll you will go through
this on a regular basis this this misery and joy misery and joy well the joy was
so big today that I think it outweighed all of the misery but I'm gonna have to
do a full audit of all of my gear I'm gonna have to for every piece of tripod
equipment I'm gonna have to recharge on my batteries I'm gonna have to tighten
up nuts on the tripods clean my sensor my lenses and I'm really worried about
the shutter seizing up on that thing so I think I might even be in the market
for a new camera all right onto the next shoot the plan
was to head north to shoot angle peak at sunset where we got caught in this
mountain traffic jam now I'd already had the back of my vehicle rammed by a hairy
beast on this trip and didn't need the front of my vehicle getting messed up
too and I'm still dealing with the repairs for that by the way mr. page so
we sat patiently awaited for these bighorn sheep to enjoy their salty snack
the icefields pkway on the road to Jasper National Park is actually one of
my favorite driving experiences but after days of driving around the clock I
was starting to fade so it was Heaton's turn to take the
wheel and they actually did quite well for a guy from Lancashire when we got to
tangle peak the light was terrible so it was time for some winter shenanigans
when it's cold enough you can throw a boiling hot water up into the air and it
comes down as snow we waited around for a few hours
uncle grumpy made his tea which takes at least an hour but the light wasn't
changing so we headed home empty-handed so so far how have you liked your
Canadian Rockies adventure yeah it's good I haven't got my I India like
I don't feel like a know the area well if I think of them I was looking through
my images that I showed yesterday this was the overly happy especially that
sunrise we got I feel like it's just a brochure major fella cops are some
really boring because the area so I'm still not finding my feet in terms of
what I want to get out of this trip but absolutely having a blast
well if we get the right type of ice conditions in the ice cave today we
won't care about the light will get brilliant shots as long as the
temperatures have given us the right kind and size of ice have worn on the
atom as well that's my concern but it's kind of nice to be free of worrying
about light yeah yeah no I'm excited I've never really shot anything like
that before yeah so it's a bit different for me I
think what I'm I've doubled the use of always snow and find some minimalist
kind of really empty scenes with just like a lone tree and I feel laundry in a
field where moose just cross in the snow I'll see what I can do yes and how have
you been liking the food here in Canada ah top quality you know of the cooked
pancakes overcome faker sake pizzas and
overpriced jerky yeah okay now this is great this is another world for me
another planet and I've got the photographer's yet like which is
fantastic balancing of bed at 5:00 in the morning as he caught up with you no
no yeah I mean I'm still in UK time which
is perfect for photography yeah you know I was on my laptop this morning
winning the day win the morning win the day so they say this guy what is he
doing scatter drive careful mate you might drive I want more interest got wet
knees I'm cold but a deep chill while you're here though you know you need to
make sure that you experience the Canadian delight of Tim Hortons coffee
tip horse if I think I've heard about this
can you guess or a finger Tim Portland's called a double-double yeah yeah heard
about this you should try it I'm gonna wonder but there's nothing
here well there's one in there's one in Banff right that's where we're headed
today through baptism yeah we won't be going to have but we were at some point
we will we will hit Banff and you will experienced a double-double as a Tim
Hortons store Tim Hortons sounds good to me