This image taken in my back yard playground of the Canadian Rockies represents another early winter moment. Brief, although not quite as short lived compared to the conditions in my previous shot "From the Mists". This section of the Rockies is continually much cooler then the surrounding areas throughout the year, mainly due to the enormous glacier which rests on top of the peaks. Even in the middle of summer you can constantly feel cold air pouring off the mountains throughout the day. Because of this fact, this area is the first to freeze and be covered with snow. This winter all of the surrounding glacial ponds and streams were turned into a featureless white blanket within 3 days of our first big snow, making for a limited amount of time available to capture interesting images. Just as the creeping white of winter started closing in on the surrounding landscape, the intense cold formed many beautiful ice sculptures lining the water's edge. Luckily our timing here was perfect on this -30 celsius late afternoon. What makes this image just a little more interesting to me is that the main formation pictured here is not a stand alone mountain at all. It is actually the remaining stone resting between 2 huge glacier tongues which carved out it's shape. Over the course of 2014 I spent over 2 weeks camping in this area, and not once did I ever point my camera in this direction prior to this outing. The only thing that made this scene shootable is how the towering walls of stone and ice behind have been shrouded in atmospheric light and cloud, fully isolating this formation. In photography sometimes all the preparation and scouting in the world will be thrown out the window when the time comes to capture a final image. This happens more often then not during winter photography if I am perfectly honest, but that is half the fun of it! Anyways, thank you all for viewing and reading. Now that I am back home I am looking forward to releasing more fresh images, many featuring more unique formations of the cold! via 500px
