The beauty of Lake O'Hara

Lake O'Hara in Yoho National Park, so beautiful, magical and a delightful place to visit in the Canadian Rockies, one of my all time favourite places to hike and photograph. Getting into the area is not so easy, especially nowadays when the bus that takes visitors in is booked months in advance. When I made this photograph nearly 30 years ago, in 1988 it was not as difficult, especially after the Labour Day weekend in September, I just showed up with no reservation, paid my fee and hopped on the bus.

 On this particular trip it would have been my first trip in and as luck would have it, there was fresh snow, which I was unprepared for, there was about 10 centimetres as I recall, most of the trails were snowed in so I kept my hiking distant short, I only went to Lake Oesa.

While hiking along the water's edge of Lake O'hara, I was attracted by the half submerged rock at the edge of the lake, I adored the little tree growing out of the one side of the rock. I was also lucky that the lake was still and quiet so I used the upside down view of the distant mountains to bring the whole picture into a full circle within the frame so to speak. Some might find this interesting but when looking though my view camera, everything is upside down and backwards, but when I made this picture the mountains appeared right side up. The camera I used at the time was a Tachihara 4 x 5 wood field camera and for a lens I used my trusty and faithful Schneider 120mm lens.

Lake O'Hara, Yoho National Park

Winter Olympics Art Day 12

Lake O'Hara in Yoho National Park is one of the prime locations of the Canadian Rockies, to get there one has to make a bus reservation, but the effort is well worth it as a spectacular ring of mountains surround the lake and extensive maze of incredibly beautiful hiking trails can be explored again and again.

I made this image with my 4 x 5 view camera and a 120mm lens in September of 1988 after a late summer snow fall, I also made the image of Lake Oesa on the same day which I posted earlier.

Lake Oesa, Yoho National Park

Winter Olympics Art Day 3

This is Lake Oesa which is in the Lake O'Hara area of Yoho National Park, I made this photograph back in 1988 a year or so after I took a serious intreats in shooting 4 x 5 film. I was on a three day trip to the Rockies in mid-September when there was a late summer/early fall snow fall, I was already booked for the bus ride into Lake O'Hara and was happy to find snow upon my arrival at Lake O'Hara, the snow was so beautiful ! the above image was shot with my trusty 120mm lens. Although this area is far from the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics as a visitor to Canada, the above area is well worth checking out.