Tag: Canadian winter

Thoughts on the shifting landscape of time…

  • Howling wind, blowing snow, big sky and soft hilly terrain seen from the Crowsnest Highway in Southern Alberta, Canada

“Antipathy toward time clouds personal and collective thinking.” – Marcia Bjornerud⁠⁠
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Morning light and blowing snow across the rolling landscape of Southern Alberta, February 2020⁠⁠
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One year ago we were settling into a new, strange routine. I had already been working from home, and we already enjoyed the occasional convenience of delivered groceries. But now there were daily news briefings to watch, headlines to anxiously scan, family and friends around the world to check-in on with frequent urgency. Making sure the pantry and freezer were well-stocked and offering to help procure household goods for neighbours. Watching as future plans like concerts and travel were postponed, or cancelled altogether.⁠⁠
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Even though the content of my time did not seem to change dramatically, my sense of it shifted wildly from day to day, hour to hour. Soon a pattern emerged, with one relatively productive day of focus and work followed by several days of gnawing anxiety and distraction. We retreated into rewatching familiar funny TV shows, anything escapist we could binge watch. I read books and played countless video games. I digitized an entire library of 20+ years of film negatives.⁠ Then came spring gardening, a single summer escape for an isolated long weekend at the lake, the last warm sunroom days of autumn. And winter again, prolonged dark and cold with hope on the horizon.⁠⁠
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Limbo is a terrible place to be. We all encounter it in some form, at some point in our lives, but many of us are fortunate to have not had to make it our home until recently. It is exhausting to be at odds with time; resisting it’s relentless march while constantly baffled by how inconsistent our experiences of it can be. I know that a year ago I did not expect a swift solution to the pandemic, I sensed that we would have to linger in this crisis in order to overcome it, but I had no concept of how it would feel a year later. There is still a very long road ahead, and I think my relationship with time may be forever changed.⁠

Winter Light Celebration

As winter settles in, the sun is slipping lower and lower across the sky. During the winter solstice here in Winnipeg, Manitoba the sun barely clears the treetops. Such low-angled rays of light are magical, and to celebrate the season I’ve gathered some winter light photography snapshots from recent years…

Abstract reflection of lights in a window, with a dark sunset in the distance
Soft light falling across a deep, smooth snowdrift

I find that winter light is particularly well-suited to capturing surreal window reflections, allowing for layers of light and colour to blend with abstracted patterns. When illuminated from a low angle, snow becomes a textural wonderland of sparkling deep drifts, painted with fading light and blue shadows.

Trees and winter light

Filtering the last rays of golden hour, or catching a gilded glow in their bare branches against blue skies. Such stark winter forms are welcome whether framing sunsets or arching above city streets, as they lend shape and contrast to the winter light all day long.

Winter sunset through trees at Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba
Late afternoon light in tree branches on a cold winter day
Line of trees in snow at sunset, Manitoba
Street lined with tall trees in winter
Sunset seen through a window, framed by snow and tree branches
Winter afternoon light and river, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Streetlamp illuminates trees in a park on a cold winter's night

Trees lend structure to the frosty winter air, and when they are illuminated just-so, they often compliment the bones of the landscape or urban environment, laid bare by the season.

Winter light and interior spaces

Casting soft, surreal shadows in unexpected places, light filtered through old glass windows is particularly irresistible to try and capture with the camera. Something as simple as an unintentional coffee cup still life might appear on a wall for a moment, painted in shadow and quick to disappear as the light shifts.

Winter light and shadowplay
Winter light and shadowplay
Winter light and shadowplay
Winter light and shadowplay
Winter light and shadowplay
Winter light and shadowplay
Winter light and shadowplay
Winter light and shadowplay

Often the swaying of winter branches will make these patches of light dance and shift, like light through moving water as seen at the bottom of a pool.

Varied views of the same cityscape

Downtown Winnipeg features a mix of older buildings and newer highrises. As their facades catch and reflect the winter light throughout the day, the mood and feel of the cityscape changes too. With the early sunset, lights in windows twinkle while the dusky sky still holds onto the last of the sunlight. The moon rises over the city with its glow softened by the icy atmosphere.

