I’ve always thought of successful landscape photography as the intersection of chance and preparedness. You can prepare as much as you like, but you can’t control the conditions on a given day.
This was the last morning of our Alberta trip. My friends and I got up kinda late and didn’t really want to venture too far for a day where we’d be later travelling to our respective homes. And to add to that, the weather forecasts didn’t look great either. We assumed we’d be looking for intimate scenes in the ice, if that. As expected, the morning was completely overcast – we couldn’t even see some of the mountains. We walked out along the lake and spread out looking for interesting ice. The lake wasn’t as clear as I’d have liked, and it began to snow very lightly. Gradually, we all seemed to come to the conclusion that this morning was going to be a miss. Chance did not appear to be on our side.
After packing up, the three of us started to gradually make our way back to the car, but extra slowly; as if still holding hope for a miracle. Out of nowhere, the cloud began to break around only part of this mountain – slightly showing its ridges through the falling snow and cloud. Immediately, compositions started jumping out of everywhere. The three of us scattered like frightened cats. I started frantically searching for cracks or other features in the ice before the snow covered it up! I managed to find this crack just as the ridges of the mountain became very prominent, and in the end I felt that the bit of snow that had already accumulated actually added to the scene. Before long, the crack wasn’t really visible any more, but thankfully I managed to get this shot before the scene fell apart.
Anyway, it just goes to show you that sometimes taking your sweet time giving up on a scene can pay off!