6 Tips For Photographing The Canadian Rockies
I am very fortunate to live in Canada and have the Canadian Rockies as one of my playgrounds. One can only realize how spectacular the whole area is when he drives on the Trans Canadian Highway for the first time and sees the mountains getting bigger and bigger. Each new peak appearing around the next curve will become your new favorite mountain! Very few words can describe how impressive the Canadian Rockies truly are.
But once you have arrived in the Canadian Rockies, you must make the most of your limited there. I wrote this Blog Article in order to help you take a few bricks off your shoulders and make your general experience in the mountains one to remember forever! Here are 6 Tips For Photographing The Canadian Rockies!
BE CREATIVE AT ALL TIME
This one might sound easy to some and more difficult to others… And I don’t know how you feel but every time I visit a new location, I am very excited and also super creative! Being new turf, new rivers or new peaks will always boost my creativity to a whole new level. Part of a trip’s planning will always be to do research on the internet. You will need to look for photographic inspiration whether it will be on Google or any of the most popular social media platforms we use in our daily routine. These inspirations shouldn’t be used to copy but instead be used to open your eyes to the photographic potential of said location. If you see a composition you really like on the internet, there is indeed nothing wrong with copying it…but be creative and go a few steps further! Try including elements in an empty foreground, try capturing the scene in vertical orientation when everybody else did it justice in landscape format. Be creative at all times!
Please remember that each moment is unique. The inspiration pictures you find on the internet are only there to inspire you hence their name. The inspiration images should by no means set expectations of what you will see. You may or may not have the same light, you may or may not have the same pretty reflection…but, you must at any cost have as much fun as you possibly can while you are there!
SCOUTING FOR LOCATIONS
Scouting for locations is definitely the most important thing on your list if you want to create impactful images. Ok, one could get lucky and just park his car, walk out and capture a portfolio image right there… But it’s certainly not always going to be the case! We need to explore! As mentioned in the previous paragraph, part of the planning and scouting will be done digitally behind your computer at home. You will also need to physically explore the area once you have arrived to those locations.
I love to explore! It is always so exciting to hike and look for different compositions. Capturing icons in a way nobody has ever done before is so rewarding. And the best moment to explore is mid day when the light is of lesser quality. A sun above my head is never going to thrill me. The light is always much more pleasing for scenes when the sun is lower. For that reason, I spend most of my days looking for things and stuff to photograph later that same day or for another day later during that trip.
BEST LIGHT OF THE DAY
Make no mistake that the best moments of the day for landscape photography are always going to be near and around both sunrise and sunset. Many years ago, a genius named Steve Jobs created the first smart phone. Smart Phones have kept evolving on a daily basis ever since. When smart phones first came out, I wasn’t buying the idea. It’s a phone! All I want to do with it is a couple phone calls everyday! Not anymore!
So many great apps are now available for us, smart phone users! And among them, many great apps are specifically designed with photography planning in mind. I know and use a couple of them, PhotoPills and Planit Pro only to name a few… What’s really cool about these is they can be of great help to plan for light direction. They can literally tell where the sun will be and at which time of the day. Are you planning for a trip at a completely different time of the year? You can even change the date and have a good preview of the light direction at any given time of the year! No more second guessing, no more hit or miss with light direction! It can all be so carefully planned thanks to Steve Jobs’ creation!
USE THE APPROPRIATE EQUIPMENT
Since this would potentially be your first time traveling to the Canadian Rockies, you may ask yourself: What equipment will I need? For most of the images I create in the Canadian Rockies, I found that focal lengths between 12mm and 35mm will be my sweet spot. The ultra wide angle perspectives are so nice in the mountains because they are huge. Some of them will fill your frame even at 12mm. In a few rare occasions, I will use a 24-70mm and a 100-400mm. The longer focal lengths are so fun to use in cases when you will want to isolate certain aspects or parts of a scene. If you wish to learn more about the equipment and settings used for specific images, I share all this information in most of my posts on social media.
A good tall and sturdy tripod will be extremely useful especially if you want to capture the Canadian Rockies’ beauty during winter. If you have a 1,50 meter tripod and try to set it up in a 1 meter snow field, remember that only 50cm will be out of the snow…
And everything should be carried in a good comfortable backpack. I wrote an article about the actual camera bag brand I use right here: My Best Travel Buddy, My Camera Bag! Feel free to read this article and learn more about it.
WEATHER EXPECTATIONS
The Canadian Rockies can have really unpredictable weather systems at any time. General weather forecasting apps like Meteo Media won’t be efficient enough to accurately predict what kind of weather you will have to deal with. Meteo Media has specific weather for only a few locations…here’s a few examples: Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper…almost 300km separates Lake Louise from Jasper! How can you efficiently predict the weather somewhere in between Lake Louise and Jasper then? I personally use Windy. Windy is both available as a free app or you can pay and have a few more options.
What’s really cool about Windy is they have great tools with detailed maps for almost anything you need to know about the weather. You want to see what the cloud coverage for Bow Lake will be at sunset? Look at the cloud maps for that area then! You want to see if it will rain at Sunwapta Falls? Windy also has you covered there since they have maps for precipitation!
KEEP YOURSELF WARM
Always keep yourself warm! I know what you will say, it’s 25 degrees in the middle of the day…I don’t need a jacket! Mountain weather can change really quick and unexpectedly. Since the Canadian Rockies are for the most part in a very dry part of the country, temperatures are always very likely to swing a lot in a single day. It could potentially be 2 degrees celsius at sunrise, then be 25 in the middle of the day and right after sunset, you could be freezing your bum at -2 celsius. That’s the nature of dry weather, it swings a lot.
Our personal comfort is of the upmost importance. I always recommend to my customers to avoid cotton. Cotton has a tendency to retain humidity. I know the Canadian Rockies are dry…but if you sweat, that humidity will be stuck in your shirt for a while. I personally always use polyester, synthetic fabrics and merino wool. Merino wool is a great insulation. I also always recommend to my customers to use what I call a layering clothing system. Wear thin layers and add to them every time you feel the need to do so.
…IN CONCLUSION
These are just a couple important tips for photographing the Canadian Rockies…and I have many more which I will keep for another Blog Article which will be published in a few months. Also, if you are planning a winter photography trip in the Canadian Rockies, I did cover that subject in a previous article right here: Ready For Extreme Winter Photography? In that Article, I dig deeper into many safety aspects of traveling in Winter Wonderland. Have a look! It’s another good read!
One thing to keep in mind, I am very generous. If you are planning a trip in the beautiful Canadian Rockies and have a few questions that weren’t covered by any of the above tips, please feel free to send me an email. I will be super happy to help even further planning the trip of a lifetime! Please enjoy your week and I hope to meet you in the mountains one day soon.