Winter light in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba
Early evening moon over downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba
Winter light in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba
Winter light, Winnipeg, Manitoba
Winter reflection and light in downtown Winnipeg, Manitoba

The golden glow of the winter light is especially beautiful contrasted with the blue shadows and snow of the cityscape, and I couldn’t resist the reflection of a sunlit building in the sideview mirror on a winter’s afternoon.

Windows become magical glittering surfaces…

Frosted with ice crystals or illuminated by gently shifting shadows. Layers of light are caught and transformed inside and out, and even though the daylight hours are short, there seems to be no end to the beauty that winter can conjure with a bit of moisture or shifting light on glass surfaces.

Winter window frost
Winter window frost
Winter light and glass block wall abstract
Winter light and glass block wall abstract
Light and shadow falling across a window screen
Iced-over windows of an old door, interior
Iced-over windows of an old door, interior
Winter colours through fluted-glass window
Winter colours through fluted-glass window

The two images at the bottom left of these wintery window scenes are actually shots of frost accumulation on the inside of an old set of windows. The two images in the bottom right are of the same perspective through fluted glass at different times of day.

Of course a winter landscape is made even more beautiful by the light…

Rippling sheets of icy clouds and endless shades of blue. Sunsets last longer, and the blushing glow of their colours is reflected in the snow and ice. Often the sky looks like mother-of-pearl, iridescent and luminous.

Winter clouds over a snowy prairie landscape, Manitoba, Canada
Winter sunset over bridge and water, Vancouver, Canada
Pink winter sunset clouds
Winter clouds over a snowy prairie landscape, Manitoba, Canada
Vivid winter sunset on the Canadian highway, across the prairie of Manitoba and Saskatchewan
Pink winter sunset clouds over the Manitoba prairie, Canada

I love how the winter landscape is often a study in subtlety, with fence-lines and horizons blurred by blowing snow, and the sky a soft gradient veiled in lacy clouds. When the sunsets are colourful, it is always in shades made more vivid by the coolness of the surrounding scene.

Little details of domestic life are illuminated in beautiful light and shadow, turning the long winter months of staying mostly indoors into magical journeys through familiar spaces.

Something as simple as a tissue or glass of water can be transformed by the winter light. Of course the dog loves the winter sunlight too, and can often be found basking in the glow of those fleeting, low-angled rays of warmth.

Abstracted paper tissue in winter light
Prism crystal door knobs, winter light
Kitchen shadows, self-portrait in winter light
Simple wooden dinosaur blocks, winter light and shadowplay
Water glass and winter light
Glass jars on wooden surface, winter light shadowplay
Water glass, winter light
Warm winter light on a wall, red shelf and yellow bird
Yellow stool shadowplay, winter light across a wall
Warm winter sunset light filters into a quiet bedroom
A dog naps in winter sunbeams
A dog naps in winter sunbeams
Dog watching a winter sunset

All of the photos in this post are from various phone cameras. I find that winter light often inspires snapshots as it is such a fleeting and beautiful part of every day. To see new snapshots as I share them, just head over to @photoapk on Instagram and follow me there!

Winter frost, Saskatchewan

This is my first true Canadian winter experience, as I visit the prairie city of Regina for several months. I have experienced snowy, icy winters before, but only in small doses. Here in Saskatchewan, I have watched the autumn leaves fall and blow from the trees, and enjoyed a first round of snow flurries complete with large, fluffy snowflakes.

Hoar frost and ice rime are a new firsthand experience, and a few nights ago a heavy mist descended crept into the city. I woke to a winter wonderland, every tree coated in ice crystals, the neighborhood transformed by a misty white frost.

Winter frost in the trees of Regina, Saskatchewan
Winter frost in the trees of Regina, Saskatchewan
Winter frost in the trees of Regina, Saskatchewan
Winter frost in the trees of Regina, Saskatchewan

As the fog cleared and sunny skies emerged, the contrast of the tree branches against the vivid blue above seemed surprisingly colorful given the mostly white palette of the scene. I’m looking forward to more opportunities to photograph this winter weather phenomenon. To see the full set of these Winter Frost photos, please visit the Regina, Saskatchewan gallery at www.apkphotography.com

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Frost clings to the branches of a tree, Regina Saskatchewan